[showfish]

Very true Reefland, this is a posibility. I'm going to keep up the water changes, and hopefully starve this stuff out. Looks like things may be starting to swing my way, for today I noticed a decrease in the amount of bacteria on the rocks.

[golfish]

Another problem is the test kits we use. I've learned over the years not to trust any of them. If you have access to other test kits I'd double check all your levels. But then who's to say the other kits are right PO4 kits are the worse..

If your sand bed is live, you have enough LR, good flow, low bio load, good skiming and most important your RO\DI carts are top notch and your still getting slime I say NUKE it with red slime remover.

[BubbaWPB]

When I worked in a lab, we avoided phosphate testing like the plague - it is notoriously problematic. The biggest problem is oversensitivity - we had to rinse all the glassware 20 X with double distilled water, and even then, some of the controls came up positive due to traces of phosphate. I really question the reliability of a phosphate test that reads "negative" in any biological system.

If I'm worried about phosphate, I add a phosphate binder to my sump for a few days. It helped a lot to get the red slime under control until I got my feedings to match my animals' nutrional needs.

I'm not a big fan of cutting back feedings to 2-3 times a week. Like most advice in this hobby, it depends on what you have in your tank. I lost several anthias feeding twice a week until I figured out they were starving. Intermittent feeding is ok for some animals, but not others. I feed small portions twice a day now, and the remaining anthias are doing fine, and the red slime is gone.

[showfish]

Well I use a Hagen test kit, who knows how accurate it is, its hard enough just to read the damn thing. Thanks for the tip Bubba, I'm running Phosban in the return from the Hangon skimmer, but who knows how effective or how long that lasts? I have cut back on the feedings, small portions just what the fish will consume every other day for now. I do have some big appetites in there.