Epic battles of the red slime continue

nope open top, k the flakes are banished to the garbage!

 

Mmmmm, flakes you say? Ive been battling the cyno too and have been doing all the usual things. I have been feeding flake. My success has been wavy, some days it looks better some days not. I was thinking the flake was best cause it says on the canister 'low ash & phosphorus' and on the back under ingredients it says 'Phos min 0.6%, Phos max 0.9%'. So flakes can be bad?
Im going to try not feeding flake for a while, thx for the tip

 

Rinsing your frozen before adding it to the tank will help also...

Main thing is flow and detritus removal...

 

So how do you "rinse" frozen food, I mean, I put a half block in a cup with some tank water and thaw it for about a minute, then dump it in slowly as the fish eat it.

If I were to "rinse" it, all the food would rinse away...

 

I was wondering the same.

 

Hmmmmm..... Cyano!!! Couple of tips that I have learned when I battled the red slime when I first started reefing.

1.Cyano hates water flow. In the area(s) where you see red slime make sure it is getting substantial water movement.

2. Please and I mean please do not shoot the cyano off the rock with a trukey baster. Probably the worst thing you can do. Best thing you can do is to siphon it out. Or use that turkey baster and suck it out. Do NOT blast it off the rock and see it float around your aquarium that you've put hours of hard work into. It will land in a new spot of your reef and cause havoc.

3. After you removed all the cyano with the turkey baster.... run to your lfs and purchase CHEMICLEAN. Very inexpensive. If you do not use this I can almost guarantee red slime will come back.

4. After using chemiclean.... Make sure your not overfeeding, all spots have good water movement, you use ro/di water, and your doing proper water changes.

If you follow what I have just posted I assure you, you will have no problems with cyano bacteria. I have over come this and have not had this problem again.

 

how long ago did you use the chemiclean? I've heard it's a bandaid at best, and only last a couple months.

As for blasting, my goal is not to remove the cyano, it's to clean out the detritus under the cyano. If it lands on clean rocks it won't have a source of nutrient.

Before i started blasting the rocks the cyano was everywhere anyways. It's a waterborne bacteria, it will grow where it can and doesn't need seeding. After I started regular blasting the cyano problem has gotten better. it's not gone, but it's a lot better now than it was a few weeks ago.

 

The main food sources for cyano are nitrates and phosphates (much like other algaes), so yes, those certain kinds of algae remedies do work for cyano. And the cyano bacteria can not proliferate in high flow, so yes, flow does help.
Chemiclean and red slime remover do NOT remove the nutrients. They simply suspend them in the water column around a molecular barrier that makes them unusable to the bacteria and algaes. That is why they call for large water changes, and screwing up on them can prove fairly dangerous. I personally would not recommend these products for just that. And even after use, without changing your husbandry, the algae will come back eventually. These are patches to the problem, not a cure.

Defrost the food, then drain the water off that was used to defrost the frozen food in.

 

I still say no blasting off your cyano. Suck it out.

Ive used chemiclean about 6months ago and have not had anysigns of it returning. Keep in mind I also fixed my water movement problem that i had. And now extra careful when feeding.

Chemiclean is not gonna fix the problem by itself. Its just an "aid" to you in solving your cyano problem.

I can only share you my experience with chemiclean. It worked well. All lfs carry it. I beleive somebody else in this thread recommended it also.

 

I have it growing on the outputs from my return pump and on the blades and inner housing of my MP40w.

maybe I have SUPER cyano?

agree with the rest tho

-Doug