dirty plants

[ricks01]

i have a new planted 125gal tank (8mos old). it is filtered with an emperor 400 biowheel and a rena filstar xp3. fish load is 8 med angels, 10 zebra fish, 3 2-4 inch clown loaches, 2 flying fox algea eaters, 3 corys, 5 octinclus, 2 coolie loaches and a small bushy nose pleco. i do weekly water changes (10 to 25%) & maintain filters well. but i seem to have "dirt" sticking to my plants to the point where you cant see the green leaves (ozelo, micro, narrow leaf & amazon swords, and moneywort and wisteria). it looks like pollution or sticky gritty dirt?? i have about 250 watts of light on @12 hrs a day. can anyone advise on why this occurs and what it may be & how to enable plants to stay clean/green? i also use some phosgard in both filters. thanks for any help!

 

[Temo]

it called alge,and my guppy eat those off my plants.you just clean it with water,and that 'll get rid the alge

 

[j_chicago]

Your Pleco should be eating it, I introduced 3 bristlenoses in my tank when diatom algae came around and they cleaned it off in 2 days time. So maybe you do have really dirty plants.

 

[rich311k]

Does it come off easily when you wipe it? You may want to back the light down to ten hours. How are the plants doing? Are you adding ferts or CO2?

 

[ricks01]

i add a little fert @ every 2 wks. plants are doing fairly well. i havent tried to wipe it off but i will attempt that on the broad leafed plants. will back light down to 10 hrs. thanks.

 

[mellowvision]

some reccomend lights on for 5 hours, off for 2, back on for 5 more...


guppies eat BBA??

 

[jersysman]

I would think that it is probably some kind of algae. I also think that you may need to does a little more than every two weeks to give the plants a chance to out compete the algae.

 

[j_chicago]

I really think its diatom, how long has it been there?

 

[Slappy*McFish]

I guess a pic is out of the question?

 

[Marinemom]

Are you using any kind of co2 injection in your system?

Marinemom