Brown Algae - diatoms

[alton]

Yep what Gold Corals said, it is called new tank syndrome, cut your lighting times back a little and ride the brown wave. After a month or so everything will clear itself out. Just keep doing water changes.

[AustinReefClub]

Appreciate all the input, and yes there are tons of variables in this equation so I will start controlling those to locate the cause.

That said, when I got home last night the tank looked much better. Rather than the full bloom I was expecting the snails seem to have cleaned up quite a bit of the mess. They had cut huge swaths across the glass and the sand surface looked much cleaner. When I googled brown algae and diatoms everything had pretty much indicated the problem would get rapidly get worse. Luckily not the case here, but serves as a good slow down warning.