alharrison
Reefing newb
I've had my 55gal reef tank up and running for about 12 weeks now. It went thru it 's cycle after about eight weeks. I added my clean up crew ,hermit crabs, turbo snails and urchins and they are doing a great job. I read on the forum that I should replace the bio balls in my wet/dry sump with live rock and cheato, which I did last weekend. I also did a 30% water change at the same time (RO/DI water). Today it looks like the tank is starting to go through another cycle. I'm getting brown Diatom algae on my sand live rock and glass. I'm not showing any water problems with nitrates phosphate or ammonia. I'm running my T5 light for the sump about eleven hours a day and tonight I am starting to cover the tank and I'm only going to run the tank lights about four hours a night to try to kill off the algae. The first time the tank cycled I had a major problem with hair algae and the only way I could control it was to cover the tank for about a week. I try to do 30% water changes once a week. Am I doing things right or is there something else I should be doing. Thanks.