View Full Version : brown or rust colored algae??
funksauce
03-19-2003, 8:28 PM
just algae or somehting bad?? i dont know ive herd that if its not green that its a bacteria or somehitng and i should bleach everything its on. and i do but i cant get rid of it. any suggestions
wetmanNY
03-19-2003, 9:35 PM
Diatoms. Perfectly natural. Not technically an alga, but, hey, who's counting? The famous diatom-eaters are Otocinclus, the "Otos" you keep hearing about...
NJ Devils Fan
03-20-2003, 6:33 AM
Wetman is right. If you don't want to add any more fish to your tank though, you can just wipe it off.
ellehcim
03-20-2003, 7:40 AM
When i set up my first FW tank I had the brown stuff everywhere, so i went out and bought a pleco( but these guys will get very big) and he cleaned it up right away, now in my SW tank when i got the diatom bloom during the cycling process, i just left it alone and when my tank was cycled it gradually went away. I wouldnt worry about it, if you are in the cycling process, maybe you could just wait it out, but if it really bothers you, i would got with otos, of course if you are cycling you are running the risk of stressing them out IMO and i am no expert:D
quick061
03-20-2003, 9:02 AM
i'm having the same problem, brown algae slowly growing on my gravel, glass, and plants (which i find odd, i mean on plants?). i usually just wipe it off the glass and vacum what i can with water changes and have recently cut my lighting cycle down to 8 or 9 hours a day but i would love to find some other ways to get rid of the stuff.
the only problem for me is i can't have other fish in the tank as they will get eaten very quickly. so that kind of rules oto's out. i've thought about a large pelco that my fish couldn't physically eat but i think then it would just torment it to death.
wetmanNY
03-20-2003, 10:46 AM
Shortening your lighting cycle is going to help.
I read a tech paper recently (it was posted at www.aquabotanic.com but the team there didn't think much of it)... which compared diatoms to "green water" algae and found that diatoms were encouraged vis-a-vis the green algae, when nitrogen was high in comparison to phosphate.
As your tank matures, phosphate levels will rise, and diatoms will be replaced by green algae.
Which do you prefer?
AikidoGuy
03-20-2003, 11:21 AM
i thought low light helped encourage diatoms to stick to everything??