HELP!!! Purple crap on my Aragontie!!!!

[RudeBoy]

Hello all,
I REALLY need help. I have a tank that's about 4 months old and I have 4 small fish in it. Everything has been running beautiful up until 1 week ago. I've been adding B-Ionic to my tank to keep my calcium and alkalinity levels up to par. That has been working fine. But, about a week ago I notice a heavy deep purple glaze on the bottom of my tank. It lies right on top of the Aragonite and has made it's way on to some of the rock on the floor of my tank. What is this crap and where is it coming from. I have about 25 snails (Atrea and Trochus) in my tank but they don't go near it. It's even growing on some of their shells. HELP, HELP, HELP!!!!

[mgk65]

Sounds like a cynobacteria bloom.

It is coming from an excess of nutrients in your water.

It is important to control excess nutrients using some or all of the following methods:

• reduce feeding
• manual removal of bacterial "carpet"
• water changes
• skimmer
• processing in the sand bed
• adding a macroalgae and removing excess growth

You can also get a queen conch that will eat the cynobacteria.

[srgtkoons]

A friend of mine found out that if you take h202 (hydrogen peroxide) and inject it underneath the carpet it will fizzle out and killed it. He has done it a few times and so have I with no ill effects. But you still need to stop the nutrients. Otherwise it will grow faster then you can zap it. Do small sections every other day or so. I used a small syringe and injected about .5ml a day. Its not much help when you got a huge bloom but works good for getting at small patches.

[Joaco]

You don't mention anything about skimming or waterchanges...like said above, excess nutrients is the most common cause for cyanobacteria blooms. Personally, I would really stay away from chemicals to control it, reducing the nutrient level usually does the trick.

www.wyx.com/iheo/tank/cyanobacteria.htm

Joaco

[RudeBoy]

Sorry, I have a 29 gallon and I'm skimming with the CPR Bak Pak. I performed 2 water changes in the last month. Both about 7 gallons each (last change was this Sunday). Since this posting, I've gone into my LFS and purchased some Red Slime remover. I added it to my tank at about 6pm last night and when I woke up this morning, 95% of the red slime was gone, my skimmer recepticle was filled with red water and my fish were very happy. You guys are the greatest here. THANKS VERY MUCH FOR ALL OF YOUR HELP!!!!