Brown Algae..How to get rid of it?

[Iron Buddha]

55 gallon, good clear water. I use seachem Purigen...

AFrican Black Knife
2 Congo Leafs
Elephant nose Fish
Congo Tetra,
2 palamas bichir
3 rope fish


It's all african...I will not get an algae eater (South american)

There is an african algae eater...But too small, bichir will eat for sure..too hard to find also?


How can I get rid of brown algae and not hurt scaless fish...won't wash off of plastic plants

 

[fishbum]

Use bleach to get it off your plastic plants.
Then leave the lights off in the tank for a couple weeks to kill the alage in it.
When all the algae is gone,only leave the lights on for 4 or 5 hours a day.

 

[NWatson]

I'm having the same problem with my 75 gal. I have two other tanks they are all on the same maintenance schedule but the 75 gal is extremely bad. I bought it off craigs list so I am not sure what type of light it has. All the tanks get around the same exposure to sun light so I am thinking of trying a different light. I do leave on my lights for a good portion of the day....I need to cut back some.

 

[CaptainNegatory]

It might just be that your leaving the lights on to often, am I right?

 

[Iron Buddha]

Thanx, I leave the light on for 6 to 8 hours a day. so i need to cut it down.

 

[tcarswell]

Cut back feeding ,increase water changes and algae scrub before hand to pick up the fallen algae , Decrease lighting. All of these should help a great deal I believe.

 

[calicichlid]

From my experience it was the lighting. I keep my tanks in my garage and can't afford the good stuff but i was using drop lights. Which btw works great but they were directed directly into the tank causing a major brown algea problem. I went through the process of elimination and once the lights were indirectly lighting the tank and the duration time cut short... problem solved. hpe this helps out.

 

[bud]

I don't turn the light on in my tank tell 5pm and shut them off at 9pm.Unless I am looking at them.Still give the fish 14 to 16 hrs of light if you open the blinds

 

[LD50]

Brown algae plagues new tank's quite often as well. If your tank is less than 3-5 months old give it time. In the mean time just scrub it off and suck it out it wont hurt anything other than your eyes. However if either now or in the future you want to let your fish oink, and want nice lighting without any algae problems either build an algae scrubber or get a planted fuge and your algae will go away.

 

[SeaweedPimp]

Well, i had that brown algea not too long ago in my smaller 5 gal hex. i just hung onto about 35% of the cycled water and took apart everything inclidung the tank with about 145 degree water including substrate/deco.

Kept my fish in a diff container with a bubble stone and just replaced them with thier water plus my 35% original water. Its been completely gone for 2 weeks. But ive never had this problem before.

And my white rocks/tank looked alot better and it seemed like the water would start to get a little dingy in 3 days and i would do about a 50% water change. Now its more like 20% every two days with no sign of nastyness and it looks crispy all the time =).