I'd go for an apple snail too- mine are apparently canaliculata rather than bridgesii, do create quite a heavy bioload, but also seem to clean brown algae pretty well. They do like other general fish foods (flake/catfish pellets), but only seem to go for veggies when they've cleaned algae right out (but when they go for them, they really go for them).
I wasn't going to say a thing! (I'm an Ag, what sport can I boast about these days?)
With respect to your thread please forget the "silicon business".
99.9% of algae (in the global term) comes from (ie. getting back to the basics as in physics):
overfeeding;
lighting of too long a duration;
lighting of too great an intensity;
improper fertilization (yes live plants will definitely help control algae production); or
lack of bacteriological filtration media.
I went to that explanation because it seems to fit the classic pattern of diatom formation. It can't be too much light, since we usually only run the light from 5ish - 10ish each evening, and I've not run it at all since my little Ich outbreak a couple weekends ago. I have no live plants, ergo no fertilizer. Biofilter recently established fully, with 0 ammonia or nitrites, and this brown algae just cropped up after the cycle completed. It is not impossible that I'm overfeeding, although I only feed what the upper fish can eat in 2-3 minutes, and what goes to the bottom gets snagged by the corys overnight. In fact, I was feeding every other day during the cycling process. And when I vac the gravel, I'm not seeing leftover food - just poop.
The good news is that it came up and then seems to have stopped getting worse. It's not overruning the tank, and if you didn't know the color of the big rock I have in there, you might not even notice it. I will clean it this weekend and see how quickly it returns. I'm not really stressing about it because it seems like a very small issue at this point. Oh, and yes I've ruled out otos due to their need to be in groups. I wondered if one might schoal with the corys, but that seems like a long shot and a big experiment I'd like to avoid.
I also don't have live plants, and most of my tanks are unlit (except for natural light). My 2 tanks that don't have plecs or apple snails are developing a brown algae problem too- presumably because they're now getting some direct sunlight (it's spring here). Nitrates don't have to be high to support some algal growth- in our office at work, we put tapwater in bottles for boiling in the kettle, and over time these also get algae in them despite never having anything other than tapwater in them.
All the tanks with plecs or apple snails have very little algae in them, which suggests that the problem is not rampant- it's just that there's nothing in the other tanks to eat the algae.
Let the diatoms grow for a month, then scrub 'em all off.
Odds are decent that they won't come back.
Pond and common ramshorn snails love diatoms, but they also love reproducing.
IF you don't overfeed, they won't overpopulate.
IF you overfeed, you'll have thousands of 'em.
Their actually a fairly good indicator of how you're doing at feeding properly.
Well, yesterday I discovered that I have somehow "acquired" two eensy weensy snails that I had no intention of adding to the tank! The only way I can figure they got there was by stowing away as eggs on a ball of java moss I bought at Petco a couple weeks ago. Not long before that, the whole tank was treated with salt for ich, so I can't see any snails making it through that. These things are really tiny - between 1/16" and 1/8" at the very most - and have black shells. Any ideas?
