Live Sand changing colors Helppp

[Soto413]

I really don't know what topic to put this under but hopefully some body can help me... About a month ago my live sand started to turn brown in certain areas of the tank I thought it would go away didn't think much of it now I see I was wrong, the brown spots are starting to turn green any ideas what it can be & how can I fix it?

Tank as been up about 6 months has about 80lbs LR so far & 1 star fish
Fish:
Fox face
Dwarf lionfish
Hippo tang
Clarkii clown
Zebra moray eel
& just added yesterday Green Mandarin

 

[bavass]

my first guess is that is way to small a tank for that bioload. Especially in a tank that's only 6 months old. Are you using RO/DI water?

Fox face -------minimum 70g tank
Dwarf lionfish------minimum 50g
Hippo tang------minimum 6ft tank
Zebra moray eel ------minimum 125g tank

all that added in 6 months time, was enough time to build bacterial levels to handle those fish.

 

[Soto413]

Yes I have always used RO water my tank is 75 gal so it's probably to many fish? Sorry I'm still learning everything so I get a little confused at times

 

[bavass]

RO water alone is not good enough, I would add a DI section on. RO only remove x amount and the DI finish the water off to get o TDS. That's where I would start. Also look at flow

 

[bavass]

not just to many but to large, what filtration do you have?

 

[Soto413]

Right now for filtration I just have a marine land double filter lookin into a skimmer...

 

[bavass]

yeah you have no where near enough filtration especially for animals to large for a 75g tank.

 

[Albindia]

Yeah and to answer your question- it's diatoms, algae, and probably cyano. All a result of too much bioload and waste, excess nutrients in the tank. Cut back on number of fish in the tank, add protein skimmer, add Purigen. Get the nitrates and phosphates in check, Cyphon it out and you should be good.