Brown algae on tank glass

Yash

Yash

Trance Addict
Nov 2, 2006
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Knoxville, TN
Sorry about the long post but I wanted to provide as much detail as I could.

My tank has been up and running for close to two months now and the glass has always remained spotless. Just over the past couple of days, I noticed that some brown stuff was staining my glass (algae I'm assuming). I cleaned it up yesterday while doing the water change and its already started showing up on the glass near the bottom of the tank. All my params are checking out just fine:

PH: 8.3
NH3: 0
NO2: 0
NO3: 15
SG: 1.023
Alk: 3

I've only done a couple of different things this last week:

1. I added some more sand to my tank over the weekend. I made sure to add it over a few days, and added about 10 lbs. I made sure to stir it up so the critters/bacteria don't get suffocated by the new layer.

2. I added a new light strip ... up until this past Friday, I had a conventional single bulb strip with a 50/50 combination of 6500K trichtomatic daylight phosphor and actinic 420 phosphor lamp. This Friday, I switched over to a Coralife 30" Aqualight W/2-1 Watt Lunar Moon LED Lights (the light has a 65 watt 10,000K Daylight bulb, 65 watt True Actinic 03 Blue bulb (Straight Pin), and two 3/4 watt Lunar Blue-Moon-Glow LED lamps).

I currently leave the daylight bulb on for about 8-10 hours a day, and the actinic for about 10-12 hours, with the LED's at night? Would this be a possible cause?

What could be the reason for this sudden algae outbreak? Anything I can do to eliminate/control it?

I currently have 2 perc. clowns, 1 royal gramma, 4 hermits, 3 nerites, and 3 nassauris snails in it.

I do regular 10% water changes every week.

My tank dimensions in case anyone need them are 30x15x21. It has about a 3 inch deep sand bed, and about 40 lbs of 50-50 LR and base rock mix.

I would REALLY appreciate some advice!!!!

Regards,
Yash
 
If it's brown there is a chance that it's cyanobacteria. Has it got bubbles in/on it? If that's what it is don't worry. WIth a tank that young all kinds of goofy stuff is going to happen. Just one of those "phases" you have to deal with until the tank settles in. You also could have had a mini cycle from adding the new sand combined with the slight disruption of the substrate. Keep an eye on all your parameters and wait it out.


HTH!!
 
Thanks for the reply Wrench! No, it doesn't have any bubbles in/on it ... its just a thin film of brown spots on the glass only (the sand is still white). Yeah, I'll keep a daily watch on the params ... those that I listed above were just taken today.

Hopefully, its just like you said ... something that the "newness" of the tank is going through. I'll just have to keep cleaning it daily (knowing the stickler that I am!) and hope that it ceases soon enough!

What do you think about the lights part of the equation ... am I leaving them on for too long that might be a cause? Or am I fine with what I'm currently doing?

Cheers!
Yash
 
It could be the lights but not likely. I leave my 2x175 MH bulbs plus my 2x96w PC bulbs on for around 12 hrs a day and haven't had any catastrophic blooms yet. I usually come home to a nice green film on the glass but nothing major that a mag float can't handle. It seems that our tanks are very similar, we seem to be running into the same problems simultaneously, lol. Mine has been setup about as long as yours.
 
Diatoms are often the brown algae .and are common in new tanks and will go away on their own.
 
if you can afford, Linkea stars do a good job, I got a blue and orange one
 
Wrench - well that makes me feel good that it might not be the lighting that's causing it. Hopefully, its nothing more than the change in the sand part that caused this outbreak and that it would go away soon. I think there's a few of us here that have our tanks started at the same time ... Niko (atnixon) too I think started his around the same time as me. It will be interesting to compare notes, more importantly problems if we have any :)

Ghost Knife - I was just reading up on the Linkia stars and seems like they're very very picky as far as water params go? I'm not sure that would be the best idea since I'm still fairly new to the salty side? Also, wouldn't a 36 gal tank be far too small for on of those?

Cheers!
Yash
 
It definitely sounds like diatoms which are not algae per se.......make sure you are using ro/di water in both your salt mix and top offs. This will help. Also increasing the water flow will also help. Diatom outbreaks are very common in newly establised tanks and are part of the breaking in so to speak. Some say that using play sand that is silca based promotes diatoms but that is not always the case and usually using non ro water is more likely......just bear with it all good things come with time
 
Hiya Yash..

Just some notes from what i picked up on from your posts..

I do get the same as you, slight build up of brown diatom algae on the glass near to the sand bed..This is because the tank is still very young, as i imagine you have brown algae patches over your sand. This is just algae leaching from off the sand..Keep on doing everything the way you are at the moment, it will pass, i had it for a while, and slowly, it is starting to fade away..Its just another of them things that takes time..

Its the same with some build up of green hair algae on the rock. i had a big out break of it, but, it agian is starting to fade away now..

If you are still getting concerned about it after another month, try upping your clean up crew..

Hope this helps buddy

Niko
 
Lorna - I've been using RO/DI water right from the beginning ... buy it from my PFS, so I would doubt that's what's causing it. Also, the sand I'm using is aragonite.

Niko - hows it going mate?! Good to hear that you went through something similar ... well not that its a good thing, but you know what I mean! I'm glad its not really a problem per se, just some growing pains. Did your sand clear up as well from the brown stuff ? I can clean the glass, but if the sand begins to turn brown, what do I need to do? Does it get cleaned up (with the help of the crew) or did you need to stir it up/vacuum it to get the stuff cleaned out?

Just out of cusiosity, and so I'm prepared for if and when it happens to me, what'd you do for the hair algae? Did you just leave it be or get some critters to eat away at it?

Also, I thought that the nerites were supposed to feed off of such diatoms? I wonder if the 3 snails I have in there are enough or if I need to add more?

Thanks buddy!
Yash
 
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