Orange Creeping Crud

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fishingdan

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Dec 16, 2005
Messages
6
Location
Norfolk, Massachusetts
Thanks in advance for any help.

I have been battling an orange'ish algae on a weekly basis for a couple of months. The aquarium is about 4 months old. I want to control this stuff, but I am not having any success. The water temp is 75 and the light is on about 8 hours per day. Any suggestions?

Last weekend, I completely cleaned the tank. Everything, but the fish and about 60% of the water was removed. After cleaning the decorations and the gravel under water, I then thought maybe it would be good to boil the decorations and the gravel to make sure the crud was dead. Everything was then put back together. I went away on business for 4 days and I came home to the largest crud invasion I have seen (See the picture).

Its a 10 gallon freshwater tank.

976IMG_1944.JPG
 
Is it fairly easy to clean off the glass? If so it's most likely diatoms. Diatoms are fairly common in new setups. Make sure the tank isn't in direct sunlight, feed lightly, and do lots of water changes till the problem goes away. Keeping your nitrates at a low level will help starve the algae.
 
Is it slimy at all? Do you notice any air bubbles within the algae? Is it forming sheets on your gravel? Or is it sorta "dusty" and come off very easily with a finger?

I agree you could be dealing with diatoms. When I look closer towards your gravel though, it looks thick, and sort of climbing up your glass. Therefore, it is possible that it could be a case of cyanobacteria which is not as well known, and different than diatoms. Also takes a bit of a different approach to get rid of, as it is much more photosynthetic than diatoms.
 
I agree that its either Diatoms or blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) that can be both blue green and orange in color. Does it smell at all? Can you wipe it off easy? Does it form sheets or is it more slimy?
 
I'll try to answer the questions the best I can with my limited experience.

Does it wipe off the glass easily? Fairly easy. I usually use the edge of the fish net along the glass and it removes it.

Does it form sheets or is it slimy? I would say slimy.

Any air bubbles in the crud? No, not that I can see.

Is the tank in direct sunlight? No. The only light it gets is from the flouro hood light.

Is it sorta "dusty" and come off very easily with a finger? No, it appears clings to everything. For example, the stuff will grow on every needle on the plastic plants. Same for the gravel, the glass and everything else in the tank (except the fish).

At a minimum, it sounds like I need to get some test strips that include nitrates. From looking around the site, specifically testing the water is something I haven't been doing.

Thank you for your help.
 
Welcome to AA, I'd recommend a liquid test kit, such as AP master kit which can be found online quite cheaply at Big Al's. They are easier to use and more accurate. Testing the water and posting your parameters can certainly help with a lot of diagnosis. You can take a sample of your water to your lfs and they will usually test it for you if you don't have a kit right now.
 
From your discription the brown stuff is diatoms. It will go away on its own. Keep up with your water changes. It is common in new tanks.

When you completely cleaned your tank. Did you replace all your filter media with new as well?
 
rich311k said:
When you completely cleaned your tank. Did you replace all your filter media with new as well?

I did. I suspect some of the problem is that my kids overfead the fish while I was out of town. I cut back on the feadings since I return mid-day Friday and the orange crud is starting to lose some of its luster. I didn't get a chance to get a test kit today. That will happen tomorrow.
 
After doing some reading on diatoms, I think you folks are right on. Since I have cut back the food, they crud has turned from orange-brown to a gold-brown on the decorative pieces. As it did that, the orange molly fish seem to be eating the algae. They have been going at it all day.
 
Got a liquid test kit today.

PH 7.2
Nitrite .05
ammonia between 0 and 0.25

After I got the test kit home, I noticed that it doesn't test for Nitrates. Should I get a separate kit for that?

Does this seem right?
 
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