Effects of red slime remover

Treated water day or two ago with this product, all fish and corals look ok, snails and hermits not to bad either, but my long spine sea urchin is really suffering, a hell of a load of its spines have fell out in a trail to where it now sits, must be around 100 pieces fallen on the substrate, anybody else ever treated with this and own a urchin, my skimmer is on and carbon is in water change done last night 25%, hope it pulls through, but i won't be using it again, anything else i can do?

 

Hi, you are the first reporting any problem with the product so I was skeptical that was in fact the trouble, however, I found and read these articles; http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T4F-4465NK6-
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http://www.int-res.com/articles/dao/38/d038p071.pdf and believe now something happened with the product releasing the cyano (as it should) to be eliminated and Urchins having the ability (where in most other creatures don't) to consume the cyano somehow, which is bacterial in nature and the articles relate bacteria to you problem.

 

hrm i did not have an urchin in my tank when i did the treatment, in fact, i don't own an urchin.. the spotless effect it has on your sandbed in the near future will soon make you feel like it was worth it though.. sorry to hear for your loss, i did not lose anything and all my inverts are better tahn ever

 

Thank you unclejed very good read, only wish i knew sooner, and m hsiao i do love my nice new clean sand and am happy with the results, but after loseing my goby to a mantis and my midas blenny to a mysterious illness unconnected to this may i add my urchin now seems to be dieing, , not haveing much luck at the mo, trial and error, i suppose...

 

Dang. I feel bad for ya. I used this stuff once. I there was no warning to turn off our protien skimmer. LOL. I had filled the cabinet with bubble slime before I could think twice. Everything in the stand was floating in 3 inches of water. I was soo pissed. I guess, it could have been worse. I just wish there were better warnings. Clean sand or dead urchin? I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you would have preferred a living urchin.

Okay, this thread IS a follow up. I just searched around. I was thinking...man this thread sounds familiar! Well, I'm glad you had a better collection cup than I did.

 

I have treated with it a long time ago (close to a yr ago) but at the time did not have my urchin but have one now and its fine so i would say do some more water changes and skimm heavy for a day or two maybe.

 

i just added some to my tank, turned the skimmer off and removed the carbon as per i nstructions, will do the water change in 48hours. we will c how it goes. why is it that the skimmer has to be shut off, would it have the same effect as carbon?

 

Yes, sort of.....carbon absorbs and the skimmer "pulls" things out. The skimmer does more quicker while the carbon takes more time and is slower.

 

It seems like more often than not when someone doses their tank with one of these products there is a side effect. All of these algae types and other pests exist in the wild, and there are means of treating them that take a bit longer and keep chemicals out of the tank. Next time look to a predator of cyano, or a fuge with chaeto in it and some bad 6.5k CFL's on the chaeto. It's quite possible to starve off cyano.

 

I can't speak for urchins since I've never owned one...ever. But I have used this red slime remover several times with no deaths...ever. I still contend it's a safe product to use. Your urchin's decline may be completely unrelated, just coincidental that it's after dosing with this remover. I mean it could have to do with the remover, too. But we have to keep an open mind.