What's on my plants?

[DreaminginBlue]

Weird brown dots? Fuzzy looking? I don't know what's wrong... please help. They finally look recovered from initial melting and now this.

Sorry for terrible photo quality. I can't seem to fix that.

 

[flchamp89]

Thats a tough picture. But it looks like diatoms.

 

[DreaminginBlue]

I could try to get a better pic, but my phone is old and terrible at everything.
What do I do to get rid of them? Are they hurting my plants?
I tried knocking it off, mostly it stayed put, but I scraped a little piece off and it got stuck to my wooden tweezers. Fish don't seem to care, Cory cats were laying on the leaves of my anubias despite it.

 

[flchamp89]

If it diatoms its caused by silicates. It a normal part of a maturing aquarium. Brush off vacuum ect when you do wc. They will go away on there own.

 

[DreaminginBlue]

Okay, thanks. So it's not something to worry about?

 

[flchamp89]

Nope rarely

 

[DreaminginBlue]

Well... the problem is worse than I thought. Went in with a paper towel to wipe off the brown stuff, and I found some green algae in the tank, on the walls and on the rocks. So now diatoms and green algae?! I hadn't seen it before, so it was a shock. Then I checked out my floating breeder box which my betta is in until he heals, and it was covered in green algae too. It stinks. I took it out and cleaned it with hot water and a paper towel, no soap (even a newbie like me knows better). But the stuff is still in the tank and I can't wipe it all out.
What do I do? It's been cycling for over a month with no problem. I'm thinking water change, but how much? 25%? 50%? Also, what do I do to stop the algae? It's gross and I don't think my little corys will eat it

Also... Will I get sick at all if I touched the stuff? I don't think it'll hurt me, but I don't have gloves or anything.

 

[flchamp89]

Get some pictures so we can figure out what kind of algae. What kind of lighting do you have? How long is the photo period? No algae will not hurt you.

 

[DreaminginBlue]

It's green, really soft. On the walls and heater. No clue what kind of lighting; came from a kit, probably very basic. I'll try to get a pic, but my apologies if it's not great.

 

[DreaminginBlue]

Pics

Wall of tank and heater, was worse on another wall but I wiped it all out.

 

[DreaminginBlue]

Pics

Other picture.

 

[flchamp89]

Im on my phone hard tell it may be green hair algae. Google that and see if thats what it is.

 

[DreaminginBlue]

It looks more like green dust algae, but I'm not sure.

 

[flchamp89]

Maybe it is. You said felt soft. Is it on glass of plants.

 

[DreaminginBlue]

I think only the glass, I didn't see any on plants. It was also all over my floating plastic breeder box that my sick fish is in, I had to wipe it out and it smelled really gross.

 

[flchamp89]

Probably dust. Increase wc schedule

 

[DreaminginBlue]

Okay, thanks. I'll get on that as soon as possible. I have to go pick up some new five gallon buckets, I had two but my grandma wrecked them (accidentally).
Water changes are nightmares using plastic bowls, and everyone in the house gets annoyed when I try... probably because of all the running around and the fact that I get irritable if bothered while trying to carry a billion bowls back and forth... so yeah, gonna run down to Orchard and grab two.