Live Rock

[brick-brothers]

Hey guys, I just setup my 120g reef tank. My live rocks been out of water for about 4/5 days. Now that i have everything running again, I notice that i have dark brown stuff growing on the rocks and top layer of the sand. I wanted to know if that was a good or bad thing. Theres no fish or inverts in my tank at the moment. What should I do?

 

[masterswimmer]

Hey Manny, welcome to MR.

Keeping the LR out of water for 4/5 days killed a lot of life that was on them. What most likely is happening is, the dead organisms on the rock are beginning to decompose and a cycle is occurring. The cycle is causing a spike in nitrates. Nitrates fuel algae.

If you're running a sump/skimmer, hopefully you have a filter sock in the sump. Take a powerhead or turkey baster and blow the brown algae off the rock and let your filter sock catch all the algae that you put 'into suspension'.

Hope this helps,
Russ

 

[brick-brothers]

Hey thanks. I do have an refugium with a tunze skimmer running. Also have a sock hook on the water tube to catch the algea.