Brown algae?

Christina237

Christina237

New member
Hey guys,
My tank has this crazy brown algae all over it...not on the glass but on the live rock and rock bed. It's like brown spray paint...very thin and dusty. My water was just tested at MCF and is awesome. Blake told me it is as good as their levels. My tank has a crazy LED setup (which can be dimmed) and is in a room with TONS of light (nothing to be done about that). Any suggestions for taming it? As you can probably see...it's messing up my hammer pretty badly. :noidea:

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it runs on a mostly 2/3 fresh to 1/3 salt water combination mixed by MCF...like I mentioned, all of the levels tested out perfect. I did my weekly water change today and stirred the sandbed a bunch and lowered the LED's to just above moonlights. But does anyone know how to address this? Or what it is?
 
I don't think it is algae. As you described it sounds like diatoms. They'll feed off the silicates and then burn out eventually. Nothing to worry about, just part of the cycle.
 
Does it have small bubbles in it? Cuz it could b dinoflagellate. Hopefully it's not cuz I hear they r hard to get rid of.
 
The reefer said:
Does it have small bubbles in it? Cuz it could b dinoflagellate. Hopefully it's not cuz I hear they r hard to get rid of.
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It does...I siphoned out some of it that was harassing the corals and I showed the pic to Reed from MCF...we discussed back and forth and agree my tank receives way too much light right now. My living room is a corner of floor to ceiling windows and the lights are really extreme LEDS for a small tank. We settled on trying to shield it from light in the day as much as possible and running the moonlights from 5pm-10pm and the white lights from 5:30pm-9:30pm. Hopefully that will help everything recover.

It also occurred to me that I changed my filter recently and do you think my tank is re-cycling? It did this once when I set it up (as it should) and then since I changed my filter it did it.
 
U should try total lights out for 72 hrs. That should help. And I don't think the LEDs r the problem. But u could shorten the lighting time after the 72 hrs.
 
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