Whats this brown stuff on my sand and LR?

[elitephoto]

I have had my tank cycling now for 3 weeks+ as of the past few days my sand and cured live rocks have been getting covered in this brown crap..algae of some sort maybe? anyway how the heck can I get rid of it cause its making my pretty live sand and live marshall rock look like crap!!! HELP. I have about 10 snails of diffrent types, I have an arrow crab, 2 electric blue hermits and 2 green cromis in there now. 72 gallon tank with 70lbs of cured live marshall rock and 80lbs live sand. great circulation in the tank and using an ASM skimmer. lights are coralife PC 96x4. on for 8 hours a day for the white and 9 hours a day for the blue. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[dmjordan]

Wow. O.K. if your tank is cycling you should not have any fish or critters in there. The ammonia in the tank will kill them. The brown stuff you are getting in you tank is probably just a diatom bloom. Are you using RO water? What are your water tests levels? You can also try cutting back the length of time your lights are on by 2 hours.

 

[elitephoto]

my tank should be....key word, SHOULD be done cycling, its been over 3 weeks now. My levels were great until I left for the weekend. came home and they were back up again. th Ni and Na were pretty high but everything is still alive...I guess they are troopers. I was told to have the lights on about 10 hours a day to reproduce the sun/moon cycle but to try and cut down on any possible algae problems I reduced that to 8 hours to play it safe. If I put it to 6 hours I wont get to really enjoy my tank. I have it set up so it comes on when i get off work and shuts off around my usual week day bed time. Oh and yes I ONLY use RO/DI water for my top offs and buy pre made salt water from the LFS.

 

[tampausmc]

did your levels spike before? Or is this the first time? If this is the first time then you are still cycling....I've heard of people cycling with fish, but it can damage their gills.....I would leave the tank as is for now until your levels go back to zero...Once your tank is done cycling then you can worry about the algae, however when your nitrate gets low you probably won't have to worry about the algae, it should clear up on its own

 

[murph]

Diatom common to all new tanks. Imo if your ammonia levels did not rise and your trites are under .50 everything should be fine. Water changes at this point couldn't hurt. You cleanup crew and natural die off will take care of the diatom. Just give it a couple of weeks.

 

[elitephoto]

yeah I never had any spikes when I put in the live sand and rock....its been over 3 weeks since the live rock has been in the tank and about 4 weeks since its had water and live sand. I test my water daily and until recently havent had any above normal levels.

 

[thenewfish]

Sounds like the normal happening of a cycling tank. It is a good sign that the levels are correct for life to continue and new life to begin... I agree you should just give your clean up crew a week or so and they will take care of all this for you.