Tank is brown. Now what?

[KingSpaded]

so started my 180 gallon on fathers day. (June 17th) tank fully cycled had my first bloom of diatom and started adding cuc. Diatom did it’s thing and left. Week later added pj cardinal and blue chromis. Week later added 2 clown fish and birds nest. Week later another cardinal and hammer and Pom Pom xenia. Week later watchman and pistol with a small dragon eye zoa. Watchman and pistol started doing there thing and woke up one morning and bam tank is all brown. Sand and rocks. I started to think it was the sand getting moved releasing silicate making diatom come back. So the past week I have been moving sand and stirring it up trying to get it all out. Tried cleaning some rocks but it returns in a few days. My question to your guys is am I going the right thing?

180 gallon 75 sump
Octopus 202-s skimmer
3 aquamars led blue 50% and white 30%
Two jebao 15 wave makers running 60%
Two jebao 10k pumps 1 return 1 closed loop
Roughly 7500gph movement
Adding 1tsp Kalk per gallon to my ATO
Carbon and gfo running

10 or so blue leg hermits
10 or so turbo snails
2 cleaner shrimp
20 dwarf ceriths
10 Florida ceriths
10 nerites
10 emerald crabs (most small)

35ppt
490 calc (little high for me)
9 kh
1520 mag (high for me)
8.2 ph
78 degrees
5 nitrates
0 ammonia
0 nitrites
0 phosphate
0 silicate (I highly doubt this)

Red Sea test kits but silicate is seachem

Let me know

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

How are you running the gfo?
Reactor?
I would add dr tims one and only.

And it’s quite likely just an ulgly phase. Ride it out.

 

[KingSpaded]

Yes BRS dual reactor. Also I forgot to add I only use RODI and it’s still producing 0 tds. House is on a well and incoming is 7 tds but still run all water through 4 stage rodi filter.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I don’t see much on your sand bed that says diatoms.

Can you get a clearer view (a close up ) of the rocks to see the algae?

My feeling is still ugly phase. And likely just a passive aggressive way the tank is asking for more snails.

 

[KingSpaded]

I stirred the sand bed and it hasn’t came back yet fully. Here is your pic you wanted.
Looks like diatom and some HA going on to me.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I would wager if you feel it , it’s slimey. Diatoms are generally kinda dusty feeling. (Silicat skeleton)
But yea. You need more snails.

 

[KingSpaded]

So what you think it is? I hermit really enjoy trying on snails shells. Most of them stay up on top of tank to hide. Maybe I’ll move hermits to refugium and pick up a good chunk of snails. Need to figure out what it is so I can get correct snails.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

So what you think it is? I hermit really enjoy trying on snails shells. Most of them stay up on top of tank to hide. Maybe I’ll move hermits to refugium and pick up a good chunk of snails. Need to figure out what it is so I can get correct snails.

I would suggest turbans, turbos , and asteria . All of them are general omnivores.

 

[KingSpaded]

Please help with ID of this stuff. Any ideas on what to do. I clean the tank with a turkey blaster and the stuff came right off. Installed sock filter and changed it about every hr. Also did 10% water change. Tomorrow when sock filters are dry I’ll be blasting the tank again and doing a 25% water change. Hopefully I can get this stuff out.