algae growing on substrate

hey i have recently noticed that the live sand in my aquarium is begining to get all scummy...other than a vaccum and cleaner crew what can i do to keep it nice and clean? i have had algae breakouts before but this is almost covering my substrate and seems to only be breaking out on my substrate, i already have a sufficient cleaner crew with 5 blue legged hermits, 1 haloween hermit, 5 common hermits, 10 astrea snails, 10 turbo,10 cerith, 5 trocus ,2 cleaner shrimp, 1 large banded brittle star

what do you think?

lighting 4 x 54W t5 2-10000k 2-actinic
55G

 

How long has the system been set up, what do you have for circulation, inhabitants, how much live rock, is it a deep sand bed or decorative sand bed, and what do you use for water? Do you have a sump and refugium, macroalgaes, skimmer ?

 

i have a foxface, 2 mandrin gobys, 2 percula clowns, 1 yellow wrasse, 1 damsel. My tank has been set up for just over a year, 50lbs LR, deep sand bed, use only RO water, i have no sump/refugium. have a aqua C skimmer, i believe sufficient water circulation (2 Korolla 1500 powerheads)

 

you might not have enough flow at the bottom of tank over the sand and thats why its growing on the bottom also what colors are these alga

 

it's a jumble of color....mostly yellowish brown, but some red aswell

 

how old are your bulbs? old bulbs can lead to algae. it sounds like you may have some cyano or red slime. nothing to worry about but yes very annoying. make sure you dont have any dead spots (no flow) because that makes it very easy for algae to grow. i would also look into a fuge. good luck

 

the lights and fixture are only 2 months old, but i think i have a dead spot right smack dab in the middle of my tank and that seems to be where the problem is most noticible. the only thing is everytime i play with the powerheads my large magnifica anemone goes for a stroll and levels the place. another pesky issue i'm fighting with....can't get the anemone to move off the glass, stays right on the top edge and walks the perimeter??

 

one more quick question... now with all the algae growing on my glass, when i scrape it with a razorblade it gets loose in my tank. Is this adding to my problem and the spreading the algae? my snails are doing their best at controlling it on the glass but not cleaning it very well... this thicker stuff just gets snail tracks through it

 

Have you ever tested for phosphates and silicates? Do you ever run Phosban or a similar GFO product to reduce/remove levels?

 

never tested for silicates, but i do test for phosphates...I use SWC brand Phos B gone. I am using the API test kit for phosphate, and found it difficult tell what result i am getting because the color change is so close to each other from 0ppm to 0.5ppm.