brown alge

[king of ninx]

hey for the past 2 or 3 weeks i have noticed a brown alge growing on my lr and crushed coarl it looks like it has hair b or some thing float ing in it is this normal i has only had this tank up and runnig for about 3 months is this part of the cycle . if u know what this is please let meknow and when is a good time to add fish at this point????? thanx for ur time

 

[salty rick]

It looks like a diatom bloom. This is normal for a tank that is as new as yours.

 

[king of ninx]

do u know when it will go away or how i could stop it???

 

[yetex]

I had the same problem in my new tank but then one day it just started disappearing for the most part. There is still some there but i have almost every type of unwanted algea growing in my tank. Get the filter pads that remove phosphate and but that in your filter. It seamed to help me. I paid like $4.00 at the lfs for it.

 

[king of ninx]

ok than does the water have any thing to do with it i have heard that tap water can cause this???

 

[yetex]

yeah tap water could be the cause
What kind of water did you use?
What type of substrate do you have?
And if its sand what kind? (Playsand, etc.)

 

[king of ninx]

i use tap water to top off the water in the tank about 1 to 2 times a week. i used crushed coarl because the guy at my fs said it is a good ph buffer

 

[fbihunter]

I have found one of the best ways to speed up removal is to get a phosphate/silicate removal pad/media and place in your sump under the intake filter (on top of the bio balls) or if you have a canister type filter place under the exit floss (filter).
This is very normal to happen for new tanks.
One other suggestion is to use R/O filtered water from a trusted source. Try to stay away from tap water as this contains everything you DONT want in your tank.
Good luck.