mrg02d
Aquarium Advice FINatic
Hello all,
I was at my LFS and mentioned I am having an issue with brown whispy/filmy algae on the sides of my tank and on some corals (YIKES I HAVE Acroporas!). The guy immediately suggested silicates. Now I am wondering where the silicates are coming from. I just thought about it and realized my sand is not aragonite sand (or at least looks nothing like it). It was sold as live reef sand. It looks like quartz sand. Very white/clear. This is no doubt silica based. Could it be leaching silicates?
Now, how do I go about controlling it? There are NO other types of algae except coralline. Not even cyano or hair algae. I have a large clump of chaeto that is growing wild, so I guess its using up the nitrates and phosphates. So I am left convinced I have silicates and that it could be from my sand. (Almost a year old now). Could also be rocks I guess, some fiji rock in there.
Should I replace my sand bed? Or should I run a huge amount of GFO? My fluval 305 has three baskets with two slots each for media. I can buy their Clearmax which is supposed to have some impact on silicates (or so they claim). Each bag says it treats 150g and my tank is only 20g, but I am running two right now and see only a mild impact on the film algae. Would It be a good idea to max out the fluval with clearmax (or some other cheaper brand of GFO)?
Thanks guys!
Matt
I was at my LFS and mentioned I am having an issue with brown whispy/filmy algae on the sides of my tank and on some corals (YIKES I HAVE Acroporas!). The guy immediately suggested silicates. Now I am wondering where the silicates are coming from. I just thought about it and realized my sand is not aragonite sand (or at least looks nothing like it). It was sold as live reef sand. It looks like quartz sand. Very white/clear. This is no doubt silica based. Could it be leaching silicates?
Now, how do I go about controlling it? There are NO other types of algae except coralline. Not even cyano or hair algae. I have a large clump of chaeto that is growing wild, so I guess its using up the nitrates and phosphates. So I am left convinced I have silicates and that it could be from my sand. (Almost a year old now). Could also be rocks I guess, some fiji rock in there.
Should I replace my sand bed? Or should I run a huge amount of GFO? My fluval 305 has three baskets with two slots each for media. I can buy their Clearmax which is supposed to have some impact on silicates (or so they claim). Each bag says it treats 150g and my tank is only 20g, but I am running two right now and see only a mild impact on the film algae. Would It be a good idea to max out the fluval with clearmax (or some other cheaper brand of GFO)?
Thanks guys!
Matt