# ALGEA



## compton ass steve (Nov 12, 2004)

ive always had a small algea problem, and when i say small i mean almost non- existant. it only grew on the fake plans and slate in my tank and i would simply wash it off. i got a new light in my tank and now its getting bad. i just cleaned evrything off 2 days ago and its back already. this only worries me because its on my real plants too now. help anyone? oh, and its brown algea by the way. and ive tried to shorten my light cycle , still with no results (tried it because i read it on this site)


----------



## elTwitcho (Jun 22, 2004)

Do you have any dead/dying leaves on your plants, in your tank bottom or in your filter media?


----------



## moeplz (Feb 21, 2005)

Clean your gravel/sand/w/e and add a pleco.


----------



## compton ass steve (Nov 12, 2004)

i dont have anything dying in the tank, but i guess i should check the media, does that promote the growth of algea? oh and i had an 8 inch common pleco in there, the rhom didnt enjoy his company, and started eating his fins so i took him out.


----------



## fliptasciouz (Jul 4, 2004)

Buy a U.V. Sterilizer if algea bothers you alot. I believe the old methods of fish care was people actually grew algea in their tank to helps piranha to have better coloration but some algea can be bad. Theres plenty of algea where they originated from so i wouldn't worry about it. Add two plecos in your tank but before you do! Quarantine them for couple of weeks. Then if you have a spare tank put your rhom in the spare tank with the same water for like a day and then put your two common or plecos in the tank. Do this for the nite and next morning put your rhom back to his home again. Try this experiment i had done successfully. Good luck


----------



## compton ass steve (Nov 12, 2004)

i have another tank, but that sounds very stressfull to the fish, so im not going to do it. uv sterilizers are too expensive...and by the way twitch i didnt find anything in the media either.

edit i wouldnt care about the algea if it was green because that looks cool to me, but its brown and ugly...so no way


----------



## elTwitcho (Jun 22, 2004)

Well there is another way of fighting this algae but this is speaking from the position of having a well planted tank, this has worked for me, but if you've only got like 3 or 4 plants in the tank I'm not sure I'd try it.

The basic principle is this, brown algae comes from high phosphates. Often times it comes from waste and fish foods, but it's not uncommon to get high phosphates from tap water. Brown algae feeds primarily on phosphates however plants eat phosphates as well. When you get a buildup of phosphates brown algae usually occurs when the plants are nutrient deficient and aren't able to grow at an adequate rate to eat up all the phosphates. The nutrient they're short of is nitrogen, commonly found in the aquarium as (gasp) nitrates. The funny thing is, that a spotless aquarium with no breaking down fish waste is ideal in a non planted tank, in a planted tank however it can lead to outbreaks of brown algae.

Now my suggestion is that you might want to start adding a little bit of nitrate, nitrate is not harmful to fish in anything but extremely high quantities and we won't be getting anywhere even close to that. In fact, if your problem is what I think it is and you add nitrate, your nitrate levels will still be well below what most people in non planted tanks have, even if they're making 2 waterchanges a week because your nitrates are getting used up the plants, theirs aren't.

Before you go off on this route however, get out your trusty water test kit, and test for nitrates. If you're showing really low numbers (like 0-10ppm) then this I believe is your problem. Well actually I'm sure it's your problem. If you have an amount of nitrate in your tank above 10ppm, then we'll need to keep looking for a cause, or you might want to add some siamese algae eaters to eat that crap up.

Now, IF you are at 0 nitrates, you're probably thinking "where the hell am I going to get nitrate from?" which is actually pretty easy. You simply dose some potassium nitrate into your water. Of course "haha very funny, where do I get potassium nitrate" is the followup question and that's easier than you think, go to your drug store and ask for salt peter. You want PURE salt peter. Salt peter is another name for potassium nitrate, and you're good to go.

You can find dosing guidelines here
http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_nitrate.htm

Now just in case you're still looking at your screen and thinking "nitrate on purpose? are you retarded?" I'll get into a bit of an explanation. Nitrate in high levels is bad for your fish. With an unplanted tank you want to make water changes like a bat out of hell because nothing at all is eating your nitrates up. It's not uncommon to do 2 water changes a week and have 20ppm nitrates, that is nonetheless very good water quality. Not "adequate" but very good. With plants, your nitrates are dropping to 0 and your water changes are really to replace trace elements and get rid of other breaking down organics. Nitrates, are not really an issue. If you add nitrates in the proper amount, they will always be below 20ppm and your water quality can still be considered excellent. I myself use a fertilizer mix that includes some nitrate, and as my plants grow bigger and more dense, I see myself adding salt peter as well.

It's not as complicated as it sounds, and it's not bad for your fish. This I'm pretty sure will take care of your problem if you do a test and confirm that you have almost no nitrates in your tank. Let me know what you think


----------



## Gumby (Aug 13, 2004)

Brown algae is indiciative of something being wrong with water conditions. It's diatom alage. I had a problem with it about a month back. I started dosing with Flourish Excell so that the plants would have the carbon they needed to grow. I also did a 60-70% water change every weekend and added a phosphate/silicate resin. Now the brown alage is gone, and I've got an assload of green hair algae.

Try doing some hefty, frequent water changes and thowing some PhosGuard (by SeaChem) in the filter media. That should have you fixed up within a few weeks.

BTW: What substrate are you using? Over time some substrates start to break down and release silicates, and that could be the source of your problem. Diatom alage also seems to thrive in tanks that are 78-80F or higher. A few things to keep in mind.


----------



## compton ass steve (Nov 12, 2004)

ok first things first...my nitrates are at just about 20 ppm...sigh...so i guess thats not really my problem. i may put a couple of algea eaters in there, but i dont know if theyll even last a day.
now for substrate, im using regular old black gravel. my temperature is at 80 degrees almost always. i guess the only thing left for me to try is lowering the temp a bit and using some phosguard.

btw thank you both for your time, as you both gave me in depth descriptions of what might be going on. i might be at the lfs tonight and ill see if they have some phosguard and ill get back to you


----------



## elTwitcho (Jun 22, 2004)

Hm, how well are your plants growing?


----------



## PacmanXSA (Nov 15, 2004)

I'd like to know too.

I have relatively high nitrates myself and brown algae is ALL over my anubia... Nothing on my glass or the crypts... Just the anubia and sometimes the ornamental piece that I have in there.

I'll probably pick up some phosguard or whatever it is, as long as it's cheap and post my progress in this ever lasting battle









Pac


----------



## compton ass steve (Nov 12, 2004)

well the only plants that are in the tank are not demanding at all, and they are growing good , they even reproduced like crazy. except for the sword plant in there, that had died off untill recently when it has just started to grow again.


----------



## Husky_Jim (May 26, 2003)

I also believe that is a water parameters problem...describe in detail your setup


----------



## compton ass steve (Nov 12, 2004)

i guess you mean my setup as in everything. i have a 40 gallon breeder with an emp 400, rio 200 power head ,jager 150 watt heater , 36 inch flourescent light strip (not sure how many watts). and black gravel substrate, 2 peices of slate and a few other random rocks. 3 fake plants. now for live plants i have 1 unknown sword plant and 7 or 8 aponogeton plants that recently reproduced, so theres about 20 or 30 little ones all over the tank. the algea used to only grow on the slate and fake plants. now its taking over and growing on my plants (all except the sword). i think that pretty much sums it up...

edit: oh and water params
nitrite 0ppm
ammonia 0ppm
nitrate 20ppm
hardness between 25 and 75ppm
alkalinity between 40 and 80 ppm
ph 6.8


----------



## elTwitcho (Jun 22, 2004)

Steve, are you fertilizing?


----------



## compton ass steve (Nov 12, 2004)

no , this was just my test run for plants, and they seemed to be doing well untill the algea


----------



## elTwitcho (Jun 22, 2004)

I would try fertilizing and seeinf if you can help your plants get the upper hand on the algae that way.


----------



## compton ass steve (Nov 12, 2004)

what do you recommend for fertilizing?


----------



## elTwitcho (Jun 22, 2004)

Look around at what your lfs has. Any "complete" fertilizer should be good, or an Iron supplement at the very least. If you see stuff like "Potassium" or the like, that's more advanced and you don't need to get into that just yet.


----------



## compton ass steve (Nov 12, 2004)

ok thanks twitch


----------



## compton ass steve (Nov 12, 2004)

its been a while since fertilizing, and it has not only not gotten better, but has gotten much worse... is there anything else i can possibly do, its now on the gravel and i have to remove it from the glass almost every day...any help?


----------



## Gumby (Aug 13, 2004)

compton ass steve said:


> its been a while since fertilizing, and it has not only not gotten better, but has gotten much worse... is there anything else i can possibly do, its now on the gravel and i have to remove it from the glass almost every day...any help?
> [snapback]940432[/snapback]​


Constant large water changes is what did the trick for me. At least thats what I think did it. I used to have brown algae all over my plants. I did 60-70% water changes every week, added the phosguard, started dosing with Flourish Excel, added CO2, and buffered my pH/Kh.

I think the trick was the water changes and getting the pH/kH right. My pH was around 5(jeebus!) so I gradually buffered up to 7.3ish and the kH up to 4, sometimes 5.

If you're having algae problems, the last thing I would do is fertilize with an all around fertilizer. That just adds to the problem. I thought perhaps my plants weren't getting the micro nutrients that they needed so they weren't growing fast enough to compete with the algea. I dosed up with Flourish... holy sh*t. Inch long hair algae on the glass within a week. Ferts usually make algae problems a LOT worse. Now I only dose with Iron, CO2, and Flourish Excel. Although I'm having a different algae issue(green hair algae), it's gotten better since I've kept up with water changes and ditched the "full spectrum" ferts. Water changes + good gravel vac = k3y.

Out of curiosity, did you try some kind of phosphate/silicate resin?


----------



## compton ass steve (Nov 12, 2004)

no i havent tried anything but the fertilizer... i left the lights off for 3 days this week (my plants look like hell but it seems like there was less algea) and then rubbed and scraped off all the algea i could, then i did a 60-70 percent water change and a major gravel vac. so ill so how that goes. and ill stay away from the fertilizer.


----------

