Algae on Sand-Bed, good or bad?

[chiefifd]

Anybody have an idea what kind of algae is on my sand-bed? Is it good or bad? My tank has been up and running for about 9 months, never had a real break out of any kind of algae. Zero Phosphates, zero nitrates, zero nitrites, zero ammonia. Only 2 clownfish and 2 cleaner shrimp in the 90 gallon DT.

 

[rt67ghy]

It's hard to see from the pics but if it's green micro algae in a couple of spots I'd just vacuum it out when I vacuum my sand bed and then try to increase flow in those areas.

 

[chiefifd]

It's a green algae, looks like a very thin coating on the sand bed. I did cut down flow, the sand bed was getting blown around quite a bit. I'll increase flow with the two Tunze 6105's I have in the tank and suction out the algae.

 

[downbeach]

Could be some cyano, which we used to call BGA(blue green(cyano) algae). Does it come up in a sheet like form when you siphon it out?

 

[Coralreefer1]

You can also add clean up crew inhabitants to help combat the algae issue like sea cucumbers, cerith snails and conch, just to name a few. Of course, increasing water flow, and reducing nutrient levels via water changes can help as well in lowering nitrates and phosphate levels.

 

[chiefifd]

Last week I did add a Fighting Conch and a few Nassarius snails.
I haven't measured any Phosphates or Nitrates in the water. I was stirring up the sand bed during bi-monthly water changes, but I stopped a few months ago. I think my tank was to clean, my Duncan coral which was doing very well had started to recede.
I had done a 25 gallon water change after stirring up part of the sand bed and blowing off my rock in the DT. The water got a bit cloudy, I added one cup of carbon, thats when the Duncan coral started looking poor. Since then I haven't stirred up the sand bed or blown off the rock. I also took out the sock I was using in my sump, I had been changing it every 3 days.
Now the Duncan coral is looking better. I think I'll go back to stirring up a 1/4 of the DT sand bed when I do water changes and try that.

 

[downbeach]

When I had a SSB, I used a gravel type syphon to clean the substrate and keep as much of the crap out of the water column.

 

[chiefifd]

Those are the same as I use. I haven't looked at them in awhile, I like the longer ones, I have the 10 inch now. Next order I'll be getting one or two of the longer versions.
Thanks