Brown Algae?

stw280

stw280

Member
I have a brown Algae that is rapidly covering the entire bed of my 75 gallon reef setup. I'm charging my digital camera right now and will post pictures soon. At first the algae was just at one end of the tank and now it has spread. There is none on the glass but is almost covering much of the live sand and is now on live rock and some corals. I have a carpet anenome at the corner of the tank where the algae started he is not looking good. Please help quickly if you have any suggestions. I think it is a bad algae.
 
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ivanfj

Guest
I think you need a clean up crew. These kind of algae usually indicates a high nitrate or phosphate level. Regular water change would help. Margarita snails or turbo snails would clean out the algae on the rock. As for the sandbed, you can get some nassarius snails and a couple of fighting conches. Hermit crabs don't do as well as snails, but they will chew up the left-over food on the sandbed.
 
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surfjnkie9

Guest
I have a similar problem...My live rock, and live sand are all turning brown..as well as brown spots on the inside walls of my tank..is this the same problem??
 
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ivanfj

Guest

Originally posted by stw280
I have turbo snails, hermit crabs, cleaner shrimp, emerald crabs, and a sally lightfoot crab.
How many of each do you have??? A 75 gal requires quite a large clean up crew. Also I would suggest you get a few more different varieties of snails and hermit crabs. Red scarlet hermits are the best hermits. Blue/Red legs are weak cleaners IMO. They just spend their whole day fighting for another shells and kill your snails as well.
I would first test your water, for both nitrate and phosphate. If both of those levels are not at 0, you would see some algae for sure. For a 75 gal, you could get a sand sifting goby to help flipping over your sandbed.
Surfjnkie9: You may have tougher task I am sorry to say because your tank is smaller and smaller tanks require more maintenance. I have 2 turbos for my rocks, 1 fighting conch in my 20g and my sandbed still looks a bit dirty at times.
 
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ivanfj

Guest
Also, do you have any plant life???? They would help sucking up the nitrate and phosphate. A refugium where you could put some plants would certainly help. HTH
 
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surfjnkie9

Guest
I just put 2 clowns and a fire shrimp in my tank 3 days ago. Ammonia levels are good..nitrate a bit above zero. I have no snails/crabs yet. Think its safe to add them now?? And is it safe to do a 20% water change if they've only been in the tank for 3 days?
No plant life either.
 
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ivanfj

Guest
A 20% might be too big for your tank IMO. That's close to 3 gallon of water for your 16gal. I usually do a 10% water change bi-weekly. Your livestocks should do fine if nitrate isn't that bad. Fire shrimp can't tolerate high nitrate level (more than 15ppm IMO). I had my nitrate at 0 when I added my fire shrimp in Janaury and he's still going strong.
 
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surfjnkie9

Guest
Alright thanks..I'll probably add a few snails and a crab or two within a week. And I'll probably do a 10% water change tonight.
 
stw280

stw280

Member
Thanks Ivan I bought one of the cleaner crews from this site that is suppose to be enough for a 55-100 gallon tank but maybe it is not enough.
 
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ivanfj

Guest
I believe the package does not have enough snails included. 5 nassarius snails aren't gonna keep the sandbed all that clean, and the blue legs just probably kill them a few of them already.
 
stw280

stw280

Member
Ivan I think both of your points make sense. I believe several of my snails have been eaten and the hermit crabs are worthless. But the emerald crabs are champs.
 
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