Brown Algae

[Mitch7]

Hello,

I have a 55 gallon tank, which has quite a few plants. The light is on probably 11 hours a day (I have good lights installed).
Lately I am having an invasion of brown algae in the tank. The stuff is everywhere - occasionally its on glass (before 2 of my plecos eat it) - but it is everywhere on gravel...
Plecos eat it somewhat - but they are not too active...
Can someone recommend me what to do to get rid of the stuff?
Do I Have the lights on for too long?

Please help,

Mitch

 

[d3sc3n7]

Well Mitch, I'm not much help here, but I'd just like to welcome you to the tank. I'm sure if you do some searching, you can find some answers here. You'll also probably get one here in your topic.

 

[FroggyFox]

Welcome to mft How long has your tank been set up? A lot of times newer tanks go through phases of different algae outbreaks. What strength of lights do you have on your tank? The brown algae is sometimes seen with relatively low strength lights...so its possible that you're giving your tank too much of that low light. Check out the planted section for some lighting suggestions on plants and see if you can find some answers there.

As far as what to do with it, ottos (otocinclus) love that brown stuff And they're kinda cute. A lot of people with planted tanks like to have a couple of them.

 

[sjohanna]

Hey there, I found it helps to cut off the offending plants which are most worst affected to stop the spread. Check ur airation. Also you might like to try an undergavel filter. They get rid of too much Nitrogen that can cause algea blooms. Hang in there sometimes it's hard to get it under control - have done it my self.

 

[Lotus]

Is it a flat, slimy algae that you're getting, or a furry algae?

What are you adding in terms of fertilizers, and how often?

 

[seastaar88]

i recommend adding 3-4 ottos. they'll clear out the brown algae in a day or two. i had a bad outbreak too, when my tank was younger - i added 2 ottos and i havent had a problem since.

 

[jcpaisley]

When I had this problem, I got two chinese algae eaters (Gyrinocheilus) and no more brown algae in just a couple days! They did a great job cleaning the tank.

 

[jcpaisley]

My bad, I was corrected by my boyfriend...they were golden algae eaters...ame family though, I think...

 

[cchase85]

Golden algae eaters are pretty much identical to regular Chinese Algae Eaters. They aren't a good long term solution as most people say they stop eating algae at a relatively young age.

My personal experience is that they eat quite a bit of algae at a young age, then decide they'd rather eat the other fish in the tank (fish with larger scales anyway). I put mine in with my Celebes rainbows and pristella tetras and he's not fast enough to catch the rainbows and doesn't seem interested in eating the pristella tetras. I never feed him and don't know what he eats, but after I killed my blue-green algae he cleaned it ALL out of the tank in about 1 day...

 

[jcpaisley]

I have since read that quite often, but that was not my experience. Guess mine never made it that far into adulthood...we were doing a remodeling project and the heater got shut off accidentally one night when the temp was in the 20's. The rosy barbs survived and were given to friends, but the algae eaters didn't make it (that was the end of my tank days until after the remodel was finished).