Red algae on sand bed

[Swiftler]

I have a 55 gallon fowlr tank and last week I had an outbreak of red algae on the sand under where I feed. I scooped up what u could, did a 10 gallon water change, turned the lights down to 8 hours a day, and dripped the feeding down by half every other day. Today I noticed small patches beginning to grow again. My parameters are:
Nitrate 0
Nitrite 0
Ammonia 0-.5
pH 8.1

What else can I do to slow down the growth. I don't want it to take over my tank

Swiftler

 

[ReefPhan_Harpua]

I would keep my light cycle between 8-9 hrs daily.

 

[Hinds04]

Make sure you have good water flow in the tank nutrients settling on the bottom feeds this stuff.

 

[deepseadan]

What works good for me, is right before a water change, I take a large turkey baster and blow hard, deep into the sand to churn it up. Do it all over the sand bed and it should do the trick. Does your sand bed have air bubbles in it? You can see them through the tank glass.

 

[melosu58]

We do have a great article about it in our SW articles section.

 

[Swiftler]

There were bubbles in the sand prior to my water change this week.

 

[deepseadan]

It's not algae then. It's diatoms. Then definitely do what I said and blow deep in the sand bed and hopefully after a few water changes it will be gone. Sometimes after one. It will eventually go away on its own anyway.

 

[Hobgob]

How long has you tank been set up for your ammo kinda high IMO Id keep it below .25 but .5 isn't that bad. But ammo shouldn't be present in am establish tank unless you've just added some fish or your tank going through a mini cycle maybe. Also why is your nitrates at 0? What type of a testing kit are you using? Some are very undeniable while others you need to shake for the full minute or it's shows different results. Anyways for the "algea" I believe blowing in the sand bed will help as well and keep up the water changes.

 

[scottayy]

I had some reddish purple cyano growing. I added some water circulation and it seems to have dissappeared.

Not sure if this is what you have, but just throwing in my $0.02.