plz help my substrate is turning brown... need input ASAP

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Jonathan G.

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Jan 4, 2005
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Location
Toledo, OH
the past two weeks my tank has been battling some brown algea type stuff on my substrate and i dont know what exactly it is or how to get rid of it all. here's the schpeel so we get the facts right. i have a 75gAGA with a 150g rated wet/dry filter with a mag7 as my return, 2 maxi jet 900's, a penguin 330 to help remove surface slime, about 40lbs live rock and a skimmer. Now i have recently built my own hood for my PC retrofit from ahsupply, about 3 weeks ago, and until then everything was good but now after i have my lights on this brown algea type stuff has been taking over my substrate. i set up my tank in febuary and have plenty of snails and have some hermits but plan to add more, also have 1 emerald mythrax and 1 red mythrax crab. as for fish i have two baby O. clowns, a lawnmower blenny, and a 6 line wrasse. i had a rainford goby, court jester, but he died from unknown reasons.

now at first the algea was just in one spot and i thought it might have been from low flow but it slowly progressed to the other side of my tank and quickly took it over, and it hasn't grown on my live rock at all. i did a quick 15g water change and did so again a day later. i vacuumed all troubled spots and also cleaned out my overflow and my powerheads as it was in there too. i thought i had gotten rid of it after the two water changes and leaving my lights off for a few days but here i am after two days of having my lights on and its starting to grow again. also after it started to build up before i did the two water changes i noticed little air bubbles on the top of it forming, i dont know if this is a sign of diatoms or cyano or just algea but it is bugging me. sorry for the long thread but TYIA to any suggestions or advice to handle this
 
yes i plan on adding about 60lbs more of live and base rock. and as for the algea it was first kinda powdery but after i let it build up it darker and thick and kinda looked slimy but when i vacuumed it up it broke up into tiny particles like dust. also after i let it build up before i did two qiuck water changes there were tiny air bubbles forming on top of it.
 
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