high nitrates= brown algae?

[chester82006]

My water parameters are
pH-7
High Range pH-7.4
Ammonia-0 ppm
Nitrites-0 ppm
Nitrates-20 ppm

in a 75 gallon with one Oscar, 2 JDs, and the 2 FMs that should be taken back to my LFS within the next couple of weeks.

I'm having a nasty brown algae problem all over the back and sides of the tank. Also on all of the ornaments and gravel. I heard that large water changes can help get rid of the nitrates and algae, but that doesn't seem to work for me.

My regular water changes are 30-40 gallons a week. Occasionally twice a week. Are there any other methods?

I also have 2 apple snails that get full after a couple hours of cleaning up, so they hibernate the majority of the time. :stongue:
Any help would be great :D, thank you.

[Mvjnz]

Is your tank still fairly new? If so, you will stop getting them within a couple months. It's pretty common in newly established tanks.

If your tank isn't new, then do you have high pH and hardness? That's a contributing factor to brown algae. I don't understand how you get 2 different pH readings.. are you using strips or liquid tests?

As is too much light. If your light is on more than 12 hours a day, change it to about 10 hours a day.

If none of that works, you can get siamese algae eaters or a bristlenose catfish, they love to eat these things. You'd have to check if they're compatible with your current fish tho...

[chester82006]

Is your tank still fairly new? If so, you will stop getting them within a couple months. It's pretty common in newly established tanks.

If your tank isn't new, then do you have high pH and hardness? That's a contributing factor to brown algae. I don't understand how you get 2 different pH readings.. are you using strips or liquid tests?

As is too much light. If your light is on more than 12 hours a day, change it to about 10 hours a day.

If none of that works, you can get siamese algae eaters or a bristlenose catfish, they love to eat these things. You'd have to check if they're compatible with your current fish tho...

My tank is quite new, about 3-4 months old. I don't believe I have high pH, but I've never tested for hardness. I'm using the liquid API freshwater master kit, and I'm not exactly sure what the second test for "high range pH" is either. I still have some salt in the aquarium, so I think I need to do more water changes before adding a BN if compatible. I will turn off the lights earlier to cut down to about 9-10 hours. Thank you so much for the reply, hopefully you're right about that algae going away in a couple of months.

[Dave66]

The brown algae is Diatoms, which is algae in a shell. Only reason you have them is you have silicates in your water supply, and high phosphate levels that's feeding the diatoms. If you've a canister filter, there are commercially available substances, usually iron oxide pellets, that will filter out both the silicates and the excess phosphate, gradually eliminating both the building blocks and engine of the diatoms.
In a month or two your tank will have stabilized sufficiently you shouldn't have any more algae troubles.
May I as why you are using salt in your tank?

Dave

[cocoa_pleco]

im thinking its from phosphates, they feed algae in FW and SW

EDIT- dave beat me to it. lol

[chester82006]

The brown algae is Diatoms, which is algae in a shell. Only reason you have them is you have silicates in your water supply, and high phosphate levels that's feeding the diatoms. If you've a canister filter, there are commercially available substances, usually iron oxide pellets, that will filter out both the silicates and the excess phosphate, gradually eliminating both the building blocks and engine of the diatoms.
In a month or two your tank will have stabilized sufficiently you shouldn't have any more algae troubles.
May I as why you are using salt in your tank?

Dave

You may :) I had some in there (1tbsp every 5gl) for ick and fin rot when my fish were sick. All is well now, and the water changes I've been doing have been diluting the amount of salt in the water. Also, thank you for the info on iron oxide pellets, never knew there was such a thing to filter out my problem.




im thinking its from phosphates, they feed algae in FW and SW

EDIT- dave beat me to it. lol

They just make the tank look so ugly, I hear it's not harmful to fish...but I can't stand looking at it -.-

[tanks4thememories]

I don't understand how you get 2 different pH readings.. are you using strips or liquid tests?

I think he is using both tests and so the low range is maxed then he uses high range and gets accurate reading.

also time of day you test can affect ph readings especially in planted tanks. it is a good practice to always test at the same time of day.

[Mvjnz]

Yeah, that would be it. If your normal pH test maxes out you go with high range test, because it has a 'higher range' as the name suggests.

I got brown algae in both my tanks after they were recently set up. In my big one I stopped getting them after about 3 months and in the small one they stopped after a month. So it's nothing you need to do anything about, except get a sponge and rub the algae off the glass if it bothers you. But there's no reason to turn to drastic measures.

[tanks4thememories]

Yeah, that would be it. If your normal pH test maxes out you go with high range test, because it has a 'higher range' as the name suggests.

I got brown algae in both my tanks after they were recently set up. In my big one I stopped getting them after about 3 months and in the small one they stopped after a month. So it's nothing you need to do anything about, except get a sponge and rub the algae off the glass if it bothers you. But there's no reason to turn to drastic measures.

Sun light?

[Lady Hobbs]

My water parameters are
pH-7
High Range pH-7.4
Ammonia-0 ppm
Nitrites-0 ppm
Nitrates-20 ppm

in a 75 gallon with one Oscar, 2 JDs, and the 2 FMs that should be taken back to my LFS within the next couple of weeks.

I'm having a nasty brown algae problem all over the back and sides of the tank. Also on all of the ornaments and gravel. I heard that large water changes can help get rid of the nitrates and algae, but that doesn't seem to work for me.

My regular water changes are 30-40 gallons a week. Occasionally twice a week. Are there any other methods?

I also have 2 apple snails that get full after a couple hours of cleaning up, so they hibernate the majority of the time. :stongue:
Any help would be great :D, thank you.

Same problem I have due to silicates/phosphates. I use the phosphate reducers and it does help. The beaded stuff works better than the sponges by far. I used Phos-ban the last time and my phosphates dropped from 2. to .50 almost overnight. The other beaded stuff works well, too, just added to a bag and dropped in your filter.

[chester82006]

All of these replies are a great help. I'm going to look into those phosphate reducers and beaded things to put into the filter. Also, gonna have to get scrubbing with a sponge and/or paper towels :P Thanks all :11: