Sand/CC turning brown.

[MattP725]

I have a dead coral skeleton, CC, and sand (as well as a bit of the tank glass) all coming up with a brownish tint. I would assume this is some form of algae... Is this preventable? Do I even want to prevent this? I just got 30# of LR a few weeks ago and I bought a bag of life sand a week or so prior to this (ok not real live sand but the kind you get with supposive water/bacteria mixed in from the LFS). Currently I don't have any real good inverts to do a good cleanup job. I haven't been having the best of luck with life so I am holding off for a bit. I only have my Trigger and whatever I see with my rock which I believe was a tiny crab and some featherdusters. There was a snail or two but I don't see them anymore... Anyways back to the point. Should I try to vac the gravel to remove this stuff or just let it be? My white skeleton coral is now brown. Not a real big deal because it will be removed as I get more LR and hopefully some frags when my lighting allows.

 

[indy]

If the tank is a new setup, brown algae is just part of the maturation process. You didn't post your water params or equipment, but you're probably high in nitrate and phosphate, especially since you're usinc cc. Scrub the glass, clean your CC and boil the skeleton (will turn bright green, pretty cool).

 

[klam]

What you got is a diatom bloom going. Like indy stated it is something that all new tanks go through in the earlier stages. Diatoms will usually burn themselves out in a month or so.