brown algae

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breezy

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May 26, 2004
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I had to flush the chinese algae eater because he's been going after and biting my Angels mercilessly. But last time I had to get rid of the same type of algae eater, my tank developed that brown algae all over the glass, the plants and the decorations, and I had to constantly clean tank. Is there another type of fish that eats the brown algae? Or a water treatment to get rid of it? It's very annoying and unattractive. I hate to have to get another chinese algae eater because they are so mean...Please can anyone help?:confused:
 
Thank you much for help

I will try to find a siamese algae eater or a small plecostamos.....thank you much for the help! You all are lifesavers :) I lost Clyde, my oldest Marble Angel today....we are very sad. He started getting sick right after we bought the chinese algae eater......he had a big sore on his nose and just went down from there. Didn't know what to do with the chinese, so flushed it....but Clyde we buried out in the yard.
 
Well... you could have returned the fish to the fish store. I'm sure if worse came to worse, you could have told them that if they dont take the fish you'll just flush him. Most decent pet stores would have gladly taken the fish.

Flushing live fish because you got seemingly incompatable fish is ignorant and insulting to those of us who successfully strive to keep all fish alive and healthy at all times. I hope you can understand that statement and where I am coming from. :o
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again: when you buy an animal you should assume responsibility for it and its life. Once again, goes to show how disposable life is in our culture (and how bereft of personal responsibility people are).

Additionally, if you have brown algae, it means something is wrong in your tank, the algae is getting food from somewhere. You might have too many fish, you might be feeding them to much, there could be a lot of issues. You would be better off finding out the source of the problem rather than trying to band-aid the symptoms with quick solutions like algae eating fish or chemicals.
 
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You could just get an algae scraper and clean the glass when need be.....Cheaper than replacing fish that die/are killed because of incompatibility.....If your algae is growing excessively fast, you're probably overfeeding and putting too many nutrients in the water. I don't think that the problem is too much light, because brown algae is caused by not getting enough light.
 
I disagree with kikuchiyo on the source of algae. algae is a normal condition in any aquatic environment, it doesn't mean it is being overstocked or overfed. Plants will absorb many of the nutrients the algae need so they can keep the algae under control better than a non-planted tank but I think it would be hard to totally eliminate them. I had brown algae take over my 20 long when I only had 6 zebra danio's to cycle it and I know I wasn't overfeeding. I finally brokedown and bought a bristlenose pleco, they are worth 10 times what they cost. the tank was completely covered with brown algae on the back, rocks, shells and filter housing and it had started on the sides and front but within 3 days the single 3" bristlenose had completely consumed all the algae so now I give him half an algae wafer every day or two to suplement any lack of algae for food. the bristlenoses only get around 4-5" long and are not aggressive like the CAE can be. Kyle
 
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