WTH is this?



It's covering everything BUT the gravel. I don't get it. The tank really isn't exposed to sunlight - yet this brown garbage is happily growing upon all the plants, decorations, airstone, powerhead, and even the filter intake and outflow pipes. Ideas?

brown algae. you have nutrients in your water allowing it to feed and grow. more frequent waterchanges, better feeding control, ie removing uneaten food soon after feeding time should help with this.

that stuff actually does pretty well in low light situations. are the other plants live or artificial?? if they are fake you can just cover the tank and keep it dark for say a week. it should die off. just be sure you monitor your water parameters closely and be prepared for waterchanges due to all that bio-matter dying off.

my theory on it may be a bit off, id wait on an experts opinion

hey Win, you did give two contradicting opinion.that is true and yet you advise Jenni to reduce the light by covering the tank for a week....

yeah...it is true brown algae thrives well in most newly established tank couple by low lights. it will be gone as the tank come to ages....

low light and no light are two different things paul

actually i am just stirring you up...yeah.. its true also, green and brown algae
are being control with proper water change, filtration and controlled lighting.
both will be gone in few days without light....i thought you will never react

Well boys, this tank is anything but new, water maintenance is my religion, and I'm lazy when it comes to turning the lights ON. lol

The only thing I can think of is that it's the minuscule amount of sunlight it's getting. We moved the tank a few months ago to accommodate some electrical work and make room for the big tank. There's a 6 inch section of tank that sits directly in front of a window now, and even through a thick curtain it still gets some light.

Guess I'll just scrub the crap off and deal until I can move the fish into the 135gl. Thanks for the help guys.

and you can scrub those thing in place and let the system do the cleaning.
as tank come to ages, it will gradually be gone in no time.

Thats brown algae, and yes it thrives in low light levels. Get a timer for your lights and set them to come on for about 8 hours a day.

A plec will eat that algae but you got to watch your stocking levels. Bristle nose plecs dont get too big.

Test your water for nitrates to make sure they are not high. Algae (all plants) live on this and will grown quicker with higher nitrates. Also high nitrates are not good for your fish, this may be an early warning that you are not doing enough water changes

Hi, sorry this is a bit late but i had the same poblem as you. Drove me mad, so did a bit of home work and was put onto phosphate remover and nitrate remover from JBL. You put it into your eternal filter and three weeks later bingo, no phosphate, no nitrate and no ALGAE. Did the trick for me, hope this helps if you still have the problem.

I have brown algae in my puffer tank but it strangely does not get stuck to the interior and i can vacuum it off every now and then.
But it's overfeeding and too much light as well in my tank...