Brown spots

[Guppykeeper]

Help! Theres brwon spots all over the gravel and on all the ornaments in my aquarium. Does anyone know what this is and/or how to treat it?...Thanks

[madagascariensis]

Is your tank new? then in that case it likely is diatomic algae. If you can wait, it will likely go away on its own once the tank matures.
If you cannot wait, do larger, more frequent water changes to get rid of the substances the algae needs to survive, clean it regularly or get nerite snails.

[escamosa]

Overstocking and a tank being new, isn't always the cause of diatoms. It can also be caused by silicates, phosphates, high nitrates, and not enough light.

Phosphates can come from your tap water, fish food, and fish poo.
Your fishes waste is where the nitrates come from.
And the silicates usually come from a few kinds of sands, that people use for substrates - sometimes it can come from glass.

So a few things to check.
1. You can check your tap water for phosphates.
2. Test your tank water for high nitrates.
3. What kind of substrate do you have? Play sand?

Things that you can do to treat the problem.
1. If you have high phosphates in your tap water, then you might have to concider using a product like PhosBan or Rowaphos.
2. If the tank water is the problem, and has high nitrates and/or phosphates, then you need to do large water changes - at least 50% - and gravel vacuums to bring those levels down.
3. Look at your feeding technique. Are you feeding the fishes too much? Are you feeding them once a day, twice a day, or three times a day? If you're feeding them once a day, then there is a fair chance that you're dropping far too much food in the tank for them to eat in one go. Whatever food isn't eaten will settle in the substrate, rot, then it's producing nitrates/phosphates to build up in the water. I feed mine three times a day - three small serves. This way they all get some food, but it's all eaten.
4. If you have play sand as the substrate, get rid of it and get something else to replace it with. The silicates can leech out of that sand for ages, and continue to cause these diatom blooms.

But as madagascariensis said, they can start to grow in new and or cycling tanks, and they can go away after a little while, usually once you get into a normal cleaning routine. thumbs2:

[ldoerr]

Probably diatoms. It will eventually go away. If you can not wait a while, do larger frequent WCs and you can scrub the ornaments in tank water.