Red Stuff on sand, grows, dies back and grows again

[irishstout]

I have a red algae/bacteria that is growing on the sand and spreading onto the LR. It will grow for several days, the die back, then come back full force. There are bubbles present in it as well. I dont have a reading on phosphates but trates are around 5 and I can't detect any trites.
Anyone experience this themselves? What is is, is it cyno????? HELP cuz its freakin me out!! <img src="graemlins//confused.gif" border="0" alt="[confused]" />

 

[crew]

Hello. i'm going through the same thing. I think its the trates. It seems to me that everything has to adjust somtimes when you add new stuff. ie. fish etc. But it could be that your lights are left on too long as well . Give it some time to adjust if you are adding corals etc to your tank and check the trates. The minute i added a couple of shrimp and hermits, BooM there it was. It now seems to be calming down now. Not 100% sure if thats the cause but its a place to start.HTH

 

[calvin & hobbes]

use some fresh water maracyn at half doses. will take care of it and is reef safe. Should not harm your benefical bacteria.

 

[nm reef]

Sounds like cyano....I had a minor bloom at about the 3-4 month stage of my reef. I would suggest that you manually remove as much as possible( I got mine during water changes with a syphon)...insure your lighting is not on too long and is not too old(lights that loose their spectrum can contribute to algae blooms)...test for levels of phosphates and insure they are kept to a minimum...increase circulation to remove dead spots...a good clean up crew can help control/prevent blooms also.
Hope you manage to get yours under control...after my early bloom I've never had any return.......

 

[irishstout]

I have powerheads on order as we speak. Tonight the red is once again dying back, but a little different this time. Now there are quite abit of long hairs of red growing out of the sand. I'm doing a water change on tuesday but it is still worrying me. The last thing I want is an on going problem with this. Thank you NMreef. I hope that is all it is. Any suggestions on cleaners to remedy this problem??

 

[lnarobbins]

I,m pretty new to the reef thing but my tank has been running for 3 years with fish.
I had the red stuff also what I did was alot of water changes and only keept my lights on for about 4 hrs a day
hope this helps alittle

 

[puff(er) daddy]

You said you have powerheads on order? You don't have enough water movement in your tank. Once you get the powerheads make sure the currents can reach the substrate. You also need to get a phosphate test kit. It's a major cause in algea break outs. It's not your nitrates. As someone said replace your bulbs if they're over 8 to 12 months old. Purchase some snails also. I had this same problem and I corrected the things just mention and haven't seen it since.

 

[jodeman]

I also had the red slime outbreak at about the 4th month. I didn't want to add any chemicals, so I decided to do water changes to combat it. I did 10% water changes every 3rd day for 2 weeks. Each time, the slime would decrease, and then return thicker than before. I finally gave up, and quit the water changes. The tank sat there for 2 weeks with nothing being done to it, and the red slime disappeared (was there 1 day and gone the next). All I can figure is that it finally consumed all of whatever caused it to bloom and it died. I haven't seen it again.

 

[irishstout]

It has died back again, but now there are long strands of red hair all over the place. I thought cyano was a slime. Could this be something besides cyano???