Just an update

[papaboy]

Yo fish people,

Hey so I posted a couple of messages a week or so ago and now my new aquarium is coming along "swimmingly".

My 7 tiger barbs are doing fine, I've had them for about a month now. I have replaced all the plastic plants with live ones, although they're not dying, but they don't look great.....

My water never turned cloudy, but there has appeared on the inside front glass some strange brown substance......

What is that and should I be afraid?
Please help.
thanks

[Prometheus]

Check your PH. I noticed that on my 30, for some reason, every 6 months or so, the PH would drop from a constant 7.0 to 6.6 or 6.4 in 2-3 days and brown algea would bloom almost over night...

Donno why that happened, no additional fish were added, feeding was proper, water changes on time, verything would be fine and blam... the fish always made it, and a 25-33% water change fixed it right up for another 6 months or so... I've been lucky my tap water PH has been 7.0 out of the tap in my last two homes, I prefer using that then ph up or down...

Someone else may have a better idea for you...

[OrionGirl]

Sounds like diatoms--a fairy normal occurence in new tanks. The bloom should clear up in a little while, and the diatoms exhaust the available silica. You can easily wipe it away during your regular maintenance.

A pH drop like you've described is often associated with inadequate water changes, or very low KH. Plants and normal biological activity can use up the available buffer, so the pH crashes. More frequent water changes will prevent this. If your water is naturally low in KH, adding a small amount of crushed coral to the tank should help prevent this from happening as well.