cyano and Flow ?

I am beginning to have a problem with red slime algae. My tank is 55g and about 4 months along. Currently i have two koralia 1050gph powerheads. It was recommended to me to add two more 1400 gph powerheads to help combat the slime. This seems like a high flow rate? Does that extra flow seem excessive or about right? also bought a spectrapure 5 stage ri/do on the way. Thanks for any input.
happy reefing

 

What are you using for water?

Is the Cyano growing in spots with low flow or all over the place?

 

I filled the tank with tap, but swith to store bought ro water and i just purchased a ro/di from spectrapure. It is growing everywhere from the sand to the top rock.

 

If I'm understanding correctly, you are saying the new setup would be about 89x turnover? That seems excessive unless it's an SPS only tank. That would tear apart some soft corals and LPS corals. 30-50x is probably good for a mixed reef. With the old pumps only, your at about 38, so this seem fine. Flow can help with cyano by keeping detritus from settling, but flow alone is not a cure. What do you have for a CUC? And please list your parameters.

 

Tap water will do it. It may go away on it's own after using RO/DI for some time. I would siphon it, run lots of carbon and change out weekly, do 15% weekly water changes, maybe even 25% a week for the first few weeks. Run GFO. Do you have a protein skimmer. Wet skimming can be effective. Parameters will also he

 

CUC:
20 blue legs ( tiny guys though)
10 scarlet hermit
1 turbo snail
1 coral banded shrimp

Havent checked the params for about a week. I am gonna get it checked today after work. what r u looking for in the params?

 

yeah i have a protien skimmer. I use a hob filter as well and i change the filter bought every two weeks. is that carbon or charcoal in those filters. Do i need a reactor to run carbon or gfo? Thanks

 

i took some of the worst rocks out and scrubbed them with a tooth brush yesterday when i did a water change. dont know if that was a good idea or not

 

A turkey baster works well to remove Cyano. It's also much less invasive. Don't worry about removing all of it. Just get the thicker stuff out. With some help it should choke itself out.

 

cool thanks, i picked up a siphon tube yesterday to continue to work on it with out the drama to the tank inhabitants.