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#Post#: 491--------------------------------------------------
Algae Question
By: Fisher-of-Men Date: September 24, 2014, 6:55 pm
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Hey guys,
Not sure if this is the section for this, but I'm having an
issue with brown algae growing on my artificial rocks in my 90
gal. tank. I'm cleaning, and doing water changes (25 gal ) twice
a week. I'm running a fluval fx6, and all my water tests come up
good. Should I be concerned, and if so how do I get rid of it?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Bryden
#Post#: 496--------------------------------------------------
Re: Algae Question
By: PaulMartin61 Date: September 24, 2014, 7:31 pm
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Hi Bryden,
How much light do you have over your tank?
How long are your light on for?
How often do you feed your fish?
Not knowing the answers the the above questions, I'd suggest the
following:
Reduce your lighting by at least an hour a day. You could also
do the a 'siesta' mode. Turn your lights off for 2 hours in the
afternoon, and add those hours to the end of the day when your
home to enjoy the tank.
Feed your fish smaller amounts, but more often. This helps with
extra non-eaten food from decaying and adding nutrients to the
water column.
I'd also check into some Nerite Snails. For your 90 gallon, I'd
use no less than 3. These guys are really fun to watch, eat
algae like there's no tomorrow, and won't damage (90% of the
time) any live plants you might have.
Hopefully that's a start for you.
Good luck :)
Paul
#Post#: 504--------------------------------------------------
Re: Algae Question
By: probn Date: September 24, 2014, 8:42 pm
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go to this link it gives solutions to brown algae
HTML http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/maintenance1/p/algaebrown.htm
#Post#: 508--------------------------------------------------
Re: Algae Question
By: Fisher-of-Men Date: September 24, 2014, 8:59 pm
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Thanks for the advice guys. I'll let you know how it works out.
#Post#: 510--------------------------------------------------
Re: Algae Question
By: probn Date: September 24, 2014, 9:27 pm
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yeah you definitely should :D
best of luck
#Post#: 523--------------------------------------------------
Re: Algae Question
By: Jennifer Date: September 25, 2014, 1:03 am
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What kind of substrate do you have?
If you have a sand substrate, like aragonite sand, it will add
phosphates to your water for a short time, then stop. If you're
using regular gravel, you might have phosphates coming in
through your water source. If it's the first, water changes,
gravel vacs, just cleaning the stuff off will generally take
care of it in a short amount of time. If it's the second, you
might want to look into getting something that eats that kind of
algae, snails, plecos, and oto's all do. Gotta go with what is
compatible with your other fish. Or, if it's a really high
level of phosphates, you might need to go to RO.
With the brown diatom algae, you actually want to increase your
lighting, not decrease it. You also want to keep your nitrate
level pretty low, so plants, an overhead sump with a pothos if
your fish will just destroy plants or more frequent water
changes and smaller feedings. You also want to keep the tank
well aerated.
The good news is that USUALLY, the brown algae is just a symptom
of a newer tank and will go away rather quickly. Let's hope
this is a usually situation lol!
#Post#: 578--------------------------------------------------
Re: Algae Question
By: PaulMartin61 Date: September 25, 2014, 6:44 pm
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[quote author=Jennifer link=topic=113.msg523#msg523
date=1411624991]
With the brown diatom algae, you actually want to increase your
lighting, not decrease it.
[/quote]
Oops! Jennifer is absolutely correct on this one. I clearly
wasn't thinking 'brown algae' in my reply. Thanks Jennifer!
Paul
#Post#: 630--------------------------------------------------
Re: Algae Question
By: Jennifer Date: September 26, 2014, 10:41 am
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;D
#Post#: 756--------------------------------------------------
Re: Algae Question
By: Fisher-of-Men Date: September 27, 2014, 10:45 pm
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Update: I'm going to be out of town for a week, so I took the
rocks out and will really scrub them down when I get back. I
also did a big water change (50+ gal.). I'm hoping now that the
filter has been established this won't be an ongoing issue. If
so, I'll look into an algae eater.
To answer the substrate question. Since the ph is naturally high
I use a pretty standard gravel. I like the look of sand, but I
was worried about getting it into the filtration.
Thanks again for all the helpful info.
#Post#: 869--------------------------------------------------
Re: Algae Question
By: Stu4648 Date: September 29, 2014, 2:17 pm
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Slightly off topic .... I would not worry about sand getting
into your filtration. The intake on my tank is fairly high but
assuming it wasn't semi buried in sand I do not think you would
have any issues with it sucking in sand. Most of the cloudiness
you see in newly setup tanks with a sand substrate is just
excess dust that the initial rinsing of the sand failed to
remove.
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