Algae-palooza

[givemean_a]

Hi All!

I seem to be experiencing a great deal of "brown" algae on my tank ornaments and on the substrate. I also have some greenish algae on the glass mostly near the heater. The lights are on for 3 hours at night 7p-10p and the tank is definitely not in direct sunlight during the day. My tank is cycled, pH at 6.6, ammonia 0, nitrite 0 nitrate 5-10ppm. Weekly water changes of 30% and 2 HOB filters both rated for 30 gallons each.

I know people have said, don't add a fish to fix the problem, but what are the other suggestions you guys have? Could I add an oto to my current mix? (3 platys, 3 zebra danios and 3 assorted corys) If I did, how many? Do you think the sinking algae wafers we feed the corys (1/2 tab every other day) could be contributing to this abundance of algae?

What do you guys think? Any help would be great!

[Cliff]

The brown algae sounds more like diatoms to me. They can thrive in newer tanks or in tanks with new substrate. They feed on silicates which can be released from new substrate or they can also be found in your water supply.

Diatoms typically go away once all of the silicates are leached out of the substrate. I would suggest completeling more water changes and manually cleaning it off for a while. Give it another month or two and if the brown algae goes away on it's own, it was just diatoms

No sense in adding anything else to your set-up right now

[jrbirdman92]

I used API algeafix and it started clearing up in like 30 minutes!