Brown algie outbreaks

[Bremenguppie]

I'm fairly new to salt water. I've had a 50 gal tank in past. I now have a 30 gal and I'm fighting with brown algie outbreaks. I can clean the tank and sand and have it looking pretty nice and then after about a week I start to get brown algie back. I have led lighting, turbo snails, blue leg crab, and a conck snail. The lighting is on a timer for 8hrs. I just changed it to 5hrs. How do you stop the brown algie outbreaks. Is there something I can add to stop it or does it just run its coarse and die out on it's own. My nitrates and ammonia levels have been 0. Thanks for any advise. Chris

 

[Drewbe147]

If its diatoms (rustic/brown/tan) on dry rock and sand bed its fairly normal in a new tank. Hopefully your using RODI water and pulling 0TDS but basically diatoms use silicates in the water to grow and reproduce. Once the silicates are absorbed it will start to die off. Need more info and/or pics to help more. There’s alot of different CUC that eat diatoms but they grow rapidly until silicates are diminished. Water change with 0tds rodi water can help. You can also add a chamber to your rodi unit and put silicabuster in it to help polish the water after the DI chamber. Ultimately though diatoms will run their course and disappear. If it is indeed diatoms. Thats my guess anyway. Goodluck

 

[Bremenguppie]

Drewbe147. Yeah its brown rusty looking. Its growing on the rocks,sand and glass. What is rodi water? I use tap water and mix my own salt. I do water changes about once every two weeks but have to add about a gallon a week because of absorption. I have a 10 gallon sump underneath with a filter sock, protein skimmer, some live rock and softball size green plant. I can't think of what it's called off hand but the usual thing you have.

 

[Drewbe147]

Drewbe147. Yeah its brown rusty looking. Its growing on the rocks,sand and glass. What is rodi water? I use tap water and mix my own salt. I do water changes about once every two weeks but have to add about a gallon a week because of absorption. I have a 10 gallon sump underneath with a filter sock, protein skimmer, some live rock and softball size green plant. I can't think of what it's called off hand but the usual thing you have.

Look up a RODI unit (reverse osmosis de ionization) that cleans your water removing TDS (total dissolved solids) from your water like nitrates phosphates silicates etc. It cleans your water and strips it to it's cleanest form which is best and highly recommended for SW tank. With tap water your potentially your setting yourself up for many and frequent long battles with algae (unless you have tested and have really good water but would still recommend rodi water). If your tap water has silicates in it, which it likely does, thats food and fuel for diatoms and each water change your doing is adding more food for it. There's a ton of videos on youtube and other threads you can find about RODI. I recommend reading/watching about it. The units aren't too expensive at BRS you can get one around $135. If thats out of your price range your LFS should sell rodi water

 

[j.falk]

If you continue using tap water, you are feeding the algae. It'll be a never ending battle. I've done the exact same thing before. My first salt tank was all tap water and after cleaning the tank, the diatoms would come back within hours. It was very frustrating and the tank always looked dirty. I use RODI water now and never have anymore issues with algae or a dirty looking tank.

 

[Bremenguppie]

Excellent guys. Thank you very much. I'll look into that

 

[Bremenguppie]

So just on quick look wo doing any In depth research. Would these rodi systems be any different t then the units you can go buy at walmart, lowes etc

 

[Bremenguppie]

After watching a couple videos I got my answer about the walmart n lowes question. That would be a no

 

[Bremenguppie]

I tested my tap water and its 1020 TDs so looks like I'll be getting rodi unit

 

[Drewbe147]

Yea...your definitely going to want one lol. Otherwise you’ll battle bad algae forever

 

[qoeletd]

I tested my tap water and its 1020 TDs so looks like I'll be getting rodi unit

1020!!!!???? is very very high, wow, in Italy 1500 is the limit of a drinkable tap water, my is 140, when is over 300-400 some friends use a pre unit before the RODI unit, I try to translate it "sweetener", it reduce the limestone in the water...


Inviato dal mio iPhone utilizzando Tapatalk

 

[OffRoad322]

I have the same algae outbreak...its diatoms I guess aka new tank syndrome.

 

[Bremenguppie]

Yeah I talked to the guy in charge of the town water. He said it would be high because of everything they put into it. He guessed probably 900 but it was 1020