Red slime algea?

Question

i have a lot of red slime algea in my 29gallon biocube and i looks kinda ugly how do i get rid of it
i have to cleaner shrimp and 1 coral banded shrimp and 2 blue damsels

Answer 1

Getting rid of this is usually a matter of nutrient control and water flow. Even though it's called an "algae" it's really a bacterium (cyanobacteria), and it can be a pain in a saltwater tank. Even though you'll hear a lot about snails, hermit crabs, or shrimp that eat this, they really don't - if anything they eat the algae around it, and eat some of the cyanobacteria by mistake it seems.

Just like any algae, though, it does need to get nutrients (nitrate and phosphate) out of the water. The nitrate is an end product of the ammonia that your fish produce in the tank, but it can also be found in tapwater in some areas. If you use tapwater to make up your saltwater, you might want to have it tested for nitrate. Tapwater is also a source of phosphate. If you're using tapwater, you may want to try switching to reverse osmosis water. You can buy a unit to make this in your home (fairly expensive, the membrane needs to be replaces periodically, and you'll use 8-9 gallons of water for every gallon produced) or you can buy it at SuperWalMart stores at the Culligan self-serve stations - this will cost about $0.33 per gallon once you buy their refillable containers. You may also want to try using a phosphate-absorbing pad in the filter.

Cyano also doesn't like areas of high water flow, so you might see if you can put a small powerhead in your biocube and aim it at the worst areas.

When you do water changes, turn off the filtration, scrape as much of the stuff off the glass as you can, use a soft brush (paintbrush, natural sponge) to clean the rocks/decor, then use a gravel vac to siphon it out of the tank - the less you have in it, the longer it takes to reproduce to the level it is now. If you're using RO water for replacement, take out as much of the water as you can without exposing any live rock to remove as much of the nutrients as possible from the tank.