help brown slime takeing over my sand

[chrisinmd]

hi guys im new at this posting thing so dont beat me up to bad i have a 24 dx nano cube and its been up and running for about 3 months and 2 days ago i started getting this brown slime on my sand now it has coverd all my sand any help would be great in my back chambers i have. about a week ago i started useing kent marine nano reef 2 part buffer

chamber #1 heater and carbon
chamber #2 live rock rubble and cheato
chamber #3 chem pure

ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
ph 8.4
calcium 380

[Bogie]

check your phosphate level, and how long do you run your lights?

[Phayes]

Is it a brown brown? or a reddish brown? Could by cyanobacteria. Hard to say, but a picture would tell a thousand words . How much circulation do you have in your tank? And also, like previous poster asked, what is your phosphate level? What do you have in your tank atm? What type of lighting, etc?

[chrisinmd]

i dont have a phosphate test kit yet im going to get one tommrow i run my lights for 10 hours a day

[chrisinmd]

im moveing 300 g an hour its the stock lighting that came with the tank i dont know how to post a pic if some one can tell me i have a pic

[chrisinmd]

heres pics

[Daniel072]

possibly cyanobacteria. If you have cyano, you have phosphates getting in there. there's no point in buying a hobby test kit. They aren't sensative enough to work. Are you using ro/di water??? I would look at my water source first. If you aren't using ro/di water I would start. You can even use distilled water that you buy from the grocery store.

[inwall75]

Phayes guessed right....cyanobacteria.

Watch how much you are feeding the tank and cut down on your lighting photoperiod for a while. Make sure that when you are doing waterchanges, the water doesn't have phosphates nor Nitrates. RO/DI water is usally best.

You will never get a Nitrate reading or a Phosphate reading on a test kit if you are having a cyano bloom. They grab it out of the water so fast that it won't end up in your test kit.

[chrisinmd]

thanks guys for your help i am useing bottled water from wal mart and i will cut back on my light

[missionsix66]

Additional water flow will also help.