Brown nasty stuff growing in the tank :(

[Bengals]

Hi Everybody,

I'm in need of some help again. My big tank (29g) has this brown gunk growing on the decorations and plants. You can see it in the photos.

Image 1 --> Some of the blades of grass have it and the decoration has two colors. The darker brown stuff is the algae (or something like algae) that is growing on the tank.

Image 2--> Again the decoration in the back and plant in the front has brown stuff.

Image 3--> better shot of the plant with stuff on it.

Image 4--> Off topic but seriously exciting....one of my plattys gave birth! We have 3 fry. This is in my other tank which has nothing bad growing in it. THANKFULLY.

Ok summary of the tank with issues.

I supplement dry ferts, N, and K daily. Nitrogen is never >20 and P never higher than 2ish.

Photo period is ~7hrs I think with a finnex ray 2

The stuff is also on the glass but our ribber-lipped pleco does a good job of cleaning that. He stinks at cleaning the plants. Initially it comes off very easily when I touch it but it is hard to get every last bit off and it's very ugly.

Any idea what it could be?

 

[armymp327]

these are called diatoms and are fairly common in newer tanks, and will go away with time once everything balances it self out.

 

[Bengals]

Thanks for the heads up. I was reading last night that otos can be used to help clean them up. Anybody have any success with them? The brown stuff is just so ugly I'd prefer to get rid of it sooner rather than later.

 

[Zimmanski]

I could be wrong but I think your phosphates are too high, and diatoms feed off of silicates(phosphates) so maybe reducing it would help. Phosphates in my tank are between .5 and 1.

 

[Rivercats]

Only running your lights 6 hours until the diatoms run their course will help keep growth down alittle. Oto's love diatoms but are very sensitive fish and because all are wild caught using questionable methods such as stunning them with cyanide their survival rate in the aquarium is often low. I would suggest a couple nerite snails as they love diatoms.

 

[Bengals]

Thanks rivercats. We've been using the dry ferts and the plants are looking great (esp the bulb in pic 1). Are nerite snails one of the prolific growers? I'd prefer to stay away from snails that will overtake the tank....

 

[Rivercats]

Nerite snails can lay eggs in freshwater but they can't hatch so the amount of them you add to your tank is the amount you'll have. I have nerites in all my tanks.