brown algae on sand!!! what can i do???

[beamer]

ok well ive had the tank running for about 6months and everything was going fine until now. the whole tank is clean of algae except for some spots of brown algae growing on my sand. it looks like my sand is turning brown in some spots. its weird. i have a couple of nassarius snails, turbos, and red dwarfs but they either die or just not doing there job. i have a 55 gallon tank with about 4-5 inch sand bed. how many inverts do i need to keep that sandbed clean. im tired of taking out sand and putting it back in once its cleaned cause its too messy.

in tank:
2 turbos
4 nassarius snails
4 red dwarf

i have fish and coral but i dont think that info matters.

[Regric25]

Sounds like it could be diatom algae. I good army of snails would do you some good. I'm talking 30 or so snails at least. Get sand sifting starfish, a goby anything that's reef safe that sifts the sand. Nassarius snails will do a good job eating left over meaty bits. Turbos are good at mowing down algae on the rock and sand. This is just a clean up crew though and what you really want to so is look at the cause for the algae.

From what I gather you only have algae on the sand bed and no where else and you are taking sand out of the tank and cleaning it and putting it back it? If this is the case you might be doing more harm than good. If you are taking sand out you are disturbing the sand bed and in large quantities is not good. You are releasing nutrients that were trapped in the sand bed into the water column.

What are you cleaning the sand with? RODI? Tap water? Or are you just replacing it with new clean sand? If it's with RODI then I would say you might be causing a minor mini cycle in the tank and disturbing and silicates and nutrients that were under the sand bed and the end result is a covering of brown diatom algae just like in a new tank.

If it's cleaned in tap water I would say the reason could be from the crud in tap water in addition to the above explanation.

If you are replacing it with new sand then its from the first explanation in addition to stuff that's in the new sand (just like in a new tank).

What I would recommend is make sure you have a good CUC (clean up crew) and make sure you just let the diatom algae ride. If you do not have algae anywhere else in your tank then time will take care of whats going on. It's just that the diatoms found a food source in the area they are growing and will go away once it's consumed.

I hope this helps. Good Luck!

[beamer]

Yes that helps a lot and can you tell me what snails would be best, like that quantity of each. I'm gonna make an order but don't know how many of each to get

[BBQHILLBILLY]

ro not tap, 2 fighting conch snail, and a dragon. more fish more bacteria more ro water changes weekly until you control it. coralife 220 skimmer.

[allan]

If you get the conch, make sure you don't get the big one, think it's called a queen conch. They get up to a foot long, and are voracious eaters.

This is good in a sense, providing you don't starve it.

On the other side of the coin, if you plan on keeping a dragonette bear in mind that less detritus in your sand means a smaller population of pods for your fish.

I got one the other day and she seems to move around a lot... At the front. I've moved it to the back but for some reason she stays up front. But she does a good job, that's for sure.

http://img.tapatalk.com/6008b7b5-2d8f-0c7e.jpg

http://img.tapatalk.com/6008b7b5-2dc3-6d47.jpg

[BBQHILLBILLY]

nice pics of the conch. fyi dont put big hermit crabs in there. Allan did you get a queen conch snail?

[allan]

Yeah, did my research after I got home. That's why I knew what little I do.

This is a crabless tank. No more hermits for me.

[beamer]

I noticed that the hermits die on me a lot. I have extra shells in there so when they grow they can go into them but they don't.

[beamer]

Ok I bought a bunch of reef cleaning critters and my brown algae has not gotten any better. I'm running a canister filter doing water changes every week. What additive can I use or media can I use to fix this problem. I hate the way the sand bed looks :/

[350gt]

Get a goby!!!....... I love the little guys now, my diamond goby that I had in my nano did wonders for my 110 and he is missed in the nano...

[Mr Cob]

I'd get a sump with macro algae. I never have liked canister filters on reef tanks.

[allan]

+1 what rob said.

You know, a watched pot never boils. You will have that brown stuff until you realize you no longer have it. My whole tank was brown when I redid the rock and sand. The first time it happened I was like "What the heck is this crud?" this last time I was like "Hmm, my coffee needs a refill". It was gone before I knew it.

A diamond goby is good, especially over the dragon. Dragons take the sand and sift it at about three or four inches and leaves your rock and coral covered at about that height down. The diamond does the same thing, but they stay right over the surface of the sand so distributed sand isn't as bad.

Someone chime in... I believe that maintaining a diamond/dragon will limit the amount of pods in your overall system which could be problematic if you did want a dragonnet later.
To my own intent, I wanted a dragonnet. I got one of them physchedelic dudes the other day. I wouldn't get an engineer goby for fear that my pod pop would suffer for it.

[Kristy]

+1 on the diamond goby, best way to keep your sandbed clean. I don't think they compete for pods so much as they pick up the detritus. I'm sure they might eat the occasional pod but I never got the impression that this was their primary diet.

[allan]

eating the detritus... isn't that a foodsource for the pods? I was led to believe that was one of the largest concerns when getting a queen conch, it competes with the food source for the pods. This leaves a smaller pod population.

[Kristy]

Welllll.... we feed pretty heavily so there is plenty of detritus to go around so I've never worried about that! When I looked it up I found it says they eat other tiny plankton organisms, algae, bacteria.

[jroescher]

What about water flow? Too little flow will cause problems also.

[blupez]

We had something similar going on in our tank. We tried using Algone and it helped some. I ditched it then added a couple fighting conches and some nessarius snails but the thing that's helped the most is the diamond goby. Not only does he keep the sand looking clean but is fun to watch. This was a huge win for us.