Indiana beginner

So I have only been into salt water aquariums for two years now but i still consider myself a beginner and i keep having a reoccurring problem that i need some help with. I have a 14 gallon biocube that has been set up for about 18 months now and i keep having out breaks of red slime. I have taken the bio-balls out I do 10% water changes every other week and i just cant get this under control. No matter what it keeps coming back, i have also put in another power head to help with circulation and nothing is working. Someone please help a fellow hoosier!!!

 

hey gajones06

what power head did you add, and what is your overall flow total now?

what corals are you keeping in that tank?
because I used a product called Phosgaurd by Seachem which is an aluminun based phosphate remover and that helped very quickly to cure a problem with red slime or cyno that I had at one time

but if you have leather corals or toadstools etc, this product may not be the ideal solution as these corals can be affected by the aluminum

Steve

 

Do you use tap water?

 

I have just a green start polyp and its a maxi jet 400 that does like 106gph an i dont know about the factory pump. so what ever those combined too. I use to go to my lfs but it seems like every time i go in there I am told to buy blank product an this will fix it. Well this is happened like three times along with a water test each month.

No i use RODI water an when in a cramp distilled water, which happens maybe once a year.

 

Hi Gajones

Im not sure what the return pump is on your biocube
but what happens to the flow - from it - does it come out across the tank
or does it drop downwards?

the 106gph gives you less than 10 x water volume in movement
so it might be worth increasing that depending on where the flow from the biocube return goes ( if its just dropping downwards like the return from a HOB would be, then IMO that flow is not much use to you anyway, and I dont include flow like that when doing my calculations)

the good news is that with just GSP - you could give Phosgaurd a try as GSP wont be affected by Aluminun IME

Steve

 

Okay well i have the the return flow aimed up wards to creat movement on the surface and the maxi jet is doing the same thing. The return pump does 137 gph so the combined comes out to 243 gph.

 

Thank you gajones06
that gives you a total of 17 x per hour in a 14 gallon

if it where my tank, I would be over 20 X even in a FOWLR

if you have another small power head, I would add that
next time you syphon/ do water change, remove as much as you can
this combined with increased flow, can (does not always) but can help to eliminate cyno issues IME

Steve

 

well lately i have been doing water changes once a week upon cleaning the the tanl, removing the cyno from the glass. I dont know if it is relavint but I have noticed an increase in calcium deposits, the purple discs on the glass and back wall, but could this also have an effect?

 

the coraline growth you are seeing is a good sign
it means that due to the water changes you are doing, you are maintaining levels of Magnesium, Calcium and Alkalinity and the calcium based algae called coraline is starting to develop

this is not connected to the cyno issue

Steve

 

Okay i figured it wasnt since I had it in my other tank but i just wanted to make sure that maybe for some reason they might be linked..