Possible danger of Red Slime Remover

[GKarshens]

I will start this by saying that I am the only person that I have heard of this happening to. So the chances of everything being fine for you are probably pretty good. I just want it to be known that the possibility is there so use at your own risk.

A while back in my old 125g tank I had done a tear down and rebuild after an infestation of Majanos (that is a whole other thread). After the tank had been restarted for a couple months I had a pretty persistent bout of Red Slime otherwise known as Cyanobacteria. I finally got sick of it enough that I decided to use a Red Slime Remover. I will leave the brand unknown since I am not sure it was brand specific. I had never used chemicals on my tank before other than dosing Calcium and the occasional buffer. I never liked the idea, but I was really tired of the slime. So I followed the directions to a T. In fact, I slightly under-dosed to account for displaced water by rock. That evening the red slime was turning brown and looked to be dying as I went to bed. The next morning I walk into the living room to a white tank. It was so milky I couldn't see the back glass. I immediately turned the skimmer back on and did a 25g water change that I had already prepared. The skimmer went haywire but after backing it down as far as I could it started to skim. The skimmate was Kool-aid red. It filled the cup in about 1/2 an hour. I emptied it and it was full again in about an hour and a 1/2. Then after another cleaning it took about 3 more hours to fill up again although much less red. In the mean time the water change had helped to clear the water enough to see what was going on. All 3 of my clams were toast. All my Acros were shedding flesh, and all my Nassarius snails had surfaced and flipped and were dead. Strangely everything else seemed unaffected. I contacted the manufacturer and they didn't believe me at first, but after much questioning the owner finally decided to have me talk to the veterinarian on staff. I talked with him for almost 2 hours. What we finally came to a conclusion on was that I had some rare creature or bacteria or something in my tank that reacted to the chemical and released a toxin that was poisonous to only certain animals. The company made a half-hearted attempt at covering me for the $500+ of corals and clams I had lost. So moral of the story, there is no such thing as a reef safe chemical. There is always a risk when dosing a chemical to get rid of something. We know so little in the grand scheme of things when it comes to the ocean it would be impossible for a company to know for sure that their product wont harm every tank it is put into. So while it has worked for thousands of people very successfully, I will never use a chemical on my tank again.

[Brooks]

I don't think I'm going to risk it after reading this!

Did you ever find out a more natural approach to exterminating the Cyanobacteria?

[GKarshens]

Less feeding, water changes, syphon out as much as you can during the water change, patience! It will eventually go away by doing this. Your system just has to have time to leach out all the nitrates and phosphates that have built up in the rock. Another temporary fix, and will sometimes break the cycle of Cyano, is going 3 days with no lights. Your corals will be fine and your fish will be too.

I have not gotten any Cyano in my current setup even though it is fairly new. I attribute this to me feeding a cube of Mysis split over 3 days instead of 1 a day like I was doing before. My fish all look just as fat and I have had far less algae on the glass too.

[fishypets]

Brooks back off the carbon dosing for a while or even cut it in half. I too have red slime from time to time and it's from dosing start2 which is the ZEOvit carbon source. I think I read in other post that you were dosing vodka (hopefuly just your tank) See what happens when you reduce the amount to half.

[chrisfowler99]

I'm fighting cyano again...I tried the Red Slime Remover late last year. It did seem to work...about as well as three days of darkness...I didn't have the issue that you did, though...thank God!

[+Dena]

I had good luck using something that Phishy Business Sells (sorry if I screwed up the name, it's too early for me). It's got natural bacteria in it...no chemicals. I used it on my 120 and it eliminated the red slime over the first week.

[TheKipf]

Wow sorry to hear about the disaster with the red slime remover.

Honestly, I just got done dosing my tank and I was about to come here and sing it's praises off the highest mountain tops.

Me and the roomate had tried everything to natually fix it. We'd siphon away the sheets of Cyano, we tried 3 days of blackout but it just came right back. We always do frequent water changes (~25%) but nothing really got rid of it all. Water parameters were always good - it just seemed to have a foothold in the tank and it wouldn't let go.

And then Saturday we dosed with some red slime treatment and it knocked it all out. It just all dissapeared in 24 hours - it was amazing. Monday we did the 20% water change, and everything so far has been great. Water is nice and clear, and after 48 hours our microbubbles from the treatment have stopped.

I guess with any chemical - there's always a risk of some adverse effects. Just wanted to share my experience with it.

[barderer]

I have used "Blue Vet" red slime remover in the past. It worked really well but I went with 1/2 the recommended dose. It also seemed to have the long term effect of taking out some of my good filtering bacteria as well or killing off enough of something that it started to raise my N levels. It also caused irritation in SPS and total retraction of my yellow polyps for a week or so. I accelerated water changes to give the biological bed a chance to recover. And all was well.

[GKarshens]

Like I said in my disclaimer, many people have used it with great success. I just feel a product should not be labeled reef-safe if there is a chance it is not. I just wanted everyone here to be forewarned that there is a possibility of problems. Nick it sounds like it was a good thing you only used 1/2!

[Derekreefer]

Thanks for the warning Gabe

[Brooks]

Brooks back off the carbon dosing for a while or even cut it in half. I too have red slime from time to time and it's from dosing start2 which is the ZEOvit carbon source. I think I read in other post that you were dosing vodka (hopefuly just your tank) See what happens when you reduce the amount to half.

Haha!

I cut off dosing on Monday to see if it'd stop, as I've read that dosing Vodka can be the cause of Cyanobacteria.

Thanks Clint!

[offroadodge]

good to know, i havnt used it on my new tank but my old tank i did and seemed fine. There wasnt as many corals as i have now, i just add more to the clean up crew...this will be something i explain at the meeting.