Help With Brown Algae

I have a tank that is a few years old and I cannot get rid of this brown stuff all over my rocks and sand bed. I do have a phos reactor and run carbon. All test are great and fish and all corals are fine and growing. I have never change the sand and do water changes every other week. I also use a RO/DI for all water. Far as the carbon I always have it going. Maybe this could be a answer? Im at a lost and don't know what else it could be.
One more thing I do use vitamins once a week and do run a protien skimmer. My top off water is just RO/DI water no salt. Hope this cover what everyone needs to know.

Thanks For Any Help

 

Have you put anything new in the tank that is plastic??? I added a Stealth heater in my Pico and in my 150g this past winter. I am just now coming out of brown sand mode. Plastic contains silicates, which fuels Diatom or Brown algae.

 

2 things occur to me based on your signature

PC lighting, how old are the lamps? as spectrum shifts as the lamps age can encourage brown algaes

power heads x 2 in a 55 - what size are they ? as it may be a flow issue , maybe stuff is settling and not being carried to your overflow so you have localised nutrient issues

Steve

 

I need to up date that I now have 4 40watt t-12 and 2 65watt pc. All lights are new and have not added nothing new. The power heads are about 300gph.

 

What media do you run in the phos reactor and how often do you change it?

 

That gives you about 10x turnover in your tank. You really want to bump that up significantly, as you probably have a lot of dead areas in your tank. Another thing, have you tested for TDS in your RO/DI water? Considering your tank is a couple years old, and assuming you purchased the RO/DI system at that time, that would mean your RO/DI filtration cartridges are at the end of their life expectancy.

 

The RO/DI filters are about 7 months old and TDS shows 20. I keep carbon in my reactor and change it about every 6 weeks and PHOS Guard use about once a month.
I have read that pellet food is a no no and that I should drain off the water when feeding frozen food. I did not know this. So could this be one of the problems? And like Tigermike74 said need more flow.

 

ever try a uv sterelizer may give it a shot

 

Its being thought about. LOL