Slime on sand

[dr. jay]

Hello. I have had my 260 gallon up for about 5 months now, and aside of the usual diatomes and hard green algea that forms on the acrylic, I developed a new problem.
I have live sand (about 240 pounds) and 200 lbs of live rock. On the sand, is growing a black slime, that when sifted, bunches up like not simply diatomes. I performed a water change on Sunday, but Monday evening, when I got home, there they were. They grow in circles and outward. I have lots of turbo snails (which dont even clean the diatomes) and 1 large trubo whcih is a little better. I just purchased a large Tiger Crowie. I ordered some sand sifters and hope they will eliminate the problem, as far as asthetics, but is this slime harmful?? Is it toxic?
The water is only RODI water
All help appreciated as usual.

 

[squidd]

Sounds like "cyno" aka. cynobacteria, aka. "Red Slime"
Generally caused by low oxygen levels and/or low circulation...
Please do a "search" on cyno...red slime...to find MUCH information from the experiances of people who have delt with it.

 

[steelchromis]

Tell you this, if it is cyano, it is one hell of a disaster waiting to happen and took me a few months in order to stop it.

 

[beaslbob]

Do you have plant life in the system someplace like a refugium for instance.
From what I understand the red cyano is ugly and can spread very quickly. It also seems to start at about the 5-6 month point. Further as stated above it is caused from lack of circulation plus phosphates.
Your RO/di water can not eliminate the phosphates and nitrAtes which come from the livestock in your system. My recommendation is encourage desirable plant growth to crowd out the undesirable plant life. Your undesirable algaes and the cyano are fast growing and fast dieing. They spread by cell division which is much faster than growing a new leaf for instance. Turning your lights off for a week would kill off most the uglies but the plants would survive on their stored energy. When you restore the lights the desirables would be ahead of the uglies for the nitrates and phosphates.
If you don't have desirable plants then add some.

 

[overanalyzer]

cyano or red slime algea is really a bacteria. There are severla great posts on red slime and how to combat it. As it is a bacteria be aware that it is not treated the same as a nuisance algea outbreak.
I'd suggest a lot more water flow in the area it has appeared in. You can also use some checmical that will kill off the offending bacteria - but most likely you have the bacteria in your sand bed so you will need to also increase the flow.
Good luck with it!