brown algea on my sand?

[possitive k]

i can't seem to get rid of all this brown algea that is on my sand. ive done water changes on time, but it never goes away. any ideas.

thanx....Kristian

[Scavenger]

This algae sounds like diatoms. They are part of the growing pains of new tanks. Using RO water will help, but usually these things must run their course. If you are using tap water, the battle may never end. Each time you add water, you add silicates. (Read Diatom Food )

Hope this helps, keep us posted.

[possitive k]

i'm using RO water, and the tank has been running for about 3months, will the algea just go away afert time?

[Scavenger]

Quite often diatoms will give way to cyno bacteria (purple sliime) which will in turn give way to hair algae. 3 months is within reason for the diatoms to still be going strong. How long ago did they start? Also, what is your substrate? Not playground or local sand I hope.

A couple of tips that may help are; get as much flow near the sand as possible without kicking it all over the place and resist the urge to re-auqascape or move rocks around.

[possitive k]

my sand is fine fiji sand, and i have 3 power heads at the surface, do you think i should move one down?

[vanreefer]

yes get some flow close to the substrate
another thing that may help is adding some macro algae to the tank to use up the silicates... something like cheato is not to invasive and will not go asexual and fill your tank