Help Needed!!!!

[s2cissor9s]

Hi all. I just recently set up a biocube 29 gallon about a week and a half ago. I have about 20 pounds of live rock and 20 pounds of live sand, two turbo snails and a damsel and a six line wrasse which were donated to me.

My question is as of a few days ago my sand started turning a brownish color and even in some spots yellow, and now the walls are starting to turn brownish. Im not really sure whats going on.

Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Ph level: 8.0

 

[woolfe]

At a week and a half, you shouldn't have any livestock in there at all. Your tank needs to cycle. Was this aged rock and sand from whoever you got the fish from? Even if that's the case you would still have a cycle from anything that died during the move. Algae outbreaks are common in a new setup and I wouldn't worry too much about it. You should slow wayyyyyyyyy down if you want to be successful with a salt water tank. If your ammonia and nitrite are 0 my best guess is that the cycle hasn't even begun yet.........

If I were you I would get the fish out of there as the ammonia and nitrite spike will probably kill them.

 

[GreatWhiteShark]

Sounds like brown diatom algae to me. This type of algae is very common in newly set up tanks. This type of algae generally feeds off of silicates in the water from your make up water source, live rock, or sand. Have you tested for phosphates?

 

[Bennyboy515]

you need to use ro di or distilled water , you can buy a powdered substance that will kill the algae and then do a water change 2 days later

 

[Eric]

+1 woolfe

Is this going to be a reef or Fowlr? If Fowlr you don't need rodi water, if reef then yes rodi is very important.

The tank hasn't cycled if your getting brown diatom algae, it's part of the cycle so there is no need to use any chemical to remove it, it will go away on it's own as the bacteria colonizes.

Slow down and back up if you can by removing the live stock