Red Algae

[bdls]

I have a 75 gallon tank and for the past month or so, I've notice some red algae starting to take over. What is the best way to get rid of it.

[swiatrek]

Water changes is all that helped me. Just sucked it all up and changed water about once a week until it eventually disappeared.

[JKLUSAF]

water changes help as long as your using RO/DI. or you can dose with redslime control by blue life. its also help in my small tank

[ErikH]

Stir some of your sand up and get as much detritus suspended as possible, suck up the cyano and out as much nasty water as you can. You could remove all of your rock and really do a good good job of it! I am about to do this to my tank....

[hobogato]

how deep is your sand bed?

[dmweise]

Chemiclean works wonders

[hobogato]

yes, but i have also heard of tank meltdowns because of it - on here locally a few months ago. also, that will not take care of the cause of the cyano and it will keep coming back.

how deep is your sand bed?
how long has the tank been running?
what type of water do you use for topoff/waterchanges?
do you add calcium or buffer?
are you overfeeding?

answers to these questions will help us help get rid of the problem which will get rid of the resulting red slime issue


Chemiclean works wonders

[bdls]

sand bed is about 2" deep
tanks been running for about 3 yrs
For water changes I get water from AD (salt)
For top off I get water at the windmill by pollys pet
I add a buffer
Don't think I'm over feeding. I feed 3/4"x3/4" square food.

Seems like the more I try to get it out, it grows that much more.
Not bad just looks crappy.

[hobogato]

the only thing that stands out to me is the depth of the sand. 2" is too shallow to function as a nitrate removing dsb and too deep to keep clean - becomes a detritus trap. you may try siphoning out a little sand every time you do a water change until you are down to about 1" or less. do this slowly (over a few weeks) to keep from messing up your water quality too much.

[ErikH]

How is your CUC? You may need to buy some more, to help process uneaten foods etc. You may want to look at slowly changing out sand. Do you have a large fuge or a RemoteDSB? I constantly stir my sand, everytime I am in my tank. I try and get all of the detritus down into the fuge so I can turn of my return then drain and fill the sump after stirring up the detritus. It looks like chocolate milk. I have not done the entire display like I have the fuge, but I am going to do the display and rely on the fuge to handle any shock from it. I doubt there will be alot since I remove 5g at a time and I really wash the heck out of the sand when I do it. Just a thought for you.