Red Algae Woes!

Your pH is really low. My money is on that. Go out and buy Seachem's Marine buffer - it works great. Gresham and I were talking about this on the phone not long ago. In his experience he thinks the nasty algae doesn't do as well with pH in the 8+ range.

Regardless, you should correct the pH.


EDIT - This pH could be caused by overfeeding and not doing water changes. Salt mixes play a part here as well.

 

So what should my pH be testing at for this algae to go away? I thought 8.2 was the ideal range?

 

You posted 7.2 no? DRAT. That was your freshwater. OY! SOrry.

 

LOL, thats allright. Maybe it is kind of low tho, it's 8.0, should it be like 8.2-8.4?

 

yeah it wouldn't hurt to raise it.

it changes - lower in the morning - higher in late afternoon, etc.. so test a couple times.

 

Definitely raise your ph and try to cut down on feedings for a while and see if that improves things. You'll also want to get those nitrates down to as close to "0" as possible.

 

OK well I received and dosed the UltraLife Red Slime Remover an hour or so ago....also today I spent about $70 and got 4 turbo snails (BIG!!!), 4 astria snails, 3 blue legged hermits, 2 bumblebee snails (so cool!!), and 1 sand sifting goby...so it's a good start to a decent clean-up crew, which I had pretty much NONE. I guess I should wake up to no red slime. Plus I have cut back on feeding and haven't fed the sun coral in several days, and have noticed the red slime sort of stopped spreading, and stayed as it is. So we'll see................

 

Did you remove all filter media and stop your skimmer while you're treating for red slime?

 

Success!!!!!!!!

Less then 24 hours and I can already see, even with the lights off, the red slime is GONE! I know this is only a temp fix and it's up to me to keep it gone, but still this is SUCH a relief!! I am taking steps and have started building up my CUC, and am about to build a sump, so this doesn't happen again. I did stop my skimmer, but did not take out my filter media..... what will happen with that?

 

Carbon and such will take the "medication" out of the water. I wouldn't consider the red slime gone until the lights have been on for a few hours so be prepared to treat again. If you need to treat again, make sure that you do a water change beforehand and be sure to remove your filter media.