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I seem to have growth of terracotta red algae on the glass of my tank. Can anyone, A:tell me what it could be, and, B:can i use a standard green algae treatment to remove it?
It sounds like diatoms, they are fueled by silicates in the water. Typically when a tank is new they bloom, but as the silicates are used up, they slow down considerably. They tend not to die off completly, cause we keep adding silicates back to the water with top off and water changes. IME, plecostomus and other algae eating fish make short work of it.
Well, i finally got a sample under a microscope, and i can confirm it's diatoms.They're mostly clumps of centric and pennate types , although there seems to be a few interesting dinoflagellates in there!!. Have now put the tank in total darkness for a few days to see if that has any effect (after all they photsynthesise as much as the green stuff!). I have to get their numbers down, as the tank is starting to develop that distinct algae smell(like an estuary)heres hoping it works.