Hi all, although i've had my marine tank for a good 2-3 years I'm new to forums and so a newbie here. I'm getting desparate and really need some advice as to what to do next. I've posted the same question to a couple of forums and so far have not found a solution yet.
My tank is approx 2 years old, has been doing very well with a variety of mainly soft corals, a couple of dwarf angels, a tang and a clown fish, shrimps and trochus snails. The tank is 380L (@@80gl) custom tank with a 60L sump tank growing macro algae nicely, as well as a deep sand bed. There're U/V, skimmer and reactors for carbon and Rawphos which I change regularly. 50L RO water change evry 3-4 week. Nitrate and Phosphate readings are consistently low when I check even before water change. There is a healthy amount of green algae growing in the tank, enough for the fish to nibble but not enough to be too noticable. LED lights are on timer (168W Viparspectra, just over a year old), Blue only in early am and eve, full white light during the day, total 13hr a day. Water flow was assisted by 3 powerheads as well as the filter outlet.
So all was well and good, everything and everyone was happy until about 9 months ago. It started off with a few flakes of what looked like red algae. I picked them off, they came back more, I picked them off again and they came back even more. Now the tank is covered in the thing within a week, and each week when I clean it off I lose a few bits of coral.
Everything else in the tank is ok, fish are still happy, no more green algae than usual, corals are suffocated by the red algae but struggle through ok.
I've tried reducing feed, reduce lighting, increase water change and skimming, phosphate is near zero. I've changed position of power heads but the dang thing is covering the whole tank anyway and it takes a good couple of hours a week to slowly pick them off.
I've seen some treatments available on eBay inc ones by Ultralife and Chemiclean. They didn't do a thing other than costing a fortune. Aquamedic one I've tried which started to work, but returned with a vengence before it was all gone. By the way, each treament instruction was followed to the letter, and additional weekly water change for a month before I tried the next treatment.
I have half a dozen trochus snails, couple of shrimps and crabs. Tried other snails but the trochus seems to be the best at munching their way through the algae. They've always been doing a great job at keeping eveything at bay until this red slime appeared.
At the moment, my weekly routine is using a plastic tweezer to peel off as much as possible with the pump and power heads off. Then syphoning to remove any that are either too thin or too small to pick up. The tank looks lovely immediately after but within days the dreaded red algae returns.
Had a look on eBay and searched for red slime algae remover. There are a couple I've not tried. The Easy Life Excital states that it works by promoting the growth of other organisms in order to out compete the red slime algae. Not sure if that's going to work in my case as I've tried similar approach before.
Ther's another one that I've not seen before. Not sure who is the manufacturer but it's called redgone or something along that line. It promises a lot, and it states that it specifically kills only red slime algae. Hard to bewleive but reviews from previous buyers seems to show that it works.
Has anyone heard of it, or knows anyone who's tried it? Any thoughts about using it?
What else can I do? I'm really at a loss. Is there anything else I can try? There are a number of other treatments avilable which promises the earth, but I don't really want to keep pouring chemicals in the system. without knowing if it's going to work. Has anyone tried anything tha works well?
My tank is approx 2 years old, has been doing very well with a variety of mainly soft corals, a couple of dwarf angels, a tang and a clown fish, shrimps and trochus snails. The tank is 380L (@@80gl) custom tank with a 60L sump tank growing macro algae nicely, as well as a deep sand bed. There're U/V, skimmer and reactors for carbon and Rawphos which I change regularly. 50L RO water change evry 3-4 week. Nitrate and Phosphate readings are consistently low when I check even before water change. There is a healthy amount of green algae growing in the tank, enough for the fish to nibble but not enough to be too noticable. LED lights are on timer (168W Viparspectra, just over a year old), Blue only in early am and eve, full white light during the day, total 13hr a day. Water flow was assisted by 3 powerheads as well as the filter outlet.
So all was well and good, everything and everyone was happy until about 9 months ago. It started off with a few flakes of what looked like red algae. I picked them off, they came back more, I picked them off again and they came back even more. Now the tank is covered in the thing within a week, and each week when I clean it off I lose a few bits of coral.
Everything else in the tank is ok, fish are still happy, no more green algae than usual, corals are suffocated by the red algae but struggle through ok.
I've tried reducing feed, reduce lighting, increase water change and skimming, phosphate is near zero. I've changed position of power heads but the dang thing is covering the whole tank anyway and it takes a good couple of hours a week to slowly pick them off.
I've seen some treatments available on eBay inc ones by Ultralife and Chemiclean. They didn't do a thing other than costing a fortune. Aquamedic one I've tried which started to work, but returned with a vengence before it was all gone. By the way, each treament instruction was followed to the letter, and additional weekly water change for a month before I tried the next treatment.
I have half a dozen trochus snails, couple of shrimps and crabs. Tried other snails but the trochus seems to be the best at munching their way through the algae. They've always been doing a great job at keeping eveything at bay until this red slime appeared.
At the moment, my weekly routine is using a plastic tweezer to peel off as much as possible with the pump and power heads off. Then syphoning to remove any that are either too thin or too small to pick up. The tank looks lovely immediately after but within days the dreaded red algae returns.
Had a look on eBay and searched for red slime algae remover. There are a couple I've not tried. The Easy Life Excital states that it works by promoting the growth of other organisms in order to out compete the red slime algae. Not sure if that's going to work in my case as I've tried similar approach before.
Ther's another one that I've not seen before. Not sure who is the manufacturer but it's called redgone or something along that line. It promises a lot, and it states that it specifically kills only red slime algae. Hard to bewleive but reviews from previous buyers seems to show that it works.
Has anyone heard of it, or knows anyone who's tried it? Any thoughts about using it?
What else can I do? I'm really at a loss. Is there anything else I can try? There are a number of other treatments avilable which promises the earth, but I don't really want to keep pouring chemicals in the system. without knowing if it's going to work. Has anyone tried anything tha works well?
