why is my rock turning brown

skype · #1 07/10/2006, 08:49 PM

why are my rocks turning brown? Am I leaving my lights on too long?
This is a new tank that has been running for over 3 weeks now.

theop · #2 07/10/2006, 08:54 PM

Diatoms. They live off of silicates and will eventually go away. They are common in new tanks and are not harmful. You don't need to do anything specific about them.

skype · #3 07/10/2006, 10:07 PM

thank you.. i love the ppl here!
How long will it take for it to go away? Should I start adding calcium so the nice purple stuff will start growing?

AquaReeferMan · #4 07/10/2006, 10:32 PM

You should add some astraea snails they kick *** at eating diatoms. It will eventually go away but you should add a clean up crew. The Coraline (nice purple stuff) will come with time, its rare to see a lot of coraline in young tanks. HTH

RobNJ · #5 07/10/2006, 10:44 PM

tap water likes to create nice brown algea

skype · #6 07/10/2006, 11:22 PM

i used ro/di water, a reading of 1-2 tds from my meter.

silversnake · #7 07/11/2006, 12:49 AM

get an rodi unit when you can.

skype · #8 07/11/2006, 12:53 AM

silversnake,
yes.. i did use rodi water. please refer to my post before yours.

marine134 · #9 07/11/2006, 03:24 AM

skype is most of your rock is dry base rock mixed with some live rock.

skype · #10 07/11/2006, 10:53 AM

All the rock came from an established tank (I got it used from a local reefer). But I had a problem with my tank, so I had to tear it down to fix it, and during that process, I had the rock out of water but was covered it up with wet newspaper.

LivinThaLyfe33 · #11 07/11/2006, 11:57 AM

just part of the cycle...nothing to worry about but picking up some turbos and a star will help with it going away...i threw an urchin in with a star and they had a grand ol' time