[criss]

It is all over. On the sand, on the rocks and it smells. I have tried just about everything. My tank has been set up for 2 years with never a problem. My green star pollops have been in for 4 days now. I stormed them to get rid of the brown algea with no luck. All my levels are good, I have metal halide lighting on for 10 hours a day. Please help. I am so frustrated. It is ugly. Can I vacuume it out? I blow the sand and catch the film with a net and get rid of it but more comes back the next day. I have so many questions, I don't know where to start. I have a 92 gallon, plenty of cleaner crews. I have read just about everything I can on cyno and still no luck. I have a wet/dry. Do I clean the balls even tho they look very very clean? i changed filter pads, i am always cleaning my skimmer. The glass is brown, the sand is brown, my rocks are brown and it smells when i disturb it. Please please help!!! Why all of a sudden do I have this horrible problem?

[dinor2]

First of all, I am so sorry to hear about your woe! I'm sure more people will add their advice and ideas but for now, this is what I would do.

First, keep that metal halide light OFF for at least one day (any other lights I would also leave off for a whole day) in your case, I'd leave all lights off for two days straight.
Metal halides are very penetrating and strong, I have read that those lights stay on only about 6 hours of the day because of their intensity so after the two dark days, I would try cutting down that halide a few hours a day.

Second, keep doing water changes during the two days the lights are off and until you see your clean up crew putting a good dent in the algae, because your nitrates and phosphates are probably high. Do you have test kits for these two water factors? If not, I'd get them, testing for phosphate will warn you before you have an algae bloom/outbreak and you can address it earlier before it takes over the tank.

If you haven't had the lights off for two days straight, while doing water changes both days (10%, I wouldn't go changing too much because of your livestock) I would do this. I had red cyano and this did the trick for it.

THings to also consider:

Are there any low flow areas or dead spots in your tank?
What kind of water are you putting in the tank? (I use ro/di water myself, dirt cheap at WalMart).
Instead of those nitrate loving bio balls, consider cheap lava rocks or live rock rubble instead.
Are there sand sifters in your tank? (I have 7 nassarius snails and they keep the sand looking like new!)

If you try this, let us know how it goes! Good luck!

[icu-travis]

hello, i am having a very similar problem and have also posted and posted some pics. please look at them and see if this is the same thing you have. may b we can help each other

[icu-travis]

woops guess u need the link huh.


Image hosting, free photo sharing & video sharing at Photobucket

[dinor2]

If you could give us water parameters and lighting schedules that will help us help you figure out where the algae is coming from. Without the info, I really am not sure what's causing it. Have you tried a 15% water change? I have some algae growth I do not want in my tank and just taking out another gallon helped slow down the growth tremendously.

Also, if what you try isn't working, you could add some cheato to your refugium or sump and it will compete the algae for the nutrients in the water. But, I'm finding this true in my dt that there is something in the water that is supplying the algae with nutrients and therefore I have to do 13-15% weekly water changes in my tank to keep it under control.

Just my .02.

[gramesy777]

my advice is this....get rid of the bio-balls and add live rock!! When I switched to live rock in my sump the algae went away in a matter of days!

[NATIVEVAMAN]

After 2 years of stability for an outbreak this major to happen something has changed.You should be able to say to yourself...."ooops I _ _ _ _ _"fill in the blank.

[dinor2]

Christine, how's the tank coming? Any change?