Water Changes

H

heyguyswaitfor

AC Members
Feb 4, 2005
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Hopefully someone will be able to put my mind to rest or help me out with my problem if it even is a problem. I have a 30 gallon tank it has been running since november.There is about 20lbs of live rock in it, 1 emerald crab, 1 pepermint shrimp, 3 blue-green chromis, and assorted hitchhikers that i have yet to identify successfully. I do a 10-20% water change every sunday with clean aged saltwater that is around the same temp and has been cycling through a 10 gallon with just a powerfilter and a media to filter out all the floaters. I vacuum the substrate and do other house keeping but after about 2 days the substrate is dirtier than when I cleaned it. It is covered with a brown looking algae or something similar to when you first start a tank and it hasn't quit cycled yet. It is not so much of a problem just an inconvenice and demoralizing to feel like my efforts are in vain. Water quality is pretty good. I have a sea clone 200 proteing skimmer, an aqua clear 300 powerfilter and a powerhead (90 gph). I feed once every day and only what can be eaten in 2 min. Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thanks,
Matt
 
I'm not terribly experienced with this,b ut you may want to do some research on phosphate levels and how they affect algae blooms. That may be your problem.
 
Brown is more likely diatoms--check the silica levels in your tapwater, and consider going with filtered water (ie, RO or RODI) for topoff and water changes.
 
I would suggest that you try removing the filter media from your Aqua Clear filter. Clean up the brown algae. Give it a week and see if it still returns quickly. Mechanical filtration can be phosphate factory in a marine aquarium.

The aquarium has no benefit of using the AquaClear, other than additional water movement. The live rock and substrate are an effective biofilter. Your protein skimmer gives all the necessary benefits of activate carbon. In other words, you have nothing to lose by giving this a shot to see if it helps.
 
just curious...could any of this maybe be corarrallene(sp) algae? I've noticed my beautiful white sand has turned more of a tan color over the past few months dottied with lots of maroon bits.
 
Particleman said:
just curious...could any of this maybe be corarrallene(sp) algae? I've noticed my beautiful white sand has turned more of a tan color over the past few months dottied with lots of maroon bits.
Click to expand...

You would notice a very distint pink color. What is being described here sounds like an undesirable brown algae.
 
Thats whats werid there isnt any algae, the sand is just sorta turned a off-white/beige color. I've never really had an algae problem thanks to the cleaning crew. The tank walls do have to be cleaned every week or so cause they get a bit of a film on them.
 
what is a good way to check my silica?
 
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