[MatthewR]

Hello, I have had this problem for about 2 weeks or so now, I have cut back on feeding, and lighting. I have just put in chaeto into my sump yesterday. So the good effects of that will not be seen for awhile, but this stuff does not seem to want to go away? It gets worse and then dies back alittle, I remove abunch by myself, and then the next day it seems to have gooten worse. Here is a pic of it. I have a 75G tank, with about 70# of LR and a 20L sump, which like I said I just put in the chaeto yesterday. I am using a Ro/DI unit for my water now. Just got that about 2 weeks ago. Any suggestions or help is greatly needed.

[RyanG]

Not seeing any picture Matthew...

[pogodzib]

The picture isn't there, but for some ideas, make sure that you skim heavy, feed light, continue to hand harvest the algae, and do several water changes to got the old tap water out of your tank. It may take some time since whatever was getting into your tank from your tap water was not only feeding your algae issues, but also being absorbed into your sandbed and LR. Between the items listed above and your new macroalgae, hopefully the algae will get under control quickly.

[MatthewR]

sorry here is the pic.

[DEWAYNE]

okay, I have this crude growing in my sump, it is not in my main tank, I have starfish, few fifgi devils and snails down there. I had really bad lighting over the sump, which I think caused it. lets talk about what you are feeding, and when you do water changes, what are you using to rid the tap water of contaminates.

[anemone_head]

Hello

I had that.. looks kind of cool evil smoke... well maybe you had some dark red or maybe its still to come...this stuff is Slime.. its lives as a bacteria by night and plant by day... suck it out of your tank if you want to protect the life on your rocks or swish it off.
Another! is check everything is normal yeah? If you got everything right. just wait this stuff will go. Not for about 2 months, it will go. you just have to put up with it.

[MatthewR]

ok i have been putting up for it for about 3 weeks now all together. I have done 2 10-14 G water changes this weeek. And will do another one next weekend, as well as trying to suck as much of it off the bottom as well. I was using tap water with prime for till about 2 weeks ago, when I was able to get my DO/RI water unit, now I have a 6 stage water filter. I think it was from the prime, as well as the tap water, because I was letting some water sit for a day with prime to do a water change right before I got my Ro unit, and i came home to see that the water had what looked like the same black slime crap in the rubbermaid tub, I was very mad at this point. So I throw all the prime I had away and will never use it again. I will countiue to do weekly water changes and sucking the black death as I like to call it out. I hope that it goes away. As for lighting, I have an older system I bought off someone, it has 2x150w MH + 2x54w T5HO, not sure the kelvin of the MH lights though. When I bought them, I was told they would be good for aleast 6 months, as her husband bought them only a few months back. As for feeding I cut a mysis shrimp and a brine shrimp in half and feed them the 2 halfs, and I do this every other day.

[anemone_head]

if you have carbon get rif of it.. it helps the slime

[anemone_head]

look!! stop investing in all this ****!! PUT UP WITH IT!....it will go.. jeez its not going to turn into a tank of wonders without some fauts ok.....wasting your money..it will go by itself

[RyanG]

Originally Posted by anemone_head

look!! stop investing in all this ****!! PUT UP WITH IT!....it will go.. jeez its not going to turn into a tank of wonders without some fauts ok.....wasting your money..it will go by itself

Clean up your attitude

[Cern]

Originally Posted by anemone_head

Hello

I had that.. looks kind of cool evil smoke... well maybe you had some dark red or maybe its still to come...this stuff is Slime.. its lives as a bacteria by night and plant by day... suck it out of your tank if you want to protect the life on your rocks or swish it off.
Another! is check everything is normal yeah? If you got everything right. just wait this stuff will go. Not for about 2 months, it will go. you just have to put up with it.

+1 just swish it off, it should eventually stop growing. Try changing your flow pattern once in a while.

[lflaherty]

So, what you posted a picture of was a cyanobacteria of some sorts. It is usually a combination of too much light, too many nitrates and too many phosphates that will cause a bloom of that nature. Rather than drop all this money on products that probably won't affect it (every product I have tried for getting rid of cyano-slime has been a crock), you should just gravel-vac it out while you do a bunch of small water changes. Eventually, your nutrient levels will balance out and it will go away, and all this for the low, low price of salt.

[lynnvangsnes]

Yep, they're right. It's part of the natural cycle. I have it occur once every 4 or 5 months. It will go away. You can siphon it off during regular water changes. How long has your tank been up and running? My sand sifting goby along with my other sand sifting critters usually will break it up enough for it to disappear. At times, I have to scrape if off my LR during a water change, and it doesn't come back. Be sure your nitrates are as low as possible, but if you are doing regular water changes, you should be ok.

[MatthewR]

Ok i am back again, I have been doing small water changes about 14-20G every weekend, and I did a big scrapping of the rocks, and vac-up the bag spots on the gravel. It has spread to my sum, and looks like it starting to choke my cheato out. But the cheato looks like it is still growing?? But I am being patient with it all. And I really didn't have to spend alot of money on the stuff, all I got was a DI/RO unit for 100 bucks off ebay, and a few other things over the course of a month or so, and it was all stuff that I was going to need to get anyways. My tank has been running for only about 4-5 months nows, so I was assuming something like that was going to happen. Since I have a sump under my tank, I was -wondering should I take off the over-the-back filter with biowheels off?? I have a proten skimmer in the sump as well. Just wondering cause I think it makes my water evaporate alot more, and add micro bubbles to the tank. Any comments are greatly appreciated.

[pogodzib]

Yes, I would remove the HOT power filter w/ biowheel as it isn't necessary. There is one product that does work great for eliminating cyanobacteria, but I wouldn't use it in your new tank because of the reasons why you probably have cyano issues. First off, the water changes w/ RO/DI water will help, but it will take time since your only removing a small percentage of what was previously added to your tank using tap water. Secondly, new tanks are less stable and very often go through a cyano phase. Be patient and continue to do your water changes and it will go away if your nitrates and phosphates levels are kept down to near undetectable levels. While waiting for the cyano to disappear on your own, try not to overfeed and siphon out the cyano once in a while to keep it under control.

[geekdafied]

Black slime is a sure sign that your photo period is way to long. Cut off your lights for 2 days, and then cut back on your photo period by a few hours.

[MatthewR]

Really lights on too long, ok I have shut them off today, and readjusted them for when I turn them back on in a 2 days and see what going on there. I had my blue lights coming on at noon, and my MH lights coming on at 1-15ish and then the MH turn off at 8-8:15ish, and the blue turned off more like 9:45 I think. Is that too long for both lights?

[pogodzib]

I don't think your photo period is too long. Some people (myself included) only run their halides for 4-6 hours/day, but most people run them for 8-12 hrs/day. The problem is almost certainly being caused by poor water quality. Keeping your lights off for 2 days should help knock it back, but be warned that once in a while a coral or two (primarily SPS) may react poorly to lights being left off for 2 straight days and die.

[franky]

this slime is a bacteria wich comes with the cycle of your tank sure you can turn ya lights off and check for nitrate and phosphate and keep up with ya water changes but u will still end with pulling ya hair out get some slime algae tablets they fixed my problem after the first 2 weeks

[Adam J]

Water changes,more water flow(or adjust your current water flow)cut back on your feeding,cyphon out what you can,be sure your skimmer is working to its potential,and it does help to shorten you photo period while you are fighting it.It is not hopeless.It will go away.Don't give up!!!!

[ljv]

I went through the same problem 4-5 months after starting up my first reef tank. I lost a few corals over it and the tank looked horrible. I almost gave up it was sooooooo frustrating. The more water changes I performed, the worse it got. In the end, it was about water quality.

I cut back on feeding and got an RO/DI water filter. It took two months of weekly water changes with the RO/DI based water, but it went away and never exploded like that again. I always got patches of it but that I could always correlate to detritus build up or low flow.

Don't give up. Sipon it out as much as you can and keep up with the RO/DI water changes. It will get better.