advice for "dusting" my baby dwarf tears

[JackBlasto]

So my new tank set up is proving to allow substrate residue from the water to rest atop the freshly planted baby dwarf tears. Is there a way to make this dust leave or will it just naturally go away? It's very minimal but is making the leaves look brown (the color of the substrate) because it's dust is lightly covering them. Any ideas on making it look better? Is vacuuming the bottom a possibility? These things were hard to get to stay down and I feel the system is a bit fragile at this point but I don't want the dust to affect their light intake either. Thanks.

 

[azmodan]

One thing I've done just for aesthetic purposes is use a turkey baster to lightly puff water at delicate plants and blow the dirt off.

 

[JackBlasto]

Ah, that's a pretty good idea

 

[JackBlasto]

Just tried blowing it off with a light vacuum and it turns out its not dirt, its a very light algae bloom... Brown... Small hairs.. So any ideas on getting rid if that? Heh... I'm gonna reduce the time the lights are on for now.

 

[Rivercats]

I don't know long you leave lights on daily but planted tanks only need 6-8 hours of light. If there is an algae problem then going down to 6 hours a day is the best until you get algae under control. Do you have a picture of the algae? If the tank is somewhat new diatom, or brown algae is very common.

 

[JackBlasto]

The tank is brand new. Been setting it up for a month. Good to know its normal to have some. Ill take a pic later and post it. Ill drop the hours of light to 6. Thanks

 

[Rivercats]

Diatoms will eventually run their course but if you just can't stand looking at them you can get a couple nerite snails as they love diatoms. Also nerite snails can't reproduce in freshwater. The females will lay eggs but they can't hatch.

 

[JackBlasto]

pic of the algae

Here's a pic of what's quickly overtaking the dwarf baby tears. I drained half the tank so I could reach down into it and rustled it around a little which exposed some green on the baby tears.

It looks blurry but that is really a haze of brown over the green that appears blurry and is actually the algae.

 

[Rivercats]

It looks green in the picture, doesn't look like diatoms. Is it fuzzy?

 

[JackBlasto]

pic

Here's a better representation of the algae. Sorry, you're right the lighting in the last one did make it show up a lot healthier looking than it is.

 

[Rivercats]

Now it looks brown and as long as it's not fuzzy I'd say it's diatoms. With diatoms you can take and rub your fingers over a leaf (yeah I know rather hard to do with HC) and it just rubs off. Diatoms are very common in new tanks and will eventually run their course. Lowering your photoperiod to 6 hours daily will help. Personally what I would do is add a couple of nerite snails. They can't breed in freshwater although females will lay eggs. I keep nerites in all my tanks. They eat diatoms, green dust algae, green spot algae, and bio-film. IMO they are very handy little guys to have in a tank.