Brown algae must die!

[HUKIT]

In my 55 gallon aquarium i have been stuggling for months with brown algae.

water parameters are perfect with nitrates always below 10ppm.
lighting is th5o 2x54 on 5 hours a day.
filtration is a Fluval 405 and 2 Emperor 280's
substrate is Caribsea Torpedo Beach
Running carbon in hob's and Purigen,Biomax and Phos-zorb in canister.
tank is very well stocked with weekly water changes.
the tank has been running for 7 months.
even bought 5 oto's that can't keep up.

I have tried reducing light,increasing lights,a 3 day blackout,Phos-zorb to reduce possible silicates/phosphates,bi-weekly water charges with no help. The other 6 tanks in the house have gone through the diatom stage and passed very quickly but this one won't let up. Any other advice? Thanks

 

[joeynuna]

If you ruled out the obvious such as over feeding, is any direct sunlight hitting the tank? Although sometime its impossible to get completely away from the sun there are some solutions. I have an established tank that had a brown allege out break. I found it was caused by a tiny amount of sunlight hitting the tank. I went to toy-r-us and picked up a car sunblock screen thats made for babies. it has 4 suction cups and sticks to the glass. I put it up with the morning feed and take it down in the evening. as a matter of fact my screen says "baby on board." Once i put this up, problem was gone. hope this helps.

 

[brenno031]

I had trouble with brown algae a while ago, for months i tried and tried to beat it, but with no success. Sunlight is hard to keep off my tank without covering it through the day with a sheet or towel or like what joeynuna suggested, but wheres the fun in that? Rookie mistake, i know. But my pretty little fishes couldn't show themselves off. So i did some research and found that some fish eat algae, so i got a little Bristle-nose Catfish. Being a baby it took a while for her to completely clean the tank -there was a fair bit there- but i noticed a difference in a few days. To this day i've never seen a spot of brown algae since she found home in my tank. That was my solution for brown algae, i still feed her algae wafers, and shrimp pellets (not for her, but she seems to like them). Since then, she's gotten much bigger and still looks very healthy.

 

[HUKIT]

There is no direct sunlight on the tank. I have oto's that eat algae but there must be a another way since the other 5 tanks have gone through the diatom phase and passed very quickly.

Is is possible for Purigen to leach back into the tank? I have alot of mopani in there and the Purigen is always brown even after a recharge

 

[WhiteDevil]

Can be, so can the carbon.

there are two ways, chemical and natural.

Chemical works great but its a chemical

Natural, 3 day black out or plant weed plants.
I am having the same problem but its turning green finally.
6 otos
5 BNP's
4 SAE's
they ate their butts off but arent making a big dent in 210g worth of brown algae.

I have 640w x 4hrs /day and 320w x 8 hrs/day, injected Co2, ferts, heavily planted, err mediumly heavy ish.

 

[HUKIT]

Sad part was this was my planted tank but i got so tired of removing the plants and hand cleaning each leaf i finally gave up and sold the plants but the alage is still winning.

I guess i could try another black out.

 

[WhiteDevil]

I woulda taken the plants lol, you live 20 minutes from me.

Mine has subsided and now green algae is visible but the cleaning crew is working overtime on that. I added all of the plants from KAI's tank and in the past week I went from nothing but a brown algae tank to actually having only the green algae left in spots closer to the light.

 

[HUKIT]

Bought a male and female bnp yesterday and they are eating like mad. So we'll see in a few days if they are making a dent.

 

[Twoapennything]

I admit, as an aquarist n00b, that I have no idea what all the parameters you're listing are or mean :/ I'm having a terrible problem with brown algae in my 40 gallon tank - it started pretty quickly. The tank receives absolutely no direct sunlight and I, of course, can control how often the lights are on. I do weekly water changes, but the algae persists. Over the past week, I've noticed that the algae on the glass is a vivid green, instead of brown. From other posts in this thread, I'm wondering if that is a good thing? Does it mean anything positive when the algae goes from brown to green?

I miss my crystal clear tank where I can see all my little guys swimming around. I'll keep reading your thread with interest. Sorry to hijack - I'll go and start my own thread, too.