Problem with brown algae

A

aentrop

What is your calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium at?

also what type of lights and how old are the bulbs?
From my experience it sounds like your bulbs are old.
 
I'd also look at phosphates.

But you need to know what the water quality of your R/O DI filter as well. It doesn't really do much good to do a water change is you are just adding more crap to your tank...when you are fighting an algae problem.
 
Replacing the filters merely protects the membrane from damage. It traps particulates and metals, and the carbons absorb chlorine that would otherwise eat at the membrane. You do want to get a TDS meter to see, but odds are your RO/DI is helping far more than using tap water.

What corals do you have in your tank? Perhaps you just need to really clean your tank. I tend to feed too much, so I'm always having to scrape the brown film off the glass. I dose vodka, which may be part of it too.

Do you have any critters to keep the sand stirred?

Testing PO4 is important, as we need to know what that to be more helpful.
 
You can buy them online.

Glad to hear you are getting your water tested at the LFS.

Nassarius snails, tiny hermit crabs, cucumbers - all of these are good for the sand.

You don't have much SPS. It might be possible for you to do the "Three Days of Darkness" although that is usually done to control cyano bacteria. There's a great thread about that on Reef Central.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1078532
 
Anything under 10 TDS is acceptable. And thus, your membrane is fine. You probably need to start thinking about replacing the DI resin, if your RO system has a DI section.

The brown film - can we see pictures of it please? Diatoms are a food source for bacteria.
 
@acat1976 wrote:
Ron said:
Did you change the MH bulb at all, are the vho's old?? I know when I switch between 10K and 12K MH bulb's I get a diatom outbreak for a week or so, and these bulb's are all relatively new. Same happened to me when I went from VHO to actinic but it cleared right up in no time. Once again these bulb's were all new.

Cheers,
Click to expand...
 
@acat1976 wrote:
I did replace the resin 3 days ago said:
The resin polishes off the rest of the TDS to get the water to 0. That isn't the problem.
Click to expand...
 
Have you considered turning off the lights and feeding less for a bit?

Have you added anything yet, such as some live sand from another tank, clean up crew critters as recommended, stirred the sand by hand, scooped or siphoned out some of the brown?

There is no 'cure' for this necessarily. It is a combination of many things.
 
I just went throw a bout with this same algae in my 180, and won. It took about 100 astra snails and going no lights completely dark for 3 days at a time every other week. The corals did not mind it , so even seems to like it , they liked it more then the algae... Good luck .. George Orndorff
 
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