What the heck is all this brown stuff???

[mbender04]

Please help. I'm an idiot and dumped a bunch of money into an aquarium for my mother in hopes that she would learn to take care of it... i know, i know. Anyway, I'm going to try to correct whats gone wrong but I can't seem to find specific info on this weird brown growth on the sand and lower levels of the glass. Can anyone help??? Thanx

P.S. here are some terrible pics of what I'm talking about.

[greenmako]

Click Here (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=diatoms+algae&btnG=Google+Search&aq=0&oq=diatoms)

[MattK]

How long has the tank been up and running?

[JKLUSAF]

alge.......

[ErikH]

It's diatomatic algae and occurs in all new aquariums for the most part. It will die off naturally, so don't worry about it. :)

[corkyGramma]

looks like the first step of an algae cycle...

[uriah]

what temp is the tank?
what inverts do you have in the tank (clean up crew)?
lighting cycle?
water perameters?
livestock/ feeding?
filtration?

you left out all the details...

[dmweise]

Definitely looks like diatom algae. If you don't have any fish that eat invertebrates I recommend a horseshoe crab or two. I have two in my 45 gallon tank and rarely see diatom anymore.

[wkada]

Agree with above regarding diatom algae. I've found that big turbo snails do a great job cleaning things up rapidly, assuming you don't mind them knocking over all you frags that aren't cemented down.

[jpond83]

happens to tanks when they are cycling

[hannahh78238]

Do huma humas generally eat turbo snails? I'm having the same algea problem, but dont know if my trigger would eat them or not.