What kind of vacuum?

[houndhome1]

We have the dreaded red slime problem. We need to vacuum our live rock, coral and crushed coral/sand bed. There are a couple of different types of vacuums out there and I need advice on which one would be best.
We've seen one that has little brushes made specifically for coral but doesn't appear to have much suction. The battery operated suction ones look huge and I've had a problem in the past with stones and coral getting jammed in it.
We read about a powder for the red slime (on a different thread). Any one try it?
Advice?

 

[houndhome1]

No ideas????? Pleeeaassseee.....pretty please?

 

[reefnut]

I would just suck it out with a hose when you do water changes!!
Before using a powder (chemicals) try dealing with it naturally. What's causing the red slime?? How much water flow do you have??

 

[tthemadd1]

I had a real issue with the red slime until I did the following.
1. research. The issues that cause red slime are too much protein, ie. food, waste, chemical PH boost, high co2. Even the amount of light on your tank.
2. I spent the money on an R/O system and steadily replaced the tap water in the tank.
Approx. 20 gal a week. I have a 55gal tank.
Also I bought a good refugium. I was taking care of my buffer/co2 with chemicals for a
long time and once I got the refugium on a reverse light cycle filled it with Calurpa, and
other plants.
Finally, I turned off my Actinic Lights for about two months. I believe that once the bloom
started I had too much lighting to destroy the bloom. In the end my actinic is only on for a
few hours a day and if people are over to look at the tank.
3. So what was the issue? I have no idea. I know that Imight have overkilled but I will post some pics to show you the difference. Good luck and Good Fishing.
Themaddhatter

 

[tthemadd1]

Here is the pic of the R/O system you can only imagine the amount of crud I was putting directly into my tank.
pic of the refugium today.
before pic. with the slime, and then the after

 

[houndhome1]

We have so much water flow it's not funny. We have a canster filter, biowheel, protein skimmer and 2 powerheads moving about about 400+ gallons/hour in a 75 gal. tank. I think the alkalinity may be an issue and the CO2 but I'm not sure how to lower this. We're doing routine water changes around 20% each time. Ammonia and Nitrite are at 0, pH 8.4, 1.02 RS. We have about 100+ pounds of live rock as well. We do have a large fish population which is contributing to the waste factor.

 

[reefnut]

You should shoot for a minimum of 750 gph turnover and preferably higher... so your flow rate is pretty low.
What's your phosphates and nitrates at?? The large fish population is probably the main problem... how often are you feeding??
Here's the problem with using chemicals to rid the system of cyano (red slime). What it does is kills the cyano. At this point the cyano releases nutrients back into the water AND there is now nothing in the system using up these excess nutrients. This leaves room for hair algae blooms... which IMO is even harder to get rid of.
Here's a really good thread on cyano... https://www.saltwaterfish.com/vb/show...threadid=73002
and some other good threads... https://www.saltwaterfish.com/vb/showthread.php?t=137590