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Hi- I posted before about this... My tank has what I think is brown algae. This tank has been set up since early January. Just this week I noticed these brown spots on the glass of my tank. It looks greenish at certain angles also. It also has this white dots that seem kind of hairy... They move with the water. I am going to do a water change tomarrow. Should I be concerned with this growth. It is on the thermeter, everything. Also, i ma going to get a algae eater.. I have a 29g tank. What size should I get. They say the brown algae is normal with new fish tank setups. All my fish seem to be doing fine. Could this algae have been from the recent addition of a blk mystery snail to my tank. I think he had some algae on his shell when I brought him home last weekend? Any tips or comments gladly taken. I would post a pic but from my understanding you have to be a paying member-correct?

THanks

You shouldnt be concerned about the algae per se, but you might want to check your water quality. Excess nitrate, protiens in the water etc will all cause algae to grow, and this is certainly not something you should ignore (buy a test kit and watch your water perams) but by the same token brown algae is not unusual for a tank thats only been running a few months. It depends on all sorts of factors from the availabilty of silicates the algae use to help make its structures to the fact that real plants arent using the available nutrients left yet, perhaps even natural sunlight or leaving bright lights on for too long. Sometimes its as simple as overfeeding your fish a little.

Get a test kit, check the water perameters and keep scraping the algae off until you have a definite result.

An algae eater is a good idea generally, especially those that will help keep plant leaves clear of algae,but if youve never had them before you might find even the well reputed ottocinclus can often be less effective at getting algae off the front panel glass than you might think.I'd wait until you know the water quality, and simply leaving the tank a little longer to settle down might improve things.

Your choice of algae eater depends again on water quality, the species you already have and the tank set up. Post these details for us so we can give you qualititive help. Ottos are great for small tanks with peaceful fish and very clean water, plecs are good for bigger tanks and some might get huge , and siamese algae eaters are good for all sorts of weird algae that other fish wont eat and are great for medium to large size tanks, a good option can even be shrimp. But in most tanks even with combinations of the various fish and shrimp a little class cleaning will still have to be done, and the occassional aquatc plant cleaned or pruned.

If its literally taken nearly 3 months for you to get some algae, but not a heavy amount , this is totally normal, ideally it should be green rather than brown but if its several millimetres thick you probably have a water quality problem.. If the growth is slow just scrape it off for now and see if it improves, you dont want to be overloading on algae eaters if those conditions arent constant, and the algae disappears, cos then youre left having to substitude feed more fish, and more fish can actually make the algae grow faster even if algae eaters are present.

So chemically balance the water, add plants and decent fertiliser and good water change regimens and conditioners to knock brown algae on the head, Then use algae eaters to eat any green stuff you get, although a few of them will eat the brown, and watch the lighting.

Dont rush to a fish stocking decision you might regret later, unless of course you fancied having algae eaters anyway, irrelevant of the algae. I suspect most of us do

Yes- I have wanted an algae eater for awhile. In my tank I have:
2 flame gouramis
2 zebra danios
3 danios (not sure on species name)
5 neon tetras
3 catfish cories
1 blk mystery snail

In that case as long as the water quality and oxygenation are good id go for some ottos, as far as algae eaters go they are by far the best pound for pound, although if the danios get big there might be a problem, a smallish species though, no problem. Get about 4-6 of them it helps their stress levels to have company, and thats about done for the stocking apart from a few more tetras when the tank proves itself stable, they can produce quite a bit of waste.

A BN would do a great job with Algae eating, but it also leave alot of waste & you need to do more cleaning & water changes.


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The brown algae is diatoms which I am sure you have been told. One of the things in water that the diatoms like is darkness and silicate. There are a couple of things that you can do to remidy this Phosban which is a Seachem product reduces silicates and phosphates which actually is a one two punch because the green algaes that tend to follow the diatoms like higher light or longer light hours and high nitrates and phosphates. Basically they are both filling a biological niche that is created in your tank. One thing you can do inorder to control phosphates is make sure your not overfeeding (no more than the fish can eat in 2 minutes) I actually started timing my tanks to get feedings correctly because when I was newer than I am to the hobby I was over feeding just a tad and though all my other levels were good my phosphate levels were high. Other then that I would basically control the algae with the ottos, but my two Albino Bristlenose Catfish are POWERHOUSES when it comes to devouring algae. This water change I am moving some plants that have some algae issues so as to get them cleaned off before this becomes a seriously worse problem.