# Basically...my whole tank is brown.



## Splooge (Jul 2, 2007)

Ok, so i've been doing a lot of searches to figure out what is wrong with my tank. Diatoms are covering EVERYTHING. My plants, my glass, my powerhead, my heater, my filter tubes, everything. I've had this tank set up for about 8-9 months now. The problem started a few months after i had it setup and its been getting worse ever since. Originally it was due to extremely high nitrates, but i managed to get those down to about 40ppm, which is where they currently are today. After the first few major water changes (and shutting the blinds on the window it was by which didnt give direct sunlight anyways), a lot of it started to disappear off of the filter tubes, but a lot of it is still around. Anyways, let me start off by putting my specs.

*Tank Size*
-60 gallon w/ regular black gravel

*Filtration*
-AC 70 HOB filter
-Rena XP3 Canister

*Lighting*
-48'' shop light from home depot that says it operates at 0 degrees F (don't really know whats up with that)

-2 x 40watt Phillips 6500K T12 bulbs

*Ferts*
-Yesterday i started doing Flourish Comprehensive.

*Plants*
- Strictly low light plants... Crypts, Anubias, Ferns.

*Water Test*
Ph- 7.0-7.2ish
Nitrite- 0
Nitrate- 40
Hardness- Very Hard

-Now, the plants arent doing that well either, they always seem to be doing mediocre at best, some of the crypts even look like they are melting (which i know could be crypt melt, about 2-3 weeks ago i bought them), but i can't really tell, everything looks like crap with the brown diatoms all over it.

I really need help getting rid of all this stuff. I just want to have a nice, healthy, low-medium light tank. Any thing you can suggest, please do. I've been doing water changes (30-40%) every other day for like 2 weeks now and its getting really annoying not seeing much improvement. The only thing i notice is that now on the plants the leaves are covered except some perfectly round spots where there are no diatoms. It's still attacking the glass though more and more...help.


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## ChilDawg (Apr 30, 2006)

Sounds like a good tank for otos...


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## Splooge (Jul 2, 2007)

i dont know if they'd last very long with my rbp's in there....


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## JoeDizzleMPLS (Nov 5, 2007)

otos are money, some always eventually get picked off, but i bought ten to start with and i just buy a few more every month or so, there always seems to be like three or four that figure out that they can't just go swimming leisurely around the tank looking for more algae and they survive. they only cost about $1.50 and they'll take care of your algae problem within a couple days so it's well worth it.


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## ChilDawg (Apr 30, 2006)

No, they wouldn't. Didn't see mention of the RBPs.

They will work if you can get them for cheaply, though.


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## Splooge (Jul 2, 2007)

alright, i got 10 small otos. Surprisingly almost no store around me was carrying them but luckily i found one store that was. Hopefully they last a little while, we'll see....


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## DiPpY eGgS (Mar 6, 2005)

Strange problem, sorry to hear..
I would recommend that you physically remove all of it that you can yourself, then work on getting your nitrates down to a manageable level, like 20
Have you been rinsing your filter media in tank water lately?


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## Splooge (Jul 2, 2007)

yes, every week (sometimes two times per week) i would rinse all filter media (in tank water). I also replaced all of the sponges in both the AC and Rena XP3 and added more bio filtration to the XP3.

-Should i use a product that would lower phosphates and silicates? if so, which one?

-Is it possible that my tap water is high in silicates, or is all this just due to excess phosphates from the nitrates?

P.S. - down to 7 otos.


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## Splooge (Jul 2, 2007)

k, here's an update:

I cleaned off most of the brown algae. I took some of the crypts out and washed them off, took a few of the plants that have really been hit hard by the algae and put them in my 10 gallon molly tank (the mollies went crazy over the brown algae and cleaned the plants really well for the most part.), and tomorrow i'll do a 50% water change....it's really hard to get inspired to do water changes all the time though because i still do my changes with a bucket and gravel siphon









-I'll let everyone know how it turns out after all this.


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## StryfeMP (Apr 26, 2007)

You could buy a cheap 25-50ft garden hose from walmart and connect it to your gravel vacuum and stick the end out the door to outside on the lawn or on planted soil or wherever, then you wouldn't have to lug around buckets after cleaning the tank. And for pumping water back into the tank, you could possibly get a 55 gallon plastic storage tub, rubbermaid or something, get a cheap sump pump or a water pump, some tubing, and you have something to store and pump water from for your tank. Just a thought.


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## DiPpY eGgS (Mar 6, 2005)

Sounds like you are on the right track.

Hang in there, do the water changes and filter cleanings, and the excess silicates should eventually run dry.
Wierd how it came on after the tank was running for so long..? 
Did you add something in the tank lately that might have triggered this outbreak?


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## Splooge (Jul 2, 2007)

StryfeMP said:


> Sounds like you are on the right track.
> 
> Hang in there, do the water changes and filter cleanings, and the excess silicates should eventually run dry.
> Wierd how it came on after the tank was running for so long..?
> Did you add something in the tank lately that might have triggered this outbreak?


-No, i haven't added anything. At one point a few months ago, nitrates got really high and i think that's what triggered it. Even when i saw the diatoms coming on, i didn't really take any action to fix it, and from then on it just got out of control.

Update: k, so i just finished a water change...i was only able to do about a 40% water change, but i spent a lot of time scrubbing off most of the diatoms. As of this moment, the tank looks pretty good to me, but we'll see what happens in the next couple of days. Hopefully the trick was actually getting the nitrates down to a decent level (around 40 and below) before wiping the stuff off. I think my problem before was that i was scrubbing the stuff off, but with nitrates in excess of 60ppm, it didn't really matter because a lot of extra phosphates were still there promoting growth. This is just a thought, and who knows...my tank could prove me wrong even by tomorrow. I plan to do another 33-40% water change on Wednesday. Ill keep updating. Thanks for all your guys' help.


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## remy5405 (Feb 8, 2008)

Splooge said:


> -48'' shop light from home depot that says it operates at 0 degrees F (don't really know whats up with that)


means it will light up at 0*F , and not just flicker.


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

would a diotom filter remove them, add to the problem or neither?

could also look into a uv serilizer


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## DiPpY eGgS (Mar 6, 2005)

diatoms typically come from an excess of silicates in the water..
Now it is safe to say --not always lol

This certainly is a stumper.. I would just continue to remove them and keep up with maintenance for a good while before buying anything.

If that doesn't work, a diatom or u/v filter might be worth looking into, but no guarantees there.. Hmm


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## maknwar (Jul 16, 2007)

I started to have the same thing happen to me. It started when I added plants and then took off from there. After a few weeks it started to look nasty. Scraping it off only lasted a few days, then it would appear again. I have some snails in my tank that are eating the crap out of it. Almost got half of it gone. Got snails? If not, you might want to try them. What else you got to lose?


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