brown stuff on my sand

i believe its called diatoms im not sure if so can you confirm this. sorry i dont have a pic but it does look like the pics that show up when i google diatoms on sand. is it good that im getting them my tank will be one month old tomorrow. i heard that after this recedes you get some kind of algae bloom how can i prepare for this. thank you in advance.

 

Just do your regular water changes and you should be fine. Are you using ro/di water? As for the diatoms they usually come after or during a cycle so you shouldn't worry; it'll go away eventually

 

Timing is about right, water changes and keeping your feeding under control. Get a good CUC.

 

+1 on above

I have never set up a reef tank without RO at least
and last couple of years RODI

and I have never had a tank that did not have the brown cocoa powder like diatoms
the only thing that has ever varied is the exact timing of arrival and the time in which it takes them to burn up naturally and dissapear

typically they start for me between weeks 3 and 6
and they are all gone between weeks 8 and 12

no action required, once all the silicates are used up, they go away

Steve

 

i just did my first water change yesterday about 2 1/2 gallons i did get the ro water from my lfs they sell it for 50 cents a gallon. i have 2 clowns i put in recently and my cuc consists of 6 blue legged hermits, and 1 nasarius snail i had 3 but 2 died and i removed them. i plan to get 3 nasarius snails tomorrow and a cleaner shrimp. any other ideas on anything else for my cuc? thanks

 

What sized tank?

I suggest going to ReefCleaners.org | Clean Up Crews and Macro Algae - Home and filling out their custom clean up crew for. They will contact you in a couple of days with a suggestion.

 

+1 great prices and cucs. That reminds me....

 

29 gallon standard i filled it out but cant afford to get it all at one time so im getting it slowly.

 

The same exact thing happened to me, except I was using tap water. It was my new 37g tank. I had a whole bunch of live rock and live sand in there. When I posted a thread about it, the majority said it was diatoms, and this usually happens when your tank finishes cycling. The brown stuff covered the rock, sand, and glass. It started to disappear in I want to say 2 weeks? Maybe a little bit longer? I bought some snails and hermit crabs to help clean up the mess (I later banished the crabs to the sump because they murdered a few of the snails for their shells). I also bought phosguard b/c there were significant levels of phosphate showing up on the tests. Also, I invested in a RODI system. In the long run, it is much cheaper than buying water all the time. What are your levels?

 

lol about the crabs murdering the snails. i have one snail and today i saw it hitching a ride on a hermit and they seem to keep to themselves. i had my levels checked at my lfs today and they all seemed good except for some nitrates and my salt is a bit low 1.19 i have to add a bit to raise it so im going to do it slowly and little bit at a time so i dont get a salt spike. i do plan on investing on a RO unit later down the road. i think im overfeeding to so im going to cut back on it. thanks for everyones help so far