Red Slime/Hair algae

Hello,

I have noticed that i have some red slimy/hair algae growing only on 1 of my rocks. I know that it has good flow because it moves as if water is moving good around there and even after 2 weeks of 10% water changes the stuff is still there.

My last water test had
Nitrate: 10 - 20 ppm
Nitrite: 0
Ammonia: 0
pH: 8.3
kH: 8.5

Could the algae be there because of my Nitrate? Would it help if i got some blue leg hermits to clean up some of the left over food? Also that's pretty much the only algae that is in the tank aside from a little bit of green hair algae (stopped growing after i put phosban in the tank).

Any suggestions/education - good references would help me.

-Tim

 

Tpasche

I had similar situation - just one rock with a small patch on it and it grew nowhere else
I dealt with it manually - syphoned what I could out during water change and added another half dozen smaller snails and since then its not come back

Steve

 

Seriosuly if you do a search for my name you will see the epic 3 month battle I have be waging on this god slime known as the cyano! Lol I defeated it by making a carbon reactor and buying a phosphate reactor, no joke 1 week period its almost completely gone from my tank, my herms are cleaning up the dead stuff as I write this. Checkign your levels wont do anythign at all since the cyano gives you false readings. Do 1 thing at a time each week and mark your results and you can start to figure out whats causing it. Cyano sux but dont give up, ive tried manually sucking it, chemcials and now foudn the root of my problem which was phosphates. good luck and keep us updated

 

Thanks for the good luck! I'm pretty much assuming its phosphates because before i added Phosban i was using Tap water. Now i have a RO unit as well as some phosban. Hopefully that helps.

I dont have the $$ for the reactors quite yet so i guess i'll have to deal with it until then... The algae hasnt multiplied so i dont think i have added any more phosphates.

Anyway thanks for the advise.

 

Thanks,
I tried that but it seems to keep sticking to the rock. I guess it's time to get some inverts...

 

you can make a ghetto reactor if you have the spare parts for the carbon, lookup ghetto reactor on here and that will help.

 

Yes, your nitrates are probably the cause – realistically they are higher than you are testing because the red slim is absorbing the excess nutrients and you are testing the remainder.

Can also test for Phosphates? Red Slime Aglae is generally due to Phosphates or Nitrates. Your Ammonia and Nitrites are zero, so its curious that your nitrates are high – that sort of tells me that the cause of the nitrates has already been dealt with since the break down process begins with Ammonia then Nitrite and then Nitrate. Absent of anything else you woiuld/should be able to remove the algae and perform water changes to bring down the Nitrates (and honestly, 10-20 is not rediculasly high – but you do want it lower)

Also, do you use RO/DI for water changes?

Now, what exactly is a ghetto reactor ? I searched as suggested and could not find but 2 unhelpful posts. Is this simply a home made reactor used to blast extra carbon ? I have a couple old reactors laying around (3 little fishy brand) – If you would like I can mail one to you, but in turn you will need to follow these posts and mail it to someone else in need in the future. Sounds like a better use than sitting in a bucket in my basement.