So I added about 7 lbs. of live rock to my aquarium. There was no rock in there previously because I am just starting this aquarium. My subrate is araganite crushed coral (sand size) and about a week later I have brown stuff every where :-? I mean on the rock, on my substrate and my filter intake. I was told that it was cycling?? Is this true? How long will it be there? Also my cc is layering brown. Someone said stir it up and the filter will suck it up. WHAT THE HECK DO I DO? I got 65 lbs. of live rock coming to me in about a week that I will be adding. Will that help the brown stuff go away? I don’t have any fish yet but I do have a little gren crab who seems to be eating the brown stuff off the cc. Should I buy more clean up crew like, snails, shrimp etc.
Mmmm… not much of a post lol, but I’m gonna guess diatoms (algae)? (posted too soon)
I’d say diatoms from your tank cycling. It will slow down and die off a bit once your tank get settled. Snails and the like can take care of it once your up and rolling.
Ian is correct it is diatoms. Otherwise known as “New Tank Syndrome” I think all new tanks get it, and it looks like crap for about a week or two. You’ll get up one morning and it will all be gone and your tank will be crystal clear.
Now is probably a good time to start thinking about adding your clean up crew (CUC) snails, hermits, conch etc. You can piece meal it at a LFS or pick up a pre-designed package from one of the many online retailers and sponsors we have here.
In fact I think we have a new sponsor coming aboard that only does clean-up crews.
[quote=“MiniMomma, post:4, topic:1049”]
Hey wasn’t I told (sorry advised) not to add snails until the tank is 6 months old as some of them will probably die?
Not that I don’t have hitchhiker snails and a starfish that I discovered today in my filter sock. Not sure if he is going to make it. [/quote]
I’ll have to look for the thread you’re referring to but snails are generally one of the first things you’d add to a tank. if you were advised not to add snails until 6 months I am sorry to say you got some bad advice.
Anemones should not be added before 6 months minimum but snails as soon as the cycle is complete is fine.
Get some clean up crew in there. Diatoms in new tanks are typically fueled by sponge die off in live rock. After it calms down, they will go away, but the clean up crew will speed the removal.
BTW I am not critisizing I am just trying to learn.[/quote]
OK re-read that thread. I think the quote is that “you will be hard pressed to find a reefer that did not lose a snail in the first 6 months”
You are going to lose a few snails, it’s just a fact of life, just like over the 1st 6 months you will lose a fish - at least 1. I am not going to disagree with the way someone else runs their tank, but I personally think that if you were to add fish and not add snails for 6 months you will much more significant problems because the waste that snails eat will be allowed to accumulate and foul the water column.
You will lose a few $1-$3 snails from unstable water parameters, but if not you would lose them from hungry hermit crabs anyway.
[quote=“Gordonious”]
If you cycle your water for 6 weeks to prepare for animals and then add all your live rock at once… you really need to wait at least another month to let your tank cycle.
You can add a couple of hermit crabs, but I would steer clear of snails. I know a lot of people add snails early to eat algae, but I would be shocked if you could find a single reefer who can say they never lost a snail during there first 6 months of running an aquarium. [/quote]
This is the post. I have to say I read it the way Craig did. It does not say not too add them for 6 months just not to add them too early; add hermit crabs first. I added hermit crabs and snails first then fish and corals.
Every answer is relative to the persons personal experiences and sometime are not typed as clear as they could be. Use the info provided as a guide. That’s why you will see 5 people with different opinions on the same subject. I would not wait 6 months with an empty tank.
Uhhh?? Just consider all the brown, green and red slime, Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate with phosphate spikes, green hairs to come and any other malady to mess up your window on the sea, Just the rights of passage. it happens all the time, pretty much every time. Dosing bottled bacteria will help, as well as improving your bio filtration system, good protein skimming and makingsure there is enough oxygenations of the water too. all these things will spike and trough in waves for several months, or more… depending on how you handle them. theyare just sequential biological responses to setting up a new system of live, but slightly decaying rock, sterile sand or gravel, tank and other surfaces, and bacteerial imbalance. time and patience will settle things out. its just mother nature seeking stasis. like pulling on a suspended spring, letting it go and watching it bounce up and down until it settles to rest… equilibrium.
Just like everyone else said it is a diatom bloom and completely normal for a new tank. What I do is add about a dozen large turbo snails and they will take care of it almost overnight. I usually only keep the turbos for about 2 months until all the brown is done and then I trade them in for some smaller astreas and cerths. I also like to keep some nassarius and fighting conch snails in the tank once I add some fish. They are great at mopping up any leftover food and help keep the sand bed clean and stirred.
Oh Yeah, Queen conchs are good gravel cleaners. I bought two 3/4 inch long ones a few years ago, and now they are over 3 inches long. Long black neck like a turtle, they roam around grazing algae and crud like sheep.
I’ve got a fighting conch, awesome little guy, except I need to get another. Mine seems to go into hiding for weeks at a time and usually emerges back out with new shell growth.