What's up with the brown algea

[reefbeard]

Did you have any better results after changing from seachem phosgard?

It helped a great deal as I was running without RO water at the time. It can leach phosphate back into the water if not changed out regularly but worth it imo. It was actually Kent Phosphate Sponge that I used and it worked but I would recommend an iron based binding media like Rowaphos.

 

[Wh00pS32]

It helped a great deal as I was running without RO water at the time. It can leach phosphate back into the water if not changed out regularly but worth it imo.

Are you sure, Seachem claim that phosphate is locked in and cannot be re-released back into the water. You would see phosphates climb once the product is depleted as it no longer doing it's job but i don't think it's the Phosguard releasing it.

 

[reefbeard]

Are you sure, Seachem claim that phosphate is locked in and cannot be re-released back into the water. You would see phosphates climb once the product is depleted as it no longer doing it's job but i don't think it's the Phosguard releasing it.

You are right, it was Kent Marine Phosphate Sponge that I was using back then. Directions were to replace media every 8hrs - 2 days to reduce the chance of phosphate leaching back into the tank.
Phosgaurd has been shown to leach aluminum into seawater but that is another discussion.

 

[20 gallon nano]

Okay so I purchases a ro-di system today, I will see what results I get from it. I will do a fifty percent water change tommorow with rodi water, I'm hoping for a difrence of water and life quality in the aquarium since I was using tap water in the past.

 

[20 gallon nano]

After getting a rodi filter and starting using only rodi water for everything the brown algea is finally going away. Tap water must of been my problem.

 

[Breakthecycle2]

It's not diatoms, it's cyano by the looks of it. You have several things going wrong here. One your nitrates and phosphates are probably too high. You need to run some kind of carbon source. The biggest issue you have us the tap water. It's adding nutrients to your water.

 

[20 gallon nano]

It's not diatoms, it's cyano by the looks of it. You have several things going wrong here. One your nitrates and phosphates are probably too high. You need to run some kind of carbon source. The biggest issue you have us the tap water. It's adding nutrients to your water.

Thanks for the advise. As I mentioned in my last post I did switch to rodi water. I purchached myself a system. Most of my algea have gone away but there is still some left on the sand bed. I have installed a carbon reactor to try to get more of the bad nutriants out of the water. My water phosphates seem to be very low but not at zero yet.