Tank Changing Colour

[Mat.P]

well, where do i start? i woke up this morning and my live rock has turned dark brown and some of the glass and sand too, i have a 90l reef tank still cycling its now been running for 6 days.

is this normal?

my chemicals are the same as on the post above i just checked (so same as yesterday)

 

[mike455555]

i dont know anything about reef's as im freshwater but it could be algae?

 

[Mat.P]

i suppose it could be but im used to algea being green, and does it grow that quick? wasnt there last night and now it everywhere.

 

[Xraymark]

Diatoms are brown and occur during the start of a tanks life. A pic may help.

 

[mike455555]

i know fresh water tanks get a brown algae called diatoms but iv got no clue on reef's i think other people might be able to help more

 

[Mat.P]

ok working on a picture, my equipment is oldskool so it might take a while to upload.

 

[Mat.P]

Diatoms are brown and occur during the start of a tanks life. A pic may help.

i think you may be right, i have done some googling and it seems to be a brown algea outbreak (apparently normal) also says i should get some snails etc to take care of it. but is it still to early for snails?

 

[mike455555]

id say that diatoms as well i think it clear itself up once the filters cycled it does normally with me

 

[Xraymark]

As soon as you've finished cycling, yeah get som CUC in.

 

[Mat.P]

ok thanks will do, going to my lfs saturday to review my test results over the week as nothing has really changed, even adding food the ammonia was being absorbed by the following nights test, since we took most of the material (sandbed, liverock, water) from their tank and mine was set up the day before so only a 15min gap between the changeover, lms seems to think it may be ready and wants to see the charts so far.

he runs the shop but also has huge tanks at home so i think he is pretty clued up, so will see what he says, it was his idea to set up my tank the way we did he said its the most stable way to do it because not much dies off.

 

[SaltNoob]

Hey there Mat! Check out some of the Diatoms in my tank. This was taken only a couple days ago. VERY common and a good sign for the tank showing life. The brown is perfectly normal =). I have had my tank set up for just over a couple weeks and just placed the first bit of CUC in to start munching this algae away!

-Tyler