What is this on my plants?

[Pezzep]

I have three tanks one set up for about 3+ months the other 2 have been up for about 2. I've been having diatom blooms which I understand is normal in the early stages? They are starting to calm down though and not be as bad, I've had this brown stuff on the leaves of my plants too, which seems to be diatoms but has a little bit of hairs coming off the edge of the leafs so wasn't sure, wanted to post a picture to get opinions. Middle left leaf shows it the best.

 

[jwh0818]

What are you dosing? What light? How long is your light on per day? Any co2? What substrate?

 

[Pezzep]

On the 8g there are Two 13w, I believe they are CFLs, they are the fluval lights that come with the fluval ebi shrimp tanks. The substrate is fluval flora max, I dose seachem excel daily and I use root tabs. Lights are on 8 hours a day. The 20 high has a 18000k t8 fluorescent bulb and two 15w 6300k cfl bulbs it has a gravel substrate with root tabs and I does excel daily. Lights are also on 8 hours a day.

 

[Pezzep]

The brown "stuff" is pretty much only found on my larger leaf plants like anubias, hygrophila, and java fern. My nerites love eating it which leads me to believe its diatoms, but I just want other opinions on what it is and how to get rid of it. Thanks.

If it is diatoms, should I just give the leaves a good scrubbing and see if it stays away?

 

[mrvincent]

Brown algae (or diatoms) is neither bacteria nor algae. It appears when there are excessive silicates coming from the substrate or from decorative stones, combined with a low-light condition. It can also come from the water source.

Remove as much as you can using a toothbrush and a narrow siphon hose. Change the substrate, use clean reverse osmosis water, and add fish that will each these algae, such as otos, plecos or ancistrus.

 

[Mebbid]

Brown algae (or diatoms) is neither bacteria nor algae. It appears when there are excessive silicates coming from the substrate or from decorative stones, combined with a low-light condition. It can also come from the water source.

Remove as much as you can using a toothbrush and a narrow siphon hose. Change the substrate, use clean reverse osmosis water, and add fish that will each these algae, such as otos, plecos or ancistrus.

Diatoms actually are a type of algae. They are also common in newer tank setups and are self limiting. Once most available silicates are used up in the tank they will go away on their own provided there isn't a high concentration of silicates in your tap water (which is rare)

I have found nerites to be by far the best diatom consumer around so I would start out with those. As for adding fish to take care of them, unless you want them in your final stocking of your tank I wouldn't bother.

Manual removal of diatoms will help but it won't remove them all; time is usually the thing that takes care of diatoms the best.

Another thing to look at is how long are you running your lights?

 

[Pezzep]

I can't put nerites in my 8gal, the puffers will eat them. Lights are on 8 hours a day. I'll just scrub the leaves and wait it out if they will go away in time, since my tanks are still relatively new. I have found that you need to be quite patient for this hobby and things take time aha, something I'm not the best at but am working on.

Thanks for the help and advice everyone.