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Brown Algae - how to get rid of it?

SoulFish

SoulFish

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I recently have increased the amount of time my lights are on to get more coral growth, and at the same time I also started dosing liquid amino acids. So now I'm getting this brown coating on my sand bed occuring. I can clean it up and it'll come back the next day. I have a GFO reactor on the tank and my PO4 tests at 0. Is there anything I can do to to get rid of this stuff other than turning my lights off?

Pic below
yasha.jpg
 
Looks like diatoms (phytoplankton)... probably due to a build up of silica in your system. GFO reactors and GAC do not do anything for it. Water changes are the best option. Silica usually is the limiting nutrient.
 
How old is your tank?
It seems like most tanks go through a cycle that has this type of outbreak.
Mine was like 6-9 months and I got rid of it by turning off my lights for 3 days and adding GFO.
Increased flow will help also.
 
well that stuff is better than dino algae thats for sure, I am battling that right now with a high ph and alk, and turned off the lights for 2 days so far, hope it is gone soon...

robert - eastbayreefer2010
 
did a water change last night, seemed to help. I will add a bit more flow, but cant add too much it'll irritate the corals on the sand. The tank seems to have stabilized, it's about 8 months old. I' been testing regularly and adding mag when necessary. All the other parameters seem fine, alk sometimes is low, but when it is I dose it and it corrects it quickly.

So gonna try more flow and do 2 water 5-10% water changes this week. The corals seem to love the water changes :)
 
diatoms can flourish in high flow :( It brings the nutrients to them even more so.
 
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