Having some issues

Hi! As you may remember...I set up the 90 gal salt system in an assisted living facility. Just some background...90 gal w/live rock, and live sand. A wet/dry and a Coralife super skimmer. I have excellant water flow inside the tank w/2 large power heads. The tank has been up for about 4 months now. I was doing once a week 10% water changes using tap water. About a month ago I had a brown algae bloom. I was coating the sand and my gorgeous live rock. It was recomended that I try an R/O filter so I bought one for 100 smackers. It is a bare bones set up.
Ok, so I did two 15 gal water changes at once to reduce the nitrate as recomended on about.com...using the R/O water. The brown algae is all but gone, but now I have the strands of redish crap growing from the sand. I work w/all woman so you can imagine the questions and complaints I am getting. I am under a lot of pressure to make sure this tank is looking good at all times. I skim the crap off the sand and come into work the nxt day and its back again....Tim's gettin frustrated here!

 

is the reddish crap growing in patches on the sand? or is it coming off of the ground in strings..

 

strings

 

its in patches off the sand resulting in strings

 

you might have a case of cyano on your hands...you have a pic of it?

 

Yeah, that sounds like my nano. I am decreasing my light for now and it seems to be working. How is the flow? I want a number......

 

I've heard that using tap water can add silicates which can add to your algae bloom. If you do have ro/di for home I'd get your water from the grocery store's drinking water system.

 

cyano Bacteria for sure. Increase the flow in the areas where it is growing and it will eventually go away. depending on what kind of corals are in the tank you might want to consider using a cyano remover like this one Kent Marine Poly Ox Red Slime Remover or this one Blue Life Red Slime Control . But I warn you that if you have any SPS you do not want to use it.

 

flow? Are you talking about tank water turnover? I am at about 450 gal per hour. I decreased my lighting as well. I forgot to mention that. That also seemed to help along with decreasing the ammount of time that the lights are on. I do not have a pic...I think its cyno too from what I have read on about.com. So it seems to be getting better, but no gone. Anything to look for?
I forgot to ask this as well. I read that the bio balls sometimes need to be rinsed off. I looked at my filter, and the bio balls definately have debri in them. Do I mix a bucket of saltwater and use that to rinse them? Thx everyone!

 

BTW...all I have is a small clump of xenia...no other corals. 1 trigger, 1 tang, 1 blue morpho, a fusler fish (which I hate) and 3 false clowns.