AHHHHH Help! Brown algae

[aredmon]

I have a 75 gal. FOWLER tank. I only have about 13 lbs of live rock in it as of right now. It is kind of new but I have had fish in it for about a month and a half. I use RO water for my water changes and do about a 10% water change every week. I have 1 large tubo snail and one snail that starts with an a but I have no idea how to spell it and on scarlet and 3 blue leg hermits. My rocks, glass, decor, and sand is covered in this brown algea. I clean and the next day it is back

When I took some of the stuff out to clean it it smelled nasty but just to smell the water in the tank it smells like salt water. In the last 2 weeks I have lost 1 a??? snail, 1 blue leg, and one scarlet leg. ?? Any help would be awsome!!!

 

[tinmanny]

Your clean up crew is way too small I have a 90g and 100lbs lr and I have 20 asorted hermits 15 snales and an emerald crab and some days the brown algae gets ahead of the team. you need a few more members of the clean up crew

good luck
Manny

 

[aredmon]

I was afraid to put to many in my tank now because I was afraid they wouldn't get enough to eat with it being a new tank and all. Any idea why my hermits and snails are dying??

 

[pfitz44]

It might be diatoms.... not agle now, but will be soon... have that in my tank now... i did a vac, and most of it went away (or atleast i cant see it) i got some more crabs and it looks good

 

[aredmon]

I have scrubbed everything in my tank except the lr and even used a gravel siphen (spell??) to suck up the top layer of brown off the sand. It was back overnight. If it is diatoms how can I get rid of it. I know know I need a bigger cleanup crew but is that the only way to get rid of them and will snails or crabs be better at cleaning it??

 

[aceroc]

Don't pull your hair out on this one. When i set my tank up for the first time and experianced this i was on this website posting every hour trying to figure out how to get rid of it. I would clean this stuff and within hours it would be back all over again. It will eventually go away in time. My tank is almost 6 months old and i don't really have this outbreak anymore, maybe once every 3 days i clean my glass for spots. Just do your regular water changes with R/O water and it will eventually burn itself out.

 

[pfitz44]

Thats what i did.... did a 27% water change after i vac'd it up and its gone now... did this on saturday... i got it b/c i filled th tank up w/ tap water to begin with.

 

[aredmon]

Thank you!! Do any of you have any idea why my inverts are dying?? And did this brown stuff stink in your tank?? my water doesn't stink but the brown stuff does.

 

[pfitz44]

Brown stuff did smell for me... all i can say is check ur wter parm

 

[aredmon]

I keep checking the water and it is all fine except my nitrates keep going up quite quickly. About every 3-4 days they go from 10 to 20. If I let them go for more than 7 days they go to 40 or over. Is water changes the only thing I can do to keep them down?

 

[saltn00b]

what is your salinity? if its too low your inverts cant handle it. also the nitrites could be dangerous for them as well. the diatoms will dissapear , its normal.
is you your tank completely cycled yet? how long did you wait before putting in the cleanup crew? inverts also need trace amounts of iodine to help them with molting i believe. also what is your hardness and pH at?

 

[aredmon]

My salinity is at 1.024. My Ph is 8.2 am 0 nitrites 0. I also discovered that the dead floating crab I found was an old one. I had found his empty shell but no body and figured he was just eaten but I found him floating about 4 days later and just assumed it was another dead crab. But I have still lost 1 snail and 1 blue leg. My husband brought it to my attention that the inverts that I am loosing both came from the same fish store and I quit going there because the guy realy didn't know what he was doing and I felt uncomforatable there so that me be the reason. I have a cleaner shrimp also and he molts every 3-4 weeks. He is doing great. My tank is cycled (after it took almost 8 weeks to do so) And I didn't put a clean up crew in it till about 2 weeks later.