ok my 40 gallon tank is cycled with 40 pounds live sand and about 25 pounds live rock for now two hob bio wheel filters making 400gph together and a koryla #2 powerhead the amonia is 0, the nitrites 0, and nitrates 20, my temp is 78 and i have a banded coral shrimp and a yellow back damsel and a gold banded maroon clown at 2 inches why am i getting brown algae so bad i dont understand and the light is a t5 high output it is on for 4 to 6 hours a day
brown algae help please!!!!
- Thread starter joedodge
- Start date
id agree to adding the inverts as well. However depending on how old the tank is, this is actually normal. Every new tank will go through a diatom stage and it will clear up on its own, just let it be IMO. In about 2 weeks you will see it regress and eventually go away all together, and provided you keep up on cleaning the filters and changing some water to prevent nitrate increase, you should be fine.
I used "red slime algae remover" a few weeks ago and my tank is spotless! It seems to be the money for keeping several different kinds of algae under control. Not sure if it will hurt your inverts or not, but my snail survived, so I guess its ok. Might want to look into it even though you have "brown algae."
I have exact same problem for about 2-3 weeks can't figure it out everything seems normal and I even tightened up on the food I allow in the tank but my war with the brown stuff went on. I went to WMD and pulled everything inside out (all decorations and that jazz) hand scrubbed and washed for well over an hour until I felt it was spotless did a big water change and super gravel clean. I thought I had one the war, I was wrong. Back it came with a vengenance. I went to a bristlenose pleco and otocinclus catfish to clean up (the snails just couldn't get it done) and in two days I am down to very little brown stuff almost none the BN is the real secret I watched it disappear before my eyes when he was working. Now my biggest issue is going to be cultivating a food supply for the new inhabitants. Hope that helps