coralline or red slime?

Hey guys Im back... Sorry I now I've been gone forever but between honors class and rugby I have no free time anymore... So anyway when I first got my live rock AWHILE back, I noticed there was some dark red spotting on the dry rock in my tank. I assumed that this was coralline algae even when someone passingly mentioned to me that coralline almost never grows that quickly. I simply praised myself for having such good tank conditions. however today I came upon a shocking revelation. yesterday I received an email from marine depot about reef pests. upon reading it I realized that the slime algae in one of the pictures looked far too similar to my "coralline." Upon further research I became more convinced that my beautiful polka dot dry rock was actually covered in mats of cynaobacteria.I make sense too because my nitrate levels are elevated (15ppm) from when I switched to feeding mysis and overfed for a brief period. I'm now dosing with instant ocean natural nitrate reducer. anyway here are the pictures tell me what you think!

Looks like red slime if you can move it off the rocks it's not coraline

CRAP! alright so whats the treatment for it?

Originally Posted by billrob71

Looks like red slime if you can move it off the rocks it's not coraline

Well there is a red slime treatment, or try doing a water change and suck as much as you can with a tube and change of add a little more flow to the tank and see how it does,

also, it feeds on phospates - so water changes can keep it under control as well its on the lower level of best algaes - it will grow when you are in that area between growing hair algae, and growing no algae

i'd just suck it out whenever you do a water change - that little bit won't hurt nothing!!

Also running a UV seems to get rid of it too

it is pretty neat to look at under a microscope too!! haha here's some cyano from my tank under 400X

intinex Web Design and Web Development

Oh yes, definitely slime. I had a problem with it a little while back, and by reducing my light cycle by 2 hours, it went away in a very short amount of time.

Originally Posted by estanoche

it is pretty neat to look at under a microscope too!! haha here's some cyano from my tank under 400X

intinex Web Design and Web Development

Nerd

Definitely looks cool, though!

It sure does look like slime. If you can just take your rocks out and shake time in a bucket of water that will get it off your rocks. Or you can siphon it out while doing a water change. Just don't blow it around. It makes it easier to spread when that happens.

It also looks like some coralline is starting though. Just keep doing what you're doing and you should be fine.

How's the cardinals?

I wouldn't run a UV unless you're going to spend some serious money on the big units. These little ones they sell to us just don't really do much. Heck I'd even send you mine. Just needs a bulb.

The best way to get rid of cyano is to siphon it out when ever you can. Let the cyano grow and take up nutrients and then remove it. Doing this is just like you would do with macro algae in a refugium. Your allowing the algae or bacteria to eat away its food source.