Help, brown algae in established tank

[fishfreek]

My tank has been running about 2-1/2 yrs and i've been experiencing a bad brown algae outbreak for about three weeks! It covers most of my 3" deep sand bed. It seems more dense in the AM and early afternoon. Toward the end of each day it seems to disapate and only covers small areas. My water perameters are fine, pH=8.2,ammonia=0, trite=0,trate=0,cal=440,alk=3.0meq/l. I don't have my phosphate test kit yet, should be getting MO tomorrow. I have a feeling that PO3 may be the culprit. We'll see soon. The only thing i can think of is that the RO machine at grocery store was broke and they brought one in to replace it. Maybe it needs a new filter and my algae is being caused by that. Other than that i've been feeding the same foods, using the same additives and haven't added any new livestock or L/R. I've tried a few water changes and cut back on feedings a little(i really don't feed heavy to begin with). I also ordered some phosphate remover, i'll give that a try, its comming with my test kit.
Has anyone else ran into this problem before in well established tanks????? <img src="graemlins//eek.gif" border="0" alt="[eek]" />
Any ideas??
thanks,

 

[birdy]

I could be wrong but I thought most diatom blooms came from silica not from phosphate, you might want to get a silica test kit also.

 

[distantstar]

there's that good medicine stuff for RED algae that works real well on Brown algae as well.
ANTIRED BY Aqualine germany is the stuff (just went out and found it.)
1-2 days all gone with no harm to corals and fish
Cheers,
David

 

[reefman316]

I'm having the same problem with the brown algea but I think my problem is from running my lights too long but it doesn't disapate like yours dose.I'm still trying to get rid of my problem,I'd gently scrub my rock but I have many tiny soft corals growing on them and don't want to damage them at all.Sorry I couldn't be really any help but good luck getting rid of the problem.

 

[fishfreek]

reefman, I don't have any algae om my rock, its all on my sand bed. Now i'm getting tons of bubbles on my sand and its lifting it up. Man i hate this.
What type of clean up crew do you use? Get some snails and a few crabs. Usually that will do the trick for algae on rock work, at least it works well for me. Good luck!