# Red Algae



## gdwb10101 (Apr 14, 2006)

I have some red algae growing on my hammer coral and one of my polyp corals. Is this good or bad? I think that i read somewhere that the red algae is like a building block for replenishing coral or making more coral. this may be completely wrong. Let me know if i should keep or get rid of it

Off that topic, but this may sound dumb, but is the red and green that forms in the substrate algae? I was always curious. Some tanks have lots of it and some have none. What should i do about that


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## Fishfirst (Jan 24, 2005)

if its hard and crusty its coraline, if its slimy its cyno. The former is a good thing, but should not be growing on a living coral, the latter is a very very big nuisence. I would remove as much of it as possible if it is the latter.


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## Reefneck (Oct 15, 2005)

For Red Slime algae, (A really bad thing and hard to get rid of) use a product called Red Slime Remover. It works very well. Make sure you turn off your skimmer for the entire time of treatment (About 2 weeks) or it's going to overflow every few minutes.


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## gdwb10101 (Apr 14, 2006)

Ooooo not cool. lol i have the slimy stuff along with the coraline, but more slimy that coraline. Thanks, just remove with a siphon?


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## fishfingers (Apr 10, 2006)

Syphon it off and remove the source thats providing the nutrients for the algae to thrive. It can be very abd for corals, as they can actually cover and take over the coral (happened to my star polyps when I had a cyano bloom a while back).


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## Fishfirst (Jan 24, 2005)

yep, remove it, try to find a source for the bloom like some left over food stuck in a dead spot or something like that. More flow can also be a good weapon against cyno. If you aren't winning the battle against it in a few weeks, I would try what ReefNeck suggested.


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## im_a_clownfish (Sep 19, 2005)

I tried something from boyd (or boydd) enterprises called chemi clean and it killed it in about 4 days. Totally nuked the huge amount of red slime I had in the tank. GREAT stuff and didnt harm anything else in the tank. I highly recommend it


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## Osiris (Jan 18, 2005)

I've used ChemiClean in the past 4 days to work  my turn around time was usually 24-48hrs.


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