diatoms/brown algae?

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

swifty

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Jul 6, 2008
Messages
282
Location
California
So far it's almost been a month since my freshwater low maintenance planted tank has been running, and so far it's been smooth. My only problem that remains is the brown algae/diatom. The thing is it isn't all over the entire tank; it's only apparent near the water output of the filter is. I have some rocks, amazon sword leaves, and 1/3 of the driftwood near the filter outtake and that's mainly been where the growth is.

I just scrubbed everything off with a toothbrush and did a 25% w/c, and I'm hoping it doesn't grow back. My light is on a timer for 8 hours, after it started at 10. It is a 17w zoomed ultra sun, and this is on a 20 gallon long.
 
Diatoms go away on there own after time. You can cut your light schedule back to 6 hours if other algae starts to take its place
 
Is it too much length of time on for the light or too much wattage? Also, will they die off on their own or will I have to keep scrubbing them every week with w/c?
 
Hi Swifty,

More wattage will get rid of this algae; however, since your tank is new give it some time to balance out the silica content. For now I would just scrub it off when doing water changes. Otos will also eliminate this algae, as will many other types of algae eaters.

David
 
Yeah, I added a bristlenose pleco and in literally hours the brown algae was completely removed from my tank. I was expecting a few days, not a few hours for him to act.

It is indeed new as it's only been running for a month, but won't water changes just keep replacing the silicates for them to feed off or am I wrong?

Regardless, I'm planning on upgrading my current single strip t8 light fixture to an Aqueon T5NO dual lamp so hopefully that will help it as well.
 
Back
Top Bottom