brown algae outbreak

drsteve2001

drsteve2001

Member
Ok for the last two weeks all of a sudden i am having a bad brown algae outbreak??? Checked nitrates, nitrites, ammonia, phosphate are all zero, ph 8.2..hardness 125 calcium is 400?? I am using Ro/di water. It seems to have started when i swithed to the ro water. I was using distilled?? the algae is out breaking in the sand
Any one have any ideas on how to solve it.
 
ajroc31

ajroc31

Member
Did you add new sand or base rock to the tank, if so, its the silicates, although some people dispute the cause of diatom algae in the tank?
 
drsteve2001

drsteve2001

Member
well i did buy a green bubble tip, and the LFS just left him on the rock when i bought it. but that rock was the size of a softball. I think also my snail cleanup crew was depleted..the darn hermits eat them..i may take them back. I did add over the weekend 30 small nassurius snails and 10 astrea to build the crew back up.
the question is how do i stop it and get rid of it
 
ajroc31

ajroc31

Member
A phosphate sponge. Most of the them, at least the better brands will take the silicates out once phosphates are out. Diatom algea is not bad, it could become bad when it starts to over grow everything. But fear not, for most part, it will go away just as fast as it came. Try to control it in a mean time. It could be the rock, but if its lr, it should not be the case. Perhaps something else is causing the silicates increase, water? I assume you use RO/DI, maybe your RO unit, or store's is losing some filtering capacity.
 
drsteve2001

drsteve2001

Member
This is what it looks like, and seems to be getting much worse. Just did a water change two days ago. I do use ro/di water and the tds reading is 1ppm. I did just switch from instant ocean to reef crystals?

 
slice

slice

Active Member
Originally Posted by drsteve2001
http:///forum/post/3294778
This is what it looks like, and seems to be getting much worse. Just did a water change two days ago. I do use ro/di water and the tds reading is 1ppm. I did just switch from instant ocean to reef crystals?
Pffft! Thats nothing, you should have seen my young tank a month or so ago. As ajroc31 said, it goes away almost as quickly as it appeared.
Just siphon it out as much as you can/wish during water changes and be happy...
 
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