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Hello all, I have had a 30 gal now for about a month and half , the cycle went great no fish lost and I had a lot of fish, water finally has turned crystal clear, but today I notice brownish stuff on my silk plants and top of rock cave and some areas of gravel, do I have a problem with algea, what should I do? what is a blackout I have read about (sounds like no lights for a day or so)

thanks in advance

Mike

Brown algae is fairly common in new tanks. It's often caused by excess phosphates and silica from feeding. You can purchase phosphate remover from your LFS...or you can try malaysian trumpet snails. I've had it occur in two of my tanks...neither decreased light nor increased light worked.

^_^

Depending on your stock list, Bristlenose Catfish and Otocinclus Catfish work really well to get rid of brown algae too. They both love the stuff. I personally stay away from chemicals as much as possible, but that's jsut because I try to let my tanks kind of form their own environment and try not to mess with that environment too much if I can avoid it. Just my personal take on it...

PM/email/msg me if you have any questions/comments regarding me or my knowledge or if you want me to read a thread.

Every one of my tanks experienced a brown algae bloom shortly after set up. It seems to cover everything that is exposed to the lights, yet, as mentioned, light reduction has no effect on diminishing it. In every single case, it has gone away by itself about a month after it appears to take over the tank. I admit, I'm not sure what it is or why it's there, or if I've inadvertantly did something right to make it go away; I just wait for it to go away on its own while doing all the regular maintence to keep the water in the tank as perfect for the fish as possible. I've always kind of thought of it as part of the cycling process. I'm sure there are ways to deal with it immediatly either via chemicals or livestock if you don't like looking at the stuff. The catfish and snails mentioned probably do a good job and you get the delightful bonus of adding some new inhabitants.

O Tempora O Mores

A possible reason for the brown algae to persist even in poor light conditions is due to the algae (brown algae in the aquarium is usually caused by diatoms) formning resting spores. This is just the cells going inactive to perserve themselves until conditions are more acceptable to them.