Curious

[4Fish]

I am curious about two things. I have a 125 gallon reef tank, live rock and coral are 10 years olds (including a 10 year old maroon clown fish). I have not added a thing to the tank in about 2 years, and do 20% water changes every 6 months. All of sudden I had a red algae bloom come out of no where. Since it was time, I did a water change, and also discounted all my pumps and sumps, and cleaned everything. This was not the answer, and the red algae got worse. What caused this, all things being equal?

My second question is that I reluctantly added red slime remover to my tank, and two days later, not a trace of algae and my tank looks better than ever. How and why does this stuff work!!!

 

[THEDLO]

when was the last time u changed ur RO filters?

 

[4Fish]

I am embarressed to admit that I use good old fashion tap, never had a problem until now, always thought about installing RO, so maybe it is time. But how does the red slime removal work??

 

[THEDLO]

yea, get a TDS meter and test ur water...ull be surprised. i have well water, and we dont use any chemicals on the lawn, and use a water softener, and my TDS is almost 400. RO is 0

 

[THEDLO]

I am embarressed to admit that I use good old fashion tap, never had a problem until now

lol u might want to edit that out....in no time ppl here will get on there soap boxes and talk more smack then necessary

 

[Reeftanker3295]

lol u might want to edit that out....in no time ppl here will get on there soap boxes and talk more smack the necessary

+1 :tongue1:

 

[prattreef]

To answer your question, Red Slime remover is an anti-biotic --usually some form of erythromycin and thus it kills bacteria like cyanobacteria (red slime) as well as some of the good bacteria.

 

[James]

TheDLo, I'm going to go on that soapbox for a second. This tap water topic always comes up on reefkeeping forums, "I use tap, no problems" and then eventually ( if the person posts again), they come on posting about algae issues. Point blank, RO water works. It is proven. Using tap water will eventually lead to algae outbreaks, sometimes it takes weeks, sometimes months or perhaps in this case, years. But it happens. I had a reef tank ten years ago when I was in college. I tried to save money by using tap water. After 1.5 years it started breaking out with hair algae. It happens. I would invest in RO if you plan on staying in the hobby without battling the outbreaks. Ok, I'm getting off the soapbox now.

James