# Brown Algae on Glass/Established Tank



## Aurie (Jun 3, 2013)

Hey guys.. Just trying to get some input on why I might have brown algae on the glass of my aquarium. I don't have much of it on the leaves of plants. It seem to start near my substrate and it goes in patches. It's easily scraped off but I have to scrape it off every week during my water change.

Tank Specs:

46 Gallon Marineland Bowfront
Eheim 2215
Koralia powerhead (not sure of the size, it's smaller than a baseball)
Moderately planted. Lots of fast growers:
Ludwiga, Brazilian Pennywort, Rotatilla Indica, Water Sprite (planted) and lots of dwarf water lettuce
I have some chain swords and a ozolot sword in there as well.
2x39W Aquaticlife (coralife) t5HO, 1 zoomed and 1 coralife 6500-6700 bulb
No ferts. well, ok, occationally I squirt 1ml of flourish comp and 2ml of excel but it's about once a week. I'm really not good with keeping a dosing schedule.
NO co2 .. photo period is 8 hours (1 block)

Here's some pictures of what I'm talkin about:



















I have other tanks with algae but this one is going to be set up the exact same when I move, so this is the only one I concern myself with (algae wise)

I'm afraid if I put more nutrients into the soil that I'll have to do co2. This algae is about 2 month old. The tank is 11 months old. 
One day when I can afford it I'd like to get an LED light. Maybe a planted + 36" and rehome the t5

Oh and the tank has:
1 parkinsoni rainbow
2x hengeli rasboras
2 sunset dwarf female gourami
5 kulii loaches - 5 glass catfish - 10ish pygmy corydoras and Amanos
LOTS of pond snails and 4 assassin snails


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## dzega (Apr 22, 2013)

drop an oto catfish in that tank


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## fishwater (May 31, 2012)

Looks and sounds like diatoms, often time caused by not enought light or an excess of silicate acids. +1 to a few otos (they are social fish and do better in numbers) or even a BN pleco, would probably help clean that off. Nerite snails would help as well but with assassin snails that is probably not a good idea. Manual extraction should be easy as most diatoms will simply wipe off. If its a harder algae that requires scraping it could be GDA.


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## andrewq (May 22, 2013)

+1 oto


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## Aurie (Jun 3, 2013)

Do you think the silicates might be coming from my pool filter sand? 

I transfered my bristlenose from my 29 over and we'll see how she does. My stocking for the tank once moved is to have no glass cats or kulii loaches so I'll have room for some otos.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk


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## Warlock (Feb 28, 2012)

wipe down.. daily water change.. 
when ever i got lazy on water changes.. the stuff showed up.. i wiped it off.. 
got back to doing WC daily again.. and then it was gone


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## fishwater (May 31, 2012)

I honestly don't know enough about substrates, but that would be a likely culprit. Start or link a thread on the substrate forum and you most likely will get a better informed answer than I can provide.


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