lots brown algae? help pleasr

[Jereli]

my tank has been up since feb this year..its a 60 gallon and i was having problems keeping my bacteria alive becasue i didnt no use my aquarium light very much..so i bought a new one 130 watts and my local fish store said the problem was that i couldnt keep my bacteria alive and to keep the light on for few hours a day. so i have been leaving my lights on for about 5-6 hours a day for about 3 weeks now...ever since i been turning my lights on there has been alot of brown algae all over the sand and my live rock have turned really dark brown/gold looking. i am assuming this is not good..can some one help?

 

[HN1]

The algae is probably diatoms and completely normal. The good news is that they will generally go away on their own as the silicates are depleted. The bad news is that your local fish store sucks. Lighting has absolutely nothing to do with beneficial bacterial growth in an aquarium.

 

[Jereli]

yes i just looked it up and thats exactly what it is. is there anything i can do to control that or how would i clean that off the sand bed..

 

[pat8you]

It is normal go get a bloom in new tanks. Many people even get more then one in the first several months. Clean up crew should take care of it for the most part. Do your best to lower the nutrients in your system. Nitrates/Phosphates

 

[Jimbo7]

you can blow them off most surfaces as well, best to do right before a water change to try and suck some of the crap out.

 

[rive1404]

I always experienced bad algae blooms months after starting up some of my tanks. I just syphoned it off the sand bed when I did water changes and left the lights off.