My sand was white, its black with algae too=(HELP

[heedicus]

ok watch out this may be a long post, but read it and give me your two cents =)

So i seems to haves algae. Its a constant problem i have had the entire time i have had my system up (50 gal december). my parameters, ammmo nitrite, phosphate, silicate, ect are at 0 and nitrates are at a little under 5. the tank is not in sunlight but i think at some point in time it must get sunlight because that has to be a contributing factor to the algae. luckily enough it will be moving next week to GFs house and wont have any sun at all. the lamps are only 2-3 months old(4 55watt pc).
I bought the tank used for $50 and started from there with CC and an emporer 400. since then i have ditch both for 45 lbs of LR and a 5 in DSB. I had problems with algae before the dsb and have problems with it after. i dont overfeed my tank, there is one damsel and one lawnmower blenny. there is one colony of polyps that were doing terrific till this last week and a condy anemone that seems to be doing fine.
yet i come home from work and my tank literally looks brown. i think its diatom algae but i am not sure. I bought a RO/DI in hopes it would help but hasnt really.
I know that tanks go through an algae bloom cycle but i never seem to go anywhere but with more algae. All critters till this last week were doing great (the polyps are the only ones struggling now). I have a cpr backpack skimmer and the lights are only on 10 hours a day. i have 2 175gph powerheads and one 275 gph powerhead so there is lots of water movement.

there are a couple wierd things in my tank though. a lot of the sand is turning black. and not just deep in the bed, all the way to the surface. it only happens on some spots but the patches are a couple inches wide and go a couple inches deep.
even if i clean of the algae off the sand every day, by the next day there is a new layer. i have a power head sweeping across the sand bed but the algae still is established.
the weird thing too is that i have another tank (20 gallon 2 months running). that i used the same sand and water with that is a bout four feet away from the big tank that has no algae problems to speak of. i know its a young tank but the big tank had already started the algae fun by 2 months.
could the tank itself had some chemical or something in it that is causeing the algae or the black sand? is there anything else anyone thinks i can do??? should i start the tank over? should i start the tank over in a new tank????? i love this hobby but this everyday problem is wearing on me.

so i have brown i think diatom algae everywhere(it looks like diatom i just cant figure out where its getting nutrients to live!),
what should i do???
thanks
tren

 

[Len]

It's difficult for us to give you answers since there are so many variables, but what I recommend is for you to do a series of large water changes with high quality seawater. 20 galllons every 2 weeks is a good rough number. Scrub as much algae off as possible right before your water changes.

I'd also introduce organisms that will compete for nutrients with the problem algae. Macroalgae should serve well for this purpose.

The problem with test kits is there are not accurately indicative of total system nutrients that gets recycled within the tank. Nutrients that are assimiliated into existing organisms, for example, will give you a misleading low reading of (excessive) nutrients.

At about 6 months old, algae blooms are a common problem. These blooms usually subside when the tank matures more (upwards of 18 months isn't unheard of). I understand your frustration, but it's the nature of any new ecosystem to be unstable. Some reach equalibrium faster then others; yours, apparently, is a late bloomer (as I can see nothing wrong with your methodologies).

 

[Pasquale]

I had a lot of brown aglae too. Try cutting your lights down for a week to 7 hours. I did that and in a week time I had no more algae along with alot of water changes. How is your skimmer working?

 

[-JB]

What do you have in the tank too eat the algae and turn over your sand bed? I didn't see any mention of a cleanup crew.

 

[heedicus]

thanks everyone for their replies.
i do have a cleanup crew- a bunch of astrea snails, a couple bumble bees, and a conch. I will try to cut down my lighting. will that be ok for my anemone? are all my fish and corals safe? the algae makes the tank look horrendous but they all pretty much seem to be doing fine, the polyps are looking better today.
I will plop in some culpera and see how it goes.
any thing else? why is the sand black in spots???
thanks
tren

 

[-JB]

Your tank is still new, so lots of the algae might just be normal. Is the sand black or is very dark red or green? The fact that it keep reappearing leads me to believe it is probably cynobacteria. To cut down on algae throughout the tank, I would get some other snails, astrias are fine but I find they don't eat do a good job on the larger algae's like hair and such. I found margarita and Trochus snails are great. The bumblebee snails are not algae eaters so they won't help your algae problem. For the DSB you want things that will also help turn over the sand bed. Get some nassarius snails too, they will stay on the sand bed and help turn it over, keeping it clean, and also eat leftover food that lands on the sand bed.

HTH

 

[heedicus]

its definetally black,
It doesnt really go away but spreads sometimes. but that is a whole different story than the algae, the brown algae is only on the top of the sand.
thanks
tren

 

[Anonymous]

I would suggest a larger skimmer or just a better one. IMO bakpaks do not remove enough nutrients for anything over 29 gallons. As far as a 7 hour photoperiod goes,if you decide to try it,feed your condy. She will not mind the shorter photoperiod.