Help-- brown stuff on sand

[TuckerB]

I have a 29 Biocube set up for about nine months. Went on vacation neighbor fed fish and apparently more than we do as the jar is down a lot. Have done two partial water changes. The brown stuff is growing like wild. Have corals and one anemone so cannot leave the lights off. Will it go away and what can I do. Thank you for any help.

 

[TuckerB]

Have several snails, one conch, 2 clowns, Caribbean Blenny and circus goby. Ammonia is at 0

 

[chimmike]

diatoms or cyanobacteria. vacuum as much of it as you can; you need to export the nutrients. they won't go away on their own because there's nowhere for them to go.

Like matter can be neither created nor destroyed, nutrients in the system do not remove themselves, hence water changes and nutrient export. vacuum the sand/use a turkey baster or something and get as much out as you can, then do a couple partial water changes (to not overly shock the system)

 

[TuckerB]

Thank u got an ehiem vacuum and several bottles of water. How often should I do a partial water change and how often do I vacuum

 

[Reefer_Fred]

had Cyanobacteria in my tank. Doing water change weekly from doing it biweekly helped improve my tank. Still have some but slowly clearing away. I also stir my stand bed occasionally some say don't do that but it's working for me. Probably had nutrient build up from the over feeding

 

[chimmike]

Don't stir the sand bed. Vacuum the cyano and do a partial water change weekly, monitor your parameters. Chances are once you get the majority of the cyano out, and do a change, you've removed most of the excess nutrients.