i have something wierd growing or staining my tank!

[hotpod]

ok so i got home from work today and i was admiring my beautiful african mbuna cichlid tank when i noticed under the intake tubes there was a lot of brown, rusty color on the rocks underneath it. ( i have many rocks stacked in there to create caves) and there is some very bright green...this is a smaller patch but still underneath the intakes. also it is starting to get on my plant that is in there too...(its fake) my tank just finished being cycled 2 days ago. and i just tested to make sure and here is the results... ammonia 0 nitrite 0 nitrate 10. so what should i do? i have a pictus catfish in there hoping to help with the clean up....is it algae? something leaching out of the rocks? the rocks had been used in my friends cichlid tank for 4 years....so i imagine that that is not it. also i would like to have a pleco (common) in there to help with clean up...but the last time i did that...they pecked at him while i was gone to work and when i came home...there was a eyeless finless dead carcass floating at the top...so i assume that they didnt like him. so someone told me that the pictus catfish was the only clean up crew i could have. is this true what else can i add to it? and what is that rusty brown and green stuff in my tank on my rock?!?

55 gallon running with a magnum 350 canister and emperor 400...soon to be switching from the emperor to an ehiem pro series canister...so soon to be 2 canisters..., 10 african cihlids and one pictus catfish. if you need to know more tell me...i hope all of this helps.

[hotpod]

no sunlight is on it....the lights i use are the cheap ones that came with the kit...which means i have no idea what they are...just simple flourescent ones i suppose.

[soobie]

The rusty brown and green patches are just diatom or algae films. They're common and not harmful in and of themselves. Pictus cats and plecos won't really do much to get rid of algae, by the way. I'm sure somebody will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Pictus in particular are mainly carnivorous.

The best thing would be to get an algae scraper for the glass and a brush or something for the rocks. If you don't overfeed or have too much light, the algae shouldn't get out of control.

[Sarra]

Try an Oto?

[hotpod]

ok i just looked up pictures of the pictus catfish...and...im embarrassed...my little catfish does not look like ANY of them....im going to go find my camera. to show you the algae weird stuff....and my catfish

[tarheels910]

It is most likely algae. The mbuna should snack off of it.

Oto is a bad suggestion. Expensive snack.

Your catfish is most likely of the Synodontis species and are okay to keep with africans. The most common is the Lace Catfish (Synodontis Eupterus)