Help!!!! Brown algae is driving me nuts!

It's likely to be already on your rocks if you look carefully.
The sand is ideal for diatoms since it contains silicates.
For cyanobacteria it's lack of flow and accumulation of organics that makes it bloom.
Dynoflagellates and the above are easiest to see on the white sandbed, but can be in other places as well.

If you like sand in your tank I'd use other measures for the problem than moving it.
Suck up the gunk in your sand and see how it goes.
 
It's likely to be already on your rocks if you look carefully.
The sand is ideal for diatoms since it contains silicates.
For cyanobacteria it's lack of flow and accumulation of organics that makes it bloom.
Dynoflagellates and the above are easiest to see on the white sandbed, but can be in other places as well.

If you like sand in your tank I'd use other measures for the problem than moving it.
Suck up the gunk in your sand and see how it goes.

Will do DNA; thanks again.

BN.
 
Perhaps the deep sand bed is accumulating phosphorus, I've read that it's important to frequently vacuum deep into the sand to prevent nutrients from building up. A reactor sounds like a good way to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus, but so are fuges and more frequent water changes. I such a beginner that I don't have a tank yet (just researching for now) but everything I've read says that the solution to pollution is dilution. Could you do once a week water changes?
 
Perhaps the deep sand bed is accumulating phosphorus, I've read that it's important to frequently vacuum deep into the sand to prevent nutrients from building up. A reactor sounds like a good way to reduce nitrogen and phosphorus, but so are fuges and more frequent water changes. I such a beginner that I don't have a tank yet (just researching for now) but everything I've read says that the solution to pollution is dilution. Could you do once a week water changes?

The DSB shouldn't be accumulating PO4, although rock (and therefore sand) is a source of PO4.

Yes you can, I would recommend doing do weekly 20% changes. Just match the temp and gravity. If you don't have a second heater, pull the heater out of your tank and stick it into the water-to-be-added.

IMO what you have looks like run of the mill cyanobacteria and possibly diatoms. It can be treated with H2O2 by squirting it onto affected area. I wouldn't use it unless you can test ORP. A conch could also be very useful.

A word about GFO (and Iron). Fe is a limiting factor of growth in the ocean and more so than to some organisms than PO4.
A table trascribed from my bio textbook:
"Nutrient Enrichment for Sargasso Sea Samples
Nutrients added to experiment culture....... uptake of 14C by cultures
None (Control) ...... 1.00
Nitrogen(N) + phosphorus(P) ...... 1.10
N + P + Metals (excluding iron) ...... 1.08
N + P + Metals (including iron) ...... 12.90
N + P + Iron ...... 12.00
14C (carbon 14) is a measure of primary production" (ie growth)

Not to say that Phosphates should be ignored or that GFO is 'bad', but that phosphates are almost always the scapegoat.
 
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