Red slim for 3 years

[Flounder's Reef]

I have a 250 gallon aquarium with a 75 gallon sump I've been running bio pellets the whole time due to high nutrients because it's a fish only system. Now I don't think my bio pellets actually work even though it's plumbed directly into the skimmer never seen a drop in nutrients. And I've only ever added pallets a few times. This red slim I don't believe it to be cyano like I've seen in other tanks in the past. I have dosed it with chemi clean about 10 times in the passed 3 Years never see a reduction in the slime. Now it dose blow right of the rocks. Any idea what it could be? I'm upgrading in a month and figured I should try and beat this stuff.

 

[thedon986]

Definitely looks like cyano to me. What are you nitrates and phosphates at? possible you have an antibiotic resistant strain? Or does it go away and come back after dosing chemiclean?

 

[Flounder's Reef]

Phosphate. 40
Nitrate 25

It never goes away and when I dosed it did absolutely nothing even followed up with a full does 48 hours later

 

[twentyleagues]

Can you siphon it out? If so what happens? I'm guessing you mean .40 phosphates?

 

[Flounder's Reef]

Lol yes .40 I have done that in the past comes back over a few weeks

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

So it easily is siphoned off? If so, and it takes weeks to come back, I'd just keep doing that.

 

[mues]

What does your flow look like?

 

[Dom]

I have a 250 gallon aquarium with a 75 gallon sump I've been running bio pellets the whole time due to high nutrients because it's a fish only system. Now I don't think my bio pellets actually work even though it's plumbed directly into the skimmer never seen a drop in nutrients. And I've only ever added pallets a few times. This red slim I don't believe it to be cyano like I've seen in other tanks in the past. I have dosed it with chemi clean about 10 times in the passed 3 Years never see a reduction in the slime. Now it dose blow right of the rocks. Any idea what it could be? I'm upgrading in a month and figured I should try and beat this stuff.

What lights do you run and what is you light schedule?

Reduce light intensity and the number of hours they are on.

Then manual cleanup until its gone.

 

[Flounder's Reef]

I moved the tank last year and brushed off the rock with tank water. I had the lights off for a week about a week until I set them back up. It take while for it to grow but it always comes back. The tank is 36in deep so not much light gets to the bottom only running Chinese black boxes 3 of them. I know my flow is lacking but that will change with the new tank

 

[mues]

I moved the tank last year and brushed off the rock with tank water. I had the lights off for a week about a week until I set them back up. It take while for it to grow but it always comes back. The tank is 36in deep so not much light gets to the bottom only running Chinese black boxes 3 of them. I know my flow is lacking but that will change with the new tank

if you have low flow, cyano tends to gather where there is lack of flow

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I didn't hear yet if it easily siphons off. If not, it isn't normal cyanobacteria.

To be honest, the pictures do not look to me like typical cyanobacteria, and if chemiclean did nothing, that makes me even more suspicious. THe pictures have a lot of defition in the red stuff, while cyano is more often masses of stuff without the surface details.

Aside from the manual removal I mention above, these are my generic recommendations relating to cyano:

Increase flow
Reduce organics (skimming, GAC, purigen, chemipure, etc.)
No organic carbon dosing
Adequate N and P, alk, and calcium to permit growth of competitors
Antibiotics such as chemiclean as a last resort

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

This is a more typical red cyano look:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/is-this-cyanobacteria.318962/

 

[Flounder's Reef]

I will do that I did purchase a larger skimmer as well reef octopus 300 thanks for everyone's help I'll do an update in about a month

 

[Dan_P]

I have a 250 gallon aquarium with a 75 gallon sump I've been running bio pellets the whole time due to high nutrients because it's a fish only system. Now I don't think my bio pellets actually work even though it's plumbed directly into the skimmer never seen a drop in nutrients. And I've only ever added pallets a few times. This red slim I don't believe it to be cyano like I've seen in other tanks in the past. I have dosed it with chemi clean about 10 times in the passed 3 Years never see a reduction in the slime. Now it dose blow right of the rocks. Any idea what it could be? I'm upgrading in a month and figured I should try and beat this stuff.

I find the lack of coralline algae interesting. The rocks look grey in places and relatively clean and that seems unusual in a three year old system. Is there hair algae on the rocks?

I will give a totally odd perspective and suggest that your aquarium is trace element depleted and this is limiting what can grow on the rock surfaces, and/or struggling and stressed algae from low trace elements are feeding the cyanobacteria.

 

[Flounder's Reef]

Yes there is zero coralline it's a fish only system so I don't monitor alk or anything of those elements mainly nitrate and Phosphate. Never really had an algae problem just figured it was due to the 6 tangs I have