Cyano Bacteria - Red Slime Medication

[Meaty24]

I have cyano bacteria and is getting worse. I am about to do a water change and try and siphon out as much as I can from the sand. I also have the red slime on some of the live rock/coral, which will be impossible to manually remove.

Has anyone used medication? If so, are there side effects? What kind of medication do you suggest? Will it turn my water a funny color? Will is stress out corals or the fish? Do you recommend or discourage the medication?

Also, will running carbon in the sump help stop the problem, or is carbon a bad idea to run in a reef tank?

Your help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Galantra]

OK I will be real with you!
Don't try medication unless it is your last result I had the issue with cyano and use Red Slim and it killed a little bit of the rock reduce the cyano but ended up giving me dinoflangie that I am now dealing with. There is chances maybe it will work maybe it won't in my case it didn't. I would just add more flow into you tank black out your tank for a day or 3 (No light at all!) you can actually buy hermits and snails that will eat the cyano and keep it in check. Do all you can before you add chemicals into your tank

 

[Marteen]

Well I had a problem with red slime. I did the water change thing I vacuumed out everything I could but it would just keep coming back. Then brown slime joined in and I was just like enough is enough. I used chemi-clean red slime remover and followed the directions on the bottle. At first it didn't look like anything happened but 2 days later all the red slime is gone, a little brown slime is left but it looks to be going away. I haven't had any dino problems yet but I'll tell you if I do.

I think what the red slime remover is basically doing is like dosing vodka or sugar it seems to have the same effect on the water and the slime. I don't know what's in it but I would put dollars to donuts that it's some kind of carbon source. Anyways, I like it and it did what it was supposed to do. I wouldn't want to rely on it but I've been feeding less now and keeping up with water changes and it seems to have finished of the red slime for good. Of course if you don't attack the crux of the problem, overfeeding in my case, you'll just get slime again later down the road.

 

[Keith P]

It's an antibacterial, and only a temp band-aid.

 

[sil3ncio]

I myself had cyano in my tank when I started up. I started to do frequent water changes, used ro/di water, started vodka dosing, added a phosban reactor, and now almost all of the cyano is gone, it's almost not even noticeable, can't barely see it only towards the top of the tank, on the glass. With my first tank I used Red Slime remover, but the cyano always kept coming back after a while....... Water movement also helps a great deal!

 

[e.muehlbauer]

Red slime remover is an antibiotic, erythromycin.

 

[Meaty24]

I started dosing vodka, and probably too much too fast. I know.. stupid move. Could that be the cause of the red slime? Is it feeding off the organic compounds of the vodka, or is the opposite true? I just read an article that said that vodka dosing may help.... Which is correct?

 

[Galantra]

How much are you dosing? I was told never to go over 1ml Vodka couldn't be your cause. I am not totally sure but it is cause by over feeding overstocked tank and lighting issues which normally cause high nitrates/ phosphates which it feeds on. So with that present with not enough flow causes the outbreak. and light on for longer period gives it fuel to spread. I would check phos and nitrates to see if they are at 0 and if so then do a black out for 2-3 days that will get rid of it for sure. then increase flow around the effected areas and have GFO & carbon running. Maybe also grab some halloween hermits and black grazer snails