sand cleaner suggestions
 

i have 9 blue leg hermits, scarlet hermit, 5 turbo snails, and 8 other assorted snails, a emerald crab and a pepermint shrimp, and a tiger cuecumber. i'm using tap water(probably part of the problem) which is all i can afford right now. water has no ammonia and nitrites, nitrate is about 5-10.
it's the red algae on the sand that i want to get rid of, the rock has some hair algae but the crabs are working on that. some of the hermits are cleaning the sand a bit but not faster than the algae can grow. i got 2 powerheads and turn about 20 times the water. so what can i do until i get a ro/di unit to reduce the red algae?

post
 

How old is your tank? Sounds like Cyano and if that is the case this is what I did.

1. syphoned out as much as I could
2. got a better skimmer and skimmed the crap out
3. played the waiting game

Same opinion, very likely Cyano. Also try a phosphate remover - Phosguard or ROWAphos, and also add Poly Filters.

increase your flow to the areas you notice it growing, but overall you want to keep your tank free from "dead spots" this was a big problem with me, i had dead spots and cyano showed up daily.

skim on the wettest setting for a while, just to help things along as much as you can. siphon it out whenver you see it.. bla bla bla ... good luck

(cyano is also a nuisance algae commonly seen when the tank is first setup, it usually goes away in time, but you can help it along)

I was in the same boat. Couldn't afford an RO system. I've been using the Britta filters with good results. They definatly don't take the place of an RO system but they helped me with algea.