# Brown Algae, mature tank, oto and amano present, WHY?!



## kyle3 (May 26, 2005)

http://joejaworski.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/the-real-scoop-on-brown-algae/

I found this site, and the information seems well researched- but the solutions it offers are the things I've been doing-waer changes-manual removal low nitrate(or none lol) 

maybe i need to stay the coarse and be patient

i still want to hear from anyone who can contribute-have you had it and gotten rid of it, still have it, what other info have you come across?

thanks-K


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## ZooTycoonMaster (Jan 2, 2008)

kyle3 said:


> I've read dosing excel can help with algae, is this a case where it would work?


Excel only helps with algae such as BBA, hair, clado, etc. not brown algae.

Brown algae can be removed by Otos, Nerite Snails, and of course yourself scrubbing it all off


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## kyle3 (May 26, 2005)

http://badmanstropicalfish.com/articles/article85.html

here's another decent link i found

should i try an activated carbon cartrige for a few days?

here's what I'm starting to think- yes Silicates are the building block for these diatoms however it seems they are present in plenty of tanks with no brown algae- which means there must be an additional contributing factor or factors

thanks for clearing up the excel thing Zoo


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## kyle3 (May 26, 2005)

Ok so I set a new coarse of action for the tank- I'll keep you folks posted on how it goes (i know you're looking u're just not posting  )

I put activated carbon in the filter today, did another 50% water change, I'm going to do one tomarow and the next day, on friday I'll dose ferts again (carbon should have used itself up by then i figure) 

also I am going to start adding excel to this tank. although it's not suposed to effect diatoms- i refferenced the Kh/Ph Co2 chart and I'm hitting a little bellow 10 ppm and with 2.8 watts per gallon i think my plants will show better growth and compete with the algae more effectively with a little more co2 help.

third i went out and bought 3 otos- if they all survive their adjustment and i feel like the tank is over stocked after algae comes under control, I'll move 2 into one of my other tanks(all are planted)

once again please share any thoughts you have on my strategy
or words of encouragement -lol


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## kyle3 (May 26, 2005)

also i decided once the otos are settled in I'm going to feed all fish a bit more to see if i can get them pooping more- so i can have thier nitrates -tee hee

If i;m not getting a better reading in 2 weeks I'll have to figue out another strategy to increase my nitrates


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## otter (Oct 22, 2005)

Kyle, I can't see your tanks I get: "Sorry but not profiles exist for this user."

Where are you in MN to get water like that? It can't be your tap water can it!? Mine is 8.2pH & 15d from the tap. I thought the whole state was like that.
My initial thoughts on your algae are more no3, you should have about 20PPM, I don't think you'll get there with fish poo alone, more co2 and maybe more circulation. IMO 20 is too big for DIY co2 and a bubble ladder, but I may be wrong about that. This is the routine I follow, you could cut it in half for your 20 if so inclined. Good luck!

Target values
CO2 - 25-35PPM (+/- 5PPM)
NO3 - 5-30PPM (+/- 1PPM)
K+ - 10-30PPM (+/- 2PPM)
PO4 - 1-3PPM (+/- .2PPM)
Fe - .2-.5+? (+/- .1PPM)

Dry fert - amounts to add
Sunday - 50% water change, 1/2Tsp of KNO3, 1/16Tsp of KH2PO4
Monday - 10ml trace
Tuesday - 1/2Tsp of KNO3, 1/16Tsp of KH2PO4
Wednesday - 10ml trace
Thursday - 1/2Tsp of KNO3, 1/16Tsp of KH2PO4
Friday - 10ml trace
Saturday - OFF


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## kyle3 (May 26, 2005)

On Thursday i got a 5ppm reading on my nitrates- today it's up to 10 so that's good.

since the Wednesday when i did as much manual removal as i could (without damaging plants too much) I haven't had too much regrowth. I decided to wait a little longer to fertilize again so I'll do another 50% change tomorrow and then add back ferts as well as begin dosing excel.

the otos seem to be grazing but they don't seem to have voracious appetites either- we'll see

Otter: I'm in Minneapolis- my water was a bit different years back when i was in St. Paul- different municipal water facilities i suppose.

as far as my tank parameters go I'm shooting for between 10 and 20 ppm Co2- so likewise a little less on the macros and micros- I know there's potential for needing to dose nitrate but I want to try to balance it lower tech if i can manage it- don't have the funds to upgrade to pressurized yet.

I'll see if i can figure out what's wrong with my profile, when I'm in user cp it's all there so. . . hopefully i can fix it


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## kyle3 (May 26, 2005)

http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/members/kyle3.html

trying to see if a direct link to my profile will work

edit: link works for me does it work for anyone else?


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## kyle3 (May 26, 2005)

update: i did another water change today i had a little new diatom growth on glass and along the gravel that i was able to remove manually- also I'm noticing that on the bacopa, and wisteria there is a bit more growth- these are the hardest plants for manual removal so i was hoping the otos would be able to suport me in this way however i see them most on glass, sword and dwarf sag., figures huh!

after the water change i added 1/3 cap full of flourish, and 1 3/4 cap fulls of excel.

I'm planning to wait at least 3 days before i do another water change and even then only if i'm still seeing the diatoms advance

cheers-k


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## kyle3 (May 26, 2005)

to my great satisfaction i saw an oto traveling meticulously from leaf to leaf in the bacopa today- yipee


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## jaidexl (Sep 18, 2006)

Are you positive you're dealing with diatoms and not dust algae? Sometimes GDA (green dust algae) can remain almost invisible to the eye from a certain angles, until it starts to brown up on the glass and leaves. This situation happened to me last year and had me thinking I was fighting a diatom issue.

Look at the front glass from the side of the tank and see if the inside has a light green coating over it.


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## kyle3 (May 26, 2005)

boy that's a good question. I don't have any on the glass right now to look at (all of it's on the witeria and bacopa for the most part right now) 

I hadn't yet read anything about dust turning brown, I'll do some more searching thanks for the tip.


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## kyle3 (May 26, 2005)

ok i have some current photos for your diagnostic pleasure :biggrin:

this shot was taken 2/18:









these two are close ups of the worst of it taken 2/23:

















the stem on the left with the least algae is where i watched the oto munching

all in all there's some improvement but i still have a ways to go

cheers-K


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## jaidexl (Sep 18, 2006)

Yeah, once it grows out it turns brown and sloughs off. I had brown covering leaves and growing in spots on the glass and thought I had brown diatoms for months. All of the sudden it started showing more green, then the entire front glass went bright green, there was no mistaking it at that point. When I watched it brown up and slough off, I could see then it was the same brown crud I'd been dealing with for months. Truth is it's more of a filmy coating while diatoms will practically dust off at the sweep of your hand.

Your picture is very similar to my old problem. For your sake I hope it's not the case but something to look into.


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## kyle3 (May 26, 2005)

filmy has a familiar ring to it- how did you ultimately get rid of it?


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## jaidexl (Sep 18, 2006)

I unscrewed one of the bulbs in my fixture.


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## kyle3 (May 26, 2005)

just to lower the light in general? or because that bulb too high or low of a spectrum? did you remove it permanently or just for a week or a couple days?

thanks for your input i really appreciate it!


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## jaidexl (Sep 18, 2006)

I wanted to completely cut the lumens reaching the tank, I tried letting the GDA outgrow itself then do a big cleaning as suggested in articles, but this is the only way I could stop it from coming back. Plant growth slowed, but at this point I'm tired with that particular tank, so the break is nice. It's important to make sure plants are still responding and growing, though, or more types of algae may appear as they start to weaken and die. My light is a T5 HO so it's not as much of an issue getting good, usable light to the plants with less running.

That tank is still under special care, so I'll keep the light low until it's balanced again and everything clears up. Even then I'll probably not go back to the full wattage it had, to be honest I'm converting this tank from high tech to low tech. It ran great for 2yrs as high tech, but things have been spinning out of control for the last year and I think it's time to tone it down and stop fighting. In any other tank, staying the course has always worked for me, but not here.

Here's a pic of it in the middle of a rescape with low tech plants, you can see the existing GDA was pretty bad at that point. Notice the brown, hazy areas where it's dying off.


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## kyle3 (May 26, 2005)

Update: on wed. I decided to follow my own advice about plants out-competing algae and added three "bunches" of Rotala Indica to the tank. Last time i had this in my tank it was growing so fast that i got sick of trimming it and threw it all away. But whatever lol.

I'm seeing steady improvement in the tank, the major change in standard tank maintenance that i've made is adding excel. and dosing flourish twice a week instead of once. - I'm sure more oto's isn't hurting either :wink:

I think my problem was just not having the right balance in the tank and adjusting my routine and a few thorough cleanings has put my tank back on track.

here's a picture of the tank on Friday:









I also tore out the java moss b/c it was pretty infested- stuck it in a tank with a lot of snails and it's looking a little better already- they're going to town.

From where i was when i started this tread I'd say i have 15% of the algae that i had then, so I'm pretty happy with that and I'll be surprised if it doesn't recede a little more.

thanks to everyone who gave me their help

cheers-K


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## smackpixi (Feb 14, 2009)

This would appear to be the same problem I'm having. http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/algae/82311-what-algae-not-lists.html

It "looks" like diatoms, but the diatoms rub off very easily while this does not. If yours do not rub off either, jaidexl's idea sounds promising. Fits my situation very well as when i wa scrubbing the green stuff off the front and side glass i let it go on the back...and it turned into what you see now. I can see how i wouldn't notice it on otherwise green plants.


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## kyle3 (May 26, 2005)

I'm not positive what it is - yours (pixi) definitely looks like mine. . . but what I've been doing is working.

the first thing i did was try to get my water chemistry- back to "a clean slate" with like three days of big water changes and a major manual removal. (as far as removing this stuff- it doesn't vacuum off like is says diatoms should on a lot of the algae pages however i did find that it wipes of fairly easily even if it is a bit or a nuisance- i actually used an algae scrub pad that's made for acrylic tanks and was gentle so i didn't damage the leaves too much)

as i said earlier in the thread i threw some activated carbon into my filter- I don't know if this made a contribution at all but. . .

day 7 i did another big water change and resumed dosing flourish and started adding excel on top of my DIY Co2. (the Co2 was going the whole time, by the way) 

on day 2 or 3 i added 3 otos (all of whom are still alive and munching). 

I also added a lot more fast growing stem plants.

the algae is almost gone it's receded to a level it doesn't bug me every time i look at the tank and every day there is a little less.

ultimately i think what worked was just worrying about what helps plants grow best and letting the algae alone- my plants are growing steadily and pearling in the mornings, I'm happy with it now

I did a lot of research and read a lot of threads- the ones that support my results the most, i think, are the plantbrain, (tom barr), posts that say more co2 is the best thing you can do for you plants even before you give them higher light, or more nutrients - this makes a lot of sense to me, so i ran with it and my tank looks good.
cheers-K


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## kyle3 (May 26, 2005)

so i added that rotala 4 days ago and i already have to do a major trimming today LMAO :icon_roll


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## kyle3 (May 26, 2005)

A little new information: yesterday, 3/4/09, one of the t-5 light bulbs in my coralife fixture burnt out.

thought this would be a good piece of info to share since diatoms have been associated with old light bulbs in some cases. So i wanted to point out that if it was diatoms that i had, they were gone before the bulb burnt out. which would indicate that the "old bulb" theory is incorrect

cheers-K


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## manifresh006 (May 8, 2007)

any updates bro man this algae sucks it just doesnt die


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## kyle3 (May 26, 2005)

I'm still algae free. . .well I have recently had a little growth and then receding of green spot algae, but the brown stuff is gone lest a bit between gravel and glass that the oto's can't get to. 

check out the journal in my signature for current pictures

cheers-K


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## manifresh006 (May 8, 2007)

wat helped out the excel and water changes?


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## kyle3 (May 26, 2005)

I think it was the water changes and the increase in CO2 both from changing my DIY more frequently and adding the excel. I also think adding more plants made a big difference in the availability of nutrients for the algae to use.


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