Mert16

well my 14 gal. tank has been set up for 5 months now. I've never had any water problems since my tank has cycled. I do 25% water changes about every two weeks, but I check for ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates every week. and the water is crystal clear with no bad smells. I've noticed that the plants have a reddish brown gunk on them. and they are plastic. can someone tell what that is? I took them out about two weeks ago and cleaned it off with water only. and now its back. Is it the start of something that can get out of hand. What can I do to control it if need to. I've never had to deal with algae or bad water so I'm wanting to get control of it before it gets bad.
thanks

COBettaCouple

It sounds like diatoms, which are harmless to fish and occur after a tank is cycled. Do you have a pic that could confirm this?

Evelyn1919

right, right, right...
i got them all over my plants too and it looks awful. i just cleaned everything with used tank water and of course it is now coming back.

does anybody know if it will stop eventually?

COBettaCouple

It does usually go away.

Ryno

Low light levels can produce diatoms. I have a problem with it in my 55 gallon tank, which only has one 20 watt bulb.

Mert16

Thanks all,

but how do I attach a pic on here?

krazykid933

Click "Go Advanced" then click on the little paper clip over from the font choices. To make it easier click the "Switch Editor Mode" in the top right-hand corner for no coding.

Mert16

ok thanks for the help. here are the pics of that ugly brown stuff


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Barbrella

The brown algae is normal in recently set up tanks. It will resolve itself.

How many tanks have you had? Everyone who keeps aquariums deals with algae!

You can avoid bad water by increasing the water changes to every week, and not every two weeks.

Mert16

Does it disappear on its own or do I have to clean it. When I was a teen I had a 10 gal. tank and I had no Idea about the nitrogen cycle or over loading the bio load in the tank. How my poor fish lived so long was a miracle. So about 5 months ago, 15 years later I decided to set up a tank again, but this time I read up on it and found out a whole lot of info. So I decided to start off with a 14 gal. i also Have a 5 gal. for my two bettas. I put a divider in it. But now I realize to have more fish or fish that school I need a bigger tank. So I'm hoping to get a 50-60 gal. I just dont know what I will get. years a go I had live bearers because they were cheap, but geez they were a problem when they began to multiply. and you know I was doing weekly water changes up until a worker at my lfs told me I was doing it too frequent. but if there is noharm I guess I will start again. thanks

lilsoccakid

weekly water changes are deff the right thing to do. weekly 20-30% changes is great

Barbrella

So cleaner water is a bad thing now? I'm sure the fish would beg to differ.

It isn't bad enough that petstore employees consistantly give useless, wrong advice. They have to add harmful advice to it.

Petstores must ask new employees if they know one thing about fish. If the answer is "No", they're hired!!

You can get all the information you need here. The number 1 rule is:

Never EVER listen to anything petstore employees tell you.

Or, listen and then do the opposite of what they tell you.

The brown algae bloom should go away on it's own, but other types of algae will appear in time.