purple hairy stuff

[burnsie]

i have a 5 month old tank and everything is going great, i just have question about a purple stuff growing on my nonliving rock and sand.

[dlaclo]

what is your question about the purple hairy stuff?

[burnsie]

what is it and is it bad

[geekdafied]

Its more then likely red slime, cyano bacteria. Have you checked your parameters of your tank lately?

[burnsie]

my ph is a litttle low

[Reef Man]

Burnsie, You are being really vague on your answers. In other words- Explain yourself more fully. What are your water perameters? Phosphates, Nitrates and pH would be a start. What type of water are you using to make water changes with if any water changes are even being done? Is it water from the tap, RO or RO/DI?

[geekdafied]

Test your tank water, or take it to the LFS and ask them to test it for you. Tell them to test it for everything that they can. Then tell us the results.

The water you use does make difference, but IMO, not that big of one. The only I have ever had slime was when my nitrates were out of hand. You don't have to use RO/DI or RO, tap water is not recommended, but you can use it. See if any of your buddies has a TDS meter or pick one up yourself, they are not that expensive. A lot of people don't change out their filters in RO or RO/DI unit and never test with TDS meter and the water that comes out of their unit, is just as bad as Tap. I rent, so I cant put in a RO unit, so I buy drinking water by the gallon, and it tests just as good as RO/DI water, and costs around $0.50-0.65 cents a gallon. The downside to tap water, is a lot of utility districts treat with copper in the summer to stop algae from growing in the reservoirs. We all know what copper can do to corals and inverts. I do use tap water in emergencies and still haven't had a problem, my tap tests pretty good.

[geekdafied]

its easy to raise your PH up too.

[djnzlab1]

Hi,
As a tank ages if water parameters are not checked by test the wrong supplement can be added making things worse,
You could have a low ,ca.KH, Mag, High Phos and silicates.
So many things to check.
My guess is your water is off you have phos and you haven't been checking nitrite and nitrate.
Its a real nightmare if your not having your water tested, if you not able to test for all those items take aclean container of water to your LFS and they will be glad to test.
are you changing 10 %weekly with R/o water if not your time frame is about right for the first crash ..
Doug
Keeping saltwater is very delicate balance saltwater is a supersaturation of most elements the balance can change from algae growth good and bad, excessive use of bicarb (that baking soda) and the drop of MAg thru coral growth and Coraline.I found out the hard way.
Mag is critical to CA,
a High KH can cause precip of CA and lower KH together, bad thing using the mag up Ca precip can wreck you water .
Ph is the end results of all the buffers and the ability to resist change.
So there's no easy answer if all this is greek do a 30 % water change and 10 % week, and you may be ok for a while. if your not completly off balance.

Here's a well written article you shoud print and read a few times it helped me

A Simplified Guide to the Relationship Between Calcium, Alkalinity, Magnesium and pH by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

[burnsie]

its more black then purple