green algae gone...for now...but what is this stuff?

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WilliS

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Aug 23, 2004
Messages
24
Location
Pennsylvania
this is what i had before i ever got green algae...its brownish looking and coats my gravel/plants/ everything but fish...

ive attached some pics of the algae growth stuff...and one of my tank.. hope someone knows what will help kill this crud...

and if you know what will kill it, will it also kill my plants?
 
hmmm... i dont like the way this works...i really need to get some webspace... but 100webspace.com is all messed up due to the hurricanes... :-\

dont mind the one huge pic... i was in a hurry to get them all under 100k and this one wouldnt cooperate..so i said screw it and made it huge and lowered the quality...but just check out all the algae on the rock in the picture... its all the same stuff...i dunno what it is..
 
i really need to get some webspace... but 100webspace.com is all messed up due to the hurricanes... :-\
You can get hosting through AA for as little as $5 a month! I haven't put my site together yet because I'm too busy with school. :D

What are your water parameters?
It looks like diatoms aka brown algae. How large is the tank? How long as the tank been set up?

...And now for some advice you didn't ask for~
I see you have juvie Mbuna cichlids from Lake Malawi. When these fish mature, they will get aggressive and you will probably loose some. The natural environment of these fish is rocky. When they get larger, they will excavate and move all the gravel around. Depending on the plants--if they are real, the cichlids may eat them. These fish are herbivores and cannot tolerate a lot of protien in their diet. To see what some of your Pseudotropheus sp will look like when mature, check out my gallery.
 
My tank is 80 gallons and has been up for about 2 months... i had an outbreak of these in the first couple weeks i had the tank...they kinda leveled off when i cut down the amount of time i used my lights, and scrubbed them off things in my tank, but they are back again now that i have real plants in my tank.

my water is in good shape, its about the same as the water at the petsmart where i work..but they dont have this problem..they only get green algae

as for the fish, thanks for the info :).. um.. the plants are real..and they already eat at them a bit... i wanted to take out my current decorations and put in some tree root looking structures and some slated rock... im not sure.. i have 14 mbuna cichlids in the tank... will 80 gallons not be enough for them to play nice? what would you suggest i do to help them get along? or any aquascaping i should do?

thanks :-\

and if it is diatoms, how do i kill them and not my plants?
 
For peacekeeping you can borrow my 18" Pacu for a couple of days. :lol:

I too had a problem with the brown algae, I simly scraped all of it off that i could and did a partial water change, it slowly died off after that. It will come back every once in a long time, it only came in about 3 times on my previous 55gallon set up.
 
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