Please Help algea?

T

thumper1mkc

Reefing newb
I have a 72 gallon bowfront aquarium that i bought off a guy on Craigslist. The guy had sold all the fish and had been running his pump with live rock in the tank for a year with no water tests or cleaning.
When i got the tank i cleaned (as best as i could) the sand and the tank and cycled the water thru the filter untill the sand was white and the water was clear. After confirming my water levels were good i purchased some live rock and put in the tank. After a month i added fish.
My set up is this:
72 Gallon bow front
Fluval 404 filter
Hang on back protein skimmer
1 Koralia Evolution Power head (750 GPH flow rate)
(lights i'm not sure of...2 bright lights and one blue in same housing)
1 single bulb blue light
3 inches of sand
60 pounds of rock
2 sand sifting starfish
1 serpent starfish
few snails
hermit crab
1 emporer angel
1 yellow tang
1 coral beauty
1 domino damsel

Since setting up i am battling a brown colored algea and can't find a way to get rid of it or if my set up is incorrect. I don't have any Corals or anything just live rock and fish. Would love to have corals etc.. but i'm to new to the salt water aquariums to chance it especially now since i can't figure out what this is and how to cure it. Please help if you can identify this mess and help me to get my tank back. If it's my set up then i will change it. I want to do this right and larn how to get my tank as beautiful as some i have seen on here.
 

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Looks like diatoms to me. Nerite snails made quick work of the diatoms I had. Also, you might want to think about doing a couple small water changes.
 
JMl32788
I have done few water changes already and have been siphoning the sand every other day to try and rid the tank of this. After a couple of days it seems to return. How many snails would you recommend for a 72 gallon tank?
 
These are just opinions, but, I would get rid of the 2 sand sifting starfish and get a solid clean up crew with a variety of hermits, snails and even throw in a good number of pods.

Your tank is too small for the Yellow Tang and the Emperor Angel. Minimum tank size for an Emperor is 220ish gallons. Minimum for a Yellow Tang is 100 gallons. You can take them back to your local fish store and trade them for a clean up crew perhaps.
 
Most people will tell you 1 snail per 1.5 gallons. If you are keeping up with the water changes then you might want to do a lights out for a few days and at the end of the lights out do a 25% or so water change. I don't know how long your lights are on for but I don't keep mine of for longer than 8 hours. During the lights out if your tank is by a window or in direct sunlight you can put a towel over your tank. Keep siphoning off the as much as you can during your water changes.

Pods= Copepods. In short, they are basically underwater bugs. They are a food source for your fish and also help break down waste in your tank.
 
That is diatoms. Common in a new tank.
They use the silicates in the water to build their shells. Thats the brown your seeing.
Once the silicates are used up, the diatoms will go away.
 
Let me tell you what I did and what helped beautifully... I just let them grow! I didn`t change any light or whatever... The diatoms will eat all the nutrients are too much and then go away...Simple as that.. If You will keep siphoning them out it will take a lot longer for them to go away...Don`t touch them for two weeks and they will be gone in the third week
 
Id get online and buy phosguard, it will remove silicates ftom your water. Until you do that or buy an ro filter your fighting a loosing battle
 

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