Brown algae on plants

One theory may be that you should add plants now to compete with the Algae. I have had similar algae problems and adding some Java Moss seems to have reduced my problem. . .


Dan

in order for plants to outcompete algae for nutrients in the tank, you will need to have 2 things:

1. healthy, fastgrowing plants (with proper lighting/trace elements)
2. sufficient number of plants

as you didn't state the size of your tank or the type of plant, it may be that the 3 plants you added were insufficient to outcompete the algae for nutrients in the tank.

since you already have brown algae, the best method to remedy this would be to add biological algae control agents like algae eating fish, snails or shrimp.

depending on the fish that you have currently, you may decide on larger fish like plecos or smaller ones like otos and siamese algae eaters (be careful with SAE's as there are many aggressive-natured lookalikes).

yep, the brown algae is typical of a newly set up tank. Brown algae is actually diatom algae, and comes as a result of too much silicates in the water. It in all pprobability came in with your tap water. Typically the tank will grow out of it with time (diatoms are very good at rapidly removing all the silicate from the water and then starving themselves). Plus the plants will begin to compete for nutrients but this may take awhile for them to settle in after they have just been transplanted. I don't believe you mentioned what types of plants you have mostly rooted plants, like anubias and amazon swords and such, you may want to up your amount of fast growing bunch plants such as ambulia and cabomba. They will take nutrients directly from the water column (like silicate) whereas the previously mentioned root plants mostly take nutrients from the substrate. If an algae consumer is really needed, the best grazers on diatoms are otocinclus. However, they are quite sensitive to poor water quality, so it would be advised that you wait to add them when your tank is thoroughly cycled (no ammonia, nitrite, etc).