Crushed Coral Question

[FynFysh818]

I use crushed coral for my bed in my tank. I also have 2 turbo snails and 6 hermits.

After about a week the crushed coral starts turning brown, is that normal?

 

[Hara]

I take it that you have just set up your tank? If so, the brown stuff is probably diatoms and quite normal.

 

[FynFysh818]

yeah i just set it up like 2-3 months ago. I let it cycle with the raw shrimp...then I went aheaded and added tank cleaners to start off with....

how do i prevent diatoms? What are they?

 

[electrikat]

They're some kind of microscopic organism. They will go away on their own as your tank ages.

 

[vertex]

The amount of detritus and diatoms will depend on the rest of your setup's filtration as well. Do you have skimming, live rock, good water circulation? These will help to improve the water quality and clean things up over time. All new tanks have this problem at some stage but it should go away like others have said.