I have a 47 gallon tank with 4 neon rainbows, 2 Irian rainbows, 3 platys, 3 serpae tetras, 2 lemon tetras, 3 veil rams and 2 gold veil rams. My levels are fine, as I check regularly. I have fake plants and rocks which have a brown algae (diatoms?) all over them. I scrape them off at every water change but it seems to keep coming back. I do a 25% water change weekly. I don't overfeed the fish. I think I used to because I've had my tank for 7 months and in total I lost 17 (that I can think of) fish. When I spoke with the LFS they said I was doing everything right, so the only thing I might have been doing was overfeeding the fish. Hopefully I've solved that problem, but I don't know what to do about this brown algae. Could anyone help me? What about a silicate absorbing resin in the filter? I read that on the net. Thanks and sorry about such a long question.
Diatoms?
- Thread starter Diann62
- Start date
i get brown algae when my tank is in direct sunlight. check that first. then check phosphate and other levels.
Diatoms are fairly common in new tanks and dont take too long to go away. How long have you had your tank set up?
Otocinclus catfish are great for eating them!
Otocinclus catfish are great for eating them!
I've had the tank set up for 7 months. I guess I need a new dip stick to check my phosphate levels, and my tank is not near any direct sunlight. It just makes the tank look dirty. It's hard to scrape off the rocks and decorations. I try scraping them in the tank water because if I take them out and give them a really good cleaning, I'm afraid I'll lose a lot of the good bacteria.
I'd agree that otos (Otocinclus catfish) do a great job on brown algae, they've really cleaned up my tank!
not always true, I had it and my tank is well over a year old. And it was an old tank to begin with .this also can be caused by lower lights, which I uped and . finally I also used seachem excel, got rid of it for me.
I had to take decorations out, did it for a year. I would never do it while there in the tank, it just causes it to come back faster.
whats your lighting like? do you have plants?
I have artificial plants and the lighting is fluorescent bulb, 15 watts. I leave them on about 12 hours/day. I just got back from my LFS and bought 2 small otocats.......so we'll see if they clean it up. Any other suggestions?