brown algae coat on sand why?

[hawkster]

I have a 55 gal saly tankl with smart lighting,nmurous crabs and snails,a sea cuke,and a choc chip star. I have tried phos-guard,changing lighting,checking nitrates,nitrites,salinity,and have even had the water checked at a couple of local suppliers,in my neighborhood to test my water,and it was fine, unfortunately I have lost the readings. I was told the phosphate reading was a little higher than ideal and to try using phos-guard.These little white pellets didn't make much of an improvment.After I clean the glass,live rocks, and even siphoned off the brown on the sand without sucking sand up. The "coat" that lays on top of the sand is thick or dense enough tobe able to be pick up with fingers.Should I remove most of it ,along with the live organisms,or break it up between fingers? After a cleaning the algae only needs three days to become very noticable again.This is aggravating to say the least.WHAT DO I NEED? Are there any special fish or inverts I can use? I use deionized water when adding,what additional teat should I preform or have done? HELP.. Hawk

 

[humuhumu]

Turbo snails will help with the diatoms along with a good protein skimmer. I had problems with green algae until I increased my calcium.

 

[reef_magic]

try a fighting conch, they constanly sift the sand for diatoms

 

[viper_930]

Fighting conchs would eat diatoms off the sand bed. You can use one or two for your tank size.

 

[clarkiiboi]

I had the same problem, the only way I got rid of it was placing a PH in the front corner of the tank to get more flow there, along the sandbed. I hate the look of the PH there, but hated the look of the sand worse. If this is a new tank it could be diatoms, but I never seen it as a thick mat-like coat as you mentioned. It could also be cyno, hince a lack of flow in that area. Mine was more brown, but acted like cyno. Is it gone in the morning (before lights are turned on) then once on its there again? If so, most likely cyno. Here is a good thread on cyno see if that is what you have. HTH

 

[hawkster]

Dear Clark... thanks for your input two questiong; what is PH? a pump? second if I have cyno shouldn"t it have a blue green or red coloring? not dirty brown,anyway thanx for the cyno article . Hawk

 

[hawkster]

the tank has been set up for about two 1/2 yrs and I use DI for water changes

 

[hawkster]

I am sure fighting conches will help even more than the cucumber, and I will try that, but I have a question or two. How big will they get? will they be any good for the rock work? and will the choc chip end up eating them? if thats the case I'll move it out. Thanks Hawk

 

[diddley]

conches will get large, but it takes time. i think the max on the fighting conch is 4 inches or so. queen conches get larger. they pretty much stay on the sand. i would get one and see what happens. it sounds like you have cyano, it can be various colors including brown. ph=powerhead. hth.

 

[clarkiiboi]

Originally posted by hawkster
Dear Clark... thanks for your input two questiong; what is PH? a pump? second if I have cyno shouldn"t it have a blue green or red coloring? not dirty brown,anyway thanx for the cyno article . Hawk
Diddley asnwered those two questions for me. Mine was an ugly brown, and I thought for years I was fighting diatoms, but turns out it was cyno. One sure tell way to know is if it goes away after lights have been out for awhile and starts showing up again when the lights come on in the morning. HTH.

 

[hawkster]

Thanks everyone especially clark for the site mentioned; I lowered the light times as suggested, and that worked, I guess it was cyno after all and it does come in brown. again ,thanx ..Hawk

 

[clarkiiboi]

Glad to hear that