New to marine tanks

[Saltlife757]

Hello all,

I am fairly new to this hobby and want to make sure I am doing everything right to keep my livestock healthy and happy.

I have 150 gallon marine tank, about 110-120 lbs of live rock, sump tank, protein skimmer, and live sand. All of that has been up and running for about 6 weeks. I've slowly started adding fish over the past couple of weeks. I started with 2 clowns, and 3 yellow tail damsels. They seemed to be very healthy, so I've added a hippo and sailfin tang. (All of the fish are 2-5 inches).

Everyone seems to be happy and eating regularly. The only problem I am having now is a brownish rusty color algae growing in a few spots on my live rock. I think it's diatoms? Does anyone have any advice with this algae?

 

[E_shaw90]

Has your tank completed the cycle? Sounds like diatoms. Give them some time and when the silicates get consumed they will go away on their own. You can limit their blood by reducing the lighting time.

 

[PfenWendt]

I don't have any fancy answer that explains why it happens or anything, but when that happened in my tank shortly after it got set up, just let it be for just shy of a week and it took care of itself.

 

[civics14]

I would agree with diatoms, did you pick yourself up some CUC? That was actually the first thing I put in my tank before fish.

 

[Saltlife757]

Thanks for the help guys. I'm guessing it's just the cycle of the tank. I have the orbit lighting. Where it has 6 hours of day light, and 4 hours of moonlight. I may adjust that back.

I did put a cuc in last week, but it only consisted of 4 snails and a gobi. I think I may need to add more turbo snails.

 

[sde1500]

yea 4 snails is very light for that size of a tank. A bunch more snails will help. Add a mix of them, turbo do well going around the rocks, and glass. Nassarius will get down into the sand and keep it clean and aerated. And maybe add a shrimp or two. They are cool looking and do good cleaning both the fish and the rock work.

 

[Saltlife757]

Thanks, that's a great idea. Do you think any of the fish would prey on the shrimp?

 

[Saltlife757]

Here's my set up