I wish I had some great news about my red slime algae or cyanobacteria battle – but it’s just bad, bad, bad! If you recall from my earlier post just less than two weeks ago, I had started to get the rusty-red version sprouting up and had dosed with Boyd’s Chemi-clean twice with no luck. Well I just dosed it again three days ago and found out my nitrates have been upwards of 20 ppm just fueling this outbreak.

Taking proper measures to eliminate problems at the source is key to being successful in the hobby. With high levels of nitrates or phosphates you have to figure out if you are adding them to the system unknowingly! To troubleshoot, take a look at the source and work your way to the tank.