Red Algae

I have this awful cyanobacteria that I can not get rid of. The tank is fairly new- about 5 months, but all my test levels are perfect. My LFS told me to try to rearrange my powerheads so its stirring up the sand differently but it just comes back in a different spot. When i do water changes I try to vaccum it up but it just comes back the next day. I have also tried chemi-clean to get rid of it but that doesnt seem to be working. I am only leaving my lights on for about 5-6 hours a day. Can anybody help me? Is there something that will eat it? Oh yea, I have about 30 sandsifting snails to help stir the substrate thats not helping. Should I try a sandsifting star- I heard those could be good and bad? Sorry long thread. Somebody help...

 

stronger and more flow instead of rearanging a little flow would help better. constant chemi-clean treatments, read instructions, do water change after. the snails would probably be better than the sand sifting star. heres some: cerith, nassarius, super tongan nassarius snail, and nerite. i recommend all at the same time in a reef tank. just dont put to many

 

Aggressive vacuuming and water changes took care of mine.

Eventually went away and have never seen since. :-/

 

I have used up my whole bottle of chemiclean- doing water changes after each treatment. I have two powerheads on each side of the tank with pretty high flow and all it does is blow a pretty big crater in the sand. Any way to prevent that?

 

point the heads in a different direction to stop the creator. are you running a skimmer? what are your NO3 and PO4? also what are your Ca, Mg and dKH? do you run carbon? or ferric oxide?

 

Try blue vet red slime remover. In my tank I had none until I put in a rock from another tank that had been curing for a few months. I figure spores survived and decided to grow in its new home. I used the red slime remover and have not changed any other conditions and it went away.

 

Had the same problem not too long ago. One treatment with Chemi-Clean and it was gone. As noted, follow the directions. In terms of flow, I must of moved my powerheads around a hundred times -- the sandstorms drove me crazy!

 

You have not mentioned if you're using RO/DI water or tap water.

If you're using tap water I would switch to RO/DI.

If you're using RO/DI check the quality of this water before pouring it in to your tank.

As mentioned previously stronger flow throughout the entire tank.

You need to address the issue which is causing the cyano instead of using slime remover solutions constantly.

Good luck