Brown Aglae Overnight.......again!

[microman2k]

well i got a new lighting system for my tank of a year and brown agae is everywhere! it grows over night, i scraped it last night like and then when i come home from school there is brown aglae already on the sand and glass! whats the problem? everything registers fine? i am going to post this in some of the other forums b/c i need help quick! its covered my rock and like i said it grows on the sand over night! what do i do!:nervous:

 

[debbie]

What type of water are you using? This will be the first question. I am a beginner and battling red slime algae, looks like brown algae and is "cyanobacteria" horrible stuff and darn hard to get rid of
I am useing erythromycin tabs but do post it in the reef colum and you should get the right help there. Be prepared to give your water specs etc.
Good Luck and let us know what it is for sure .......Debbie

 

[stevebk]

I think what you have is diatoms. Cyanobacteria is usually more maroon, and grows in a slimy sheet pattern. Diatoms seem, for me, to grow kinda fuzzy and all over the place, and brownish in color. If it's more dirty brown than deep red, that's probably what it is. If so, it uses silicates in the water to reproduce, and you have to remove these. Either do massive water changes with really pure water, or get a commercial silicate remover. I bought a phosphate remover from Kent products at ***** down the street, and it absorbed silicates too. It solved the problem for me. Good luck!

 

[microman2k]

what exactly are diatoms, i do have some maroon algae on the back its just a couple of streaks, i don't scrape the back wall at all, i save that side for my linkia which it never goes back there but i am afraid to scrape it, but this algae is killing me i left friday and got back today and my sand is covered in brown algae and my front glass is covered in green!

 

[stevebk]

Diatoms are a unicellular algae that form sort of a hard shell out of silica. They don't really cause many problems in the tank other than making it look kind of bad, and they generally go away within a few days. I'm guessing the reason you have them is because of your new lights, but I'm thinking the green algae will probably take over if it hasn't already. To get rid of the diatoms immediately though, you'll need to start using purer water, in order to get rid of silicates they build their cells out of. After that, your cleanup crew will probably just eat the remaining brown film, or other algae will utilize their nutrients. I found a decent link if you want to read a bit about them, diatoms are actually kinda cool when they aren't making our tanks look bad. Anyway, it's no big deal, and it's totally normal in new tanks for diatoms to show up. Good luck, and let us know how it turns out.
http://www.indiana.edu/~diatom/diatom.html

 

[microman2k]

thanx a bunch:joy: