Everything turning Brown. Too much light????

[Bumzyman]

Hi all,
I'm returning to the hobby after an 11 year hiatus and I have set up a 60gal tank with about 90lbs of live rock, 2.5" of carib sea sea flor, .5" of live sand and a 1" plenum.

It has 4 36" 96w URI VHO bulbs (2 super Atinic, 1 Atinic White, 1 Aquasun).

I've been running the lights 10-12 hours per day. The tank is 2 weeks old today and it's getting covered with brown algae. Even the 6 or 7 different types of macro algae in my tank are starting to turn brown.

Amonia, Nitrite, Nitrate all at 0, CA at ~380, PH ~8.3, and SG ~1.023. Starter water was RO/DI ~5 TDS, Instant Ocean Salt. Livestock includes 2 Bumblebee Snails, 5 Cerith Snails, 5 Nassarius Snails, 2 Blue Leg Hermits, misc pods and worms. No fish yet.

I was thinking maybe I should cut back on the photoperiod or maybe picking up more clean up critters since every where they roam they seem to be doing a good job of removing the algae. Any ideas?

 

[Anonymous]

A newly setup tank is expected to go through some algae outbreaks while it's cycling. As long as you watch your parameters and keep a good skimmer running it should settle down. At this point, cutting back on the photoperiod wouldn't hurt at all, I would do it.

And of course, don't add any fish until the system has totally stabilized.

 

[ChrisRD]

What Dan said.

 

[nanocat]

I have more snails than that in a 12g. nano.

Not that they'd keep up with the natural algae blooms that seem to occur at start up anyway, but I'd think about adding quite a few more.

 

[Meloco14]

I agree with what everyone's said so far. I recently re-setup my tank in the beginning of january and still have algae blooms. The brown algae seems to be the first, then you get into different kinds of hair algae. I would definitely buy more snails. I recently got some big turbos and they clean better than any other I've used. They are big though, so you only want a couple. For smaller snails I think margarita's are pretty good. I recently got some strombus and nerites from ipsf.com but haven't decided how effective they are yet. An emerald crab or too might help once you get the hair algae too. Make sure you are skimming, make sure there is no phosphate in the water, and keep your calcium levels up. Calcium will help the coralline algae start to spread, which will limit the growth of your other algae. Don't worry, in time it will all clear up.