brown rust like powder

[digitalsteve]

hey huys , its been about 4days since my crash and i have noticed a brown almost rust like layer appearing on my sand bed and live rock , is this cyano again? or am i lucky and this is some new form of demon?

[Willow]

maybe diatoms?

[digitalsteve]

if they are diatoms, do i get rid of them and if so , how?

[Murminator]

What exactly is cyano???
Can you see it?
What does it look like?

[Willow]

cyano is a bacteria that looks like a red slime. sometimes incorrectly called red slime algae. diatoms are an algae that your tank goes thru when it first cycles. it should pass in awhile, you must be sparking some phosphates or high nitrates? do you have a proper sized cleanup crew?

[Murminator]

Sorry to highjack this...
Cyano is that the purpley stuff on my glass below the sandbed? or this that something different?

[Willow]

cyano will stick to everything.

[Bob I]

Originally Posted by Murminator

What exactly is cyano???
Can you see it?
What does it look like?

There have been thousands of posts about Cyano. It is probably the favorite subject. Everybody claims to know something about it. Do a search in this , or any forum on Cyano, or Cyanobacter, or slime algae, and you will get lots of info.

[digitalsteve]

so the brown stuff could be a cycle hey.... hmm i will up my cleaning crew and toss in some macro and see f i can get those extra nutrients out of the water

[Rikko]

Cyano and diatoms can be pretty persistent, too. Some folks with established tanks go absolutely insane scourging the surrounding area if a little bit starts to appear on their sand bed. You can usually discourage it with water movement (in addition to good water quality, of course). I tend to feed more than I should and am running skimmerless and rarely have more than a tiny spot of cyano at a given time. I attribute the control solely to my surge and the good current that the entire tank gets once a minute.