Any idea what this is? Just grows on sand

merereef

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Tank is about 6 months old.. i had a dino outbreak about a month ago and put on uve steriliser and it disappeared.. i have now this brown type algea that just wont go away.. it only comes on when the lights are on and when lights go off it dissapears.. im still running uv, could it be cyano but brown? Thanks

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How many gallons is the tank


The most important determination on how to fix it is determined by number of gallons not the species interestingly. Number of gallons determines how easy it is to access that tank for cleaning

If the tank is accessible for cleaning that can be beaten without much issue
 
How many gallons is the tank


The most important determination on how to fix it is determined by number of gallons not the species interestingly. Number of gallons determines how easy it is to access that tank for cleaning

If the tank is accessible for cleaning that can be beaten without much issue


The tank is red sea reefer 250 so 250 litres about 65gallons if i syphon the sand it comes back worse
 
that's a brute and two lowe's paint buckets of water drain.

you can put back the drawn-off water, that solves access issues. no cost.




do the reverse, drain the water :) and make the sand this clean
I wouldn't think sand siphoning would work, I think this would work though

@Alexreefer this is the same you had man I really think so.
 
that's a brute and two lowe's paint buckets of water drain.

you can put back the drawn-off water, that solves access issues. no cost.




do the reverse, drain the water :) and make the sand this clean
I wouldn't think sand siphoning would work, I think this would work though

@Alexreefer this is the same you had man I really think so.


So do you know what this is? Are you saying only way to get rid is to take out the sand and rinse it?
 
So do you know what this is? Are you saying only way to get rid is to take out the sand and rinse it?
Rinsing is a really quick way to clean it out because it could be deep under the sandbed (I had a cyano outbreak that was an inch under my sandbed) and a rinse gets everything out.
What you have on your sand looks like dino so a rinse could speed up the solution
 
DIATOMS. SIPHON UP THE SANDBED AND REDUCE WHITE LIGHTS.
Youre not by chance using tap water, are you?
 
Rinsing is a really quick way to clean it out because it could be deep under the sandbed (I had a cyano outbreak that was an inch under my sandbed) and a rinse gets everything out.
What you have on your sand looks like dino so a rinse could speed up the solution


So should i take out my sand bed completely and then rinse?
 
Scan the work thread, it's patterns are likely outcomes for your tank for sure
 
My sand was looking the exact same way and I added a skimmer and it went away on its own, I started by using a baster and stir up the sand and did a water change and now it’s better
 
Is it brown or green? I thought my issue was brown but when I cut the blue and looked at with white turned to be red cyno and green algea.
 
So should i take out my sand bed completely and then rinse?
You dont have to. It's a quick work intensive fix. Normally they go away on their own with rodi water. If you do rinse I would recomend using rodi to rinse if you rinse with tap it might not fix it
 
DIATOMS. SIPHON UP THE SANDBED AND REDUCE WHITE LIGHTS.
Youre not by chance using tap water, are you?
Why you shoutin’?

If it’s Diatoms- wait it out. They feed on the silicates from the sand and die back naturally as the silicate stops leaching. Unless you have silicates in your water, in which case that needs addressed too. doing a DI step on your water eating I’ll call learn out silicates - mentioning the DI as you indicate you use RO water and didn’t say RODI
 
Why you shoutin’?

If it’s Diatoms- wait it out. They feed on the silicates from the sand and die back naturally as the silicate stops leaching. Unless you have silicates in your water, in which case that needs addressed too. doing a DI step on your water eating I’ll call learn out silicates - mentioning the DI as you indicate you use RO water and didn’t say RODI
LOL- Hit the caps lock by mistake and then realized- - - OOOps
 
That thread is a collection of probably a hundred works on sand. It's pages show before pics, then after. The patterns show what the likely outcome is for your tank if you do what we do in the thread

Any complete reading of the thread would mean someone can never doubt their filtration bacteria ever again, they'll be able to do sand work and never recycle, they'll never need to own an ammonia tester, and they'll be uninvaded at all times.

It's a literal roadmap to never be invaded... the type of invader won't matter they're all fixed this way if the keeper is willing. We circumvent the entire testing and identification process, because that's unhelpful when dealing with systems that are simply accessible. To factor ID and params in a cure where a tank is easily just rip cleaned is to hesitate... We never hesitate there in the thread and reefers appreciate being able to control their cycles using science vs purchases. We didn't use bottle bac, ammonia, or any param testing in a thread where five thousand dollar reef tanks had their full guts swapped out.

We know how to command reef tank compliance
 
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That thread is a collection of probably a hundred works on sand. It's pages show before pics, then after. The patterns show what the likely outcome is for your tank if you do what we do in the thread
Are you’ve suggesting he do an entire sand remove and clean for what’s could be diatoms? An organism that dies out on it’s own in a couple weeks/months once the silicate source depletes?
 

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