Red Slime/Lighting

Hello I have a huge red slime issue. It is all over the sand and looks terrible. I have a 55 gallon tank with two 65w atinics that run for 8 hrs and two metal halides that run for 6 hrs. The temp stays at 76-78 degrees. I have one tang and one foxface that I feed every other day about one pinch. Also when the turbo snails and hermit crabs die, should you remove the shells? Also when I first got the tank the light bulbs on the metal halides blew and I bought new ones with a different spectrum. I have been doing 10% water changes every two weeks and the slime seems to be getting worse. Also when I replaced the lights all of my corals retracted and died, should I remove those as well. Sorry about the long post, lots going on here and I am new at this.

 

how long has this tank been setup?

snails and crabs dying - you should be able to leave those, but they don't exactly die too often unless there's some other problem


when you replace bulbs, you should lower the time they are on considerably and slowly, over a week to three weeks increase it back. The coral needs to be light acclimated. You can leave them - most of them anyway. What are they?

 

Two open brains, a colt coral, and some sort of polyp. The mushrooms are ok still, just the corals. At first they bleached and then died. The snails usually last for about a week and then die, the blue hemits usually the same.

 

You will need to test for nitrate, phosphate, nitrite and ammonia and post the results so we can help you better. What do you have for filtration? Do you use carbon and granulated ferric oxide?

 

Based on limited information I would say you are yet to cycle and that you may have copper in your tank.