Detritus and bright green algea

[Jdh]

Hi everyone, two questions/issues:

1. I have a layer of brown "dust" algea under my gravel which I assume to be Detritus. Is this normal? How do I get rid of it?

2. There's also bright green specs of algea on my rocks. It's very minor, but I haven't heard of bright green algea before. What is it?

Thanks for any help,
-Josh

 

[Faile]

The brown "dust" is mulm. As long as there isn't an over abundance of it, you can just leave it be and allow it to provide nutrients to you plants. If there's an excess, then you can do a gravel vac in the open areas of your gravel and wave the gravel vac above the substrate to get any excess resting on top.

 

[mudraker]

There are many types of bright green aglae. If its the hard green algae, you may need to scrub it off with a toothbrush. If its one of the other varieties, just wipe it off with a papertowel during PWC.

The algae won't hurt your fish, but it can kill your plants if it spreads to them. Best to clean it up weekly.

 

[BigJim]

+1 that the brown stuff is most likely mulm. Vacuum it out of the gravel regularly or you'll have nitrate problems.

The algae sounds like green spot algae. It's pretty normal to have some in an aquarium.

 

[JohnPaul]

This page has some pictures of various types of algae and will give some tips on identifying causes/solutions if it gets out of hand.