FishProfiles.com Message Forums

Is there anything I can use to kill off the brown algea in my tank? I have assorted African Ciclids and a Fresh water lobster. The ciclids keep eating the algea eaters and plecos. All the algea killer chems say mot for use with crustations.

Hi Vinnie,
Welcome to Fish Profiles!

In a newly set up tank Brown Algae is actually an outbreak
of Diatoms. These microscopic creatures live off the
excess silica in the water that came from the gravel.
Regular, partial, water changes of 10-20% will
eventually get rid of the excess silica and the
diatoms will go away.

In an established tank, areas of low or no current
coupled with low light will also cause an outbreak.
To fix that, you will need to adjust your hard-scape
(Ornaments/rocks, etc) to eliminate those "dead spots"
and increase your light so that you have around 1.5 watts
per gallon, or more. The dead spots act as "sumps" where
excess organics collect. Adding more current will
resolve the problem along with vacuuming the gravel in
the dead spaces and regular, weekly, water changes of
10 - 20%.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

You can't just kill the algae you need to remove the cause or it will keep coming back no matter what you do. Increasing light just turns the brown algae into green. Not entirely helpful unless your trying to get a certain algae eater to eat it. Increased circulation can help some but I've had diatoms in a river tank until I added the 2nd light and got green algae instead. Which is actually what I was aiming for since the tank was full of homaloptera that needed to graze on the algae covered rocks.

To eliminate brown algae without just growing another type of algae control of silicates and phosphates would be my first move. If the tank is less than a few months old just waiting it out is often all it takes. The diatoms use up the excess silicates in the tank and stop multiplying. In tanks with higher levels this can take 6months but eventually it grows slower. If your tap is high in phosphate or silicates though the problem won't go away with time or water changes. Water changes actually increased the problem in my tanks everytime. I also found using silicate sand made things much much worse. I actually had columns of brown algae growing up out of the substrate the first time I tried that. I switched to eco complete at that point and use either that or argonite sand (raises ph) since then. You can get both phosphate and silicate removers to stick in your filter. The silicate ones are a bit harder to find and sometimes more expensive but more effective on diatoms than just using phosphate removers.

Other option is to use RO water and add back in the buffers and minerals to match the parameters the cichlids need. That would eliminate most types of algae since you have no extra nutrients for them to grow on. An RO unit will run you around $100 off ebay or you can purchase RO water for about $.25/gallon here from grocery stores but then you have to haul it so not that easy if you've got a large tank.

What is your lighting? Substrate? Is the tank cycled? How long has it been up?