newbie question

[cholland]

My question is......My tank has been up and running for about a year now. I still get brown algae or diatoms on the glass and sometimes on other stuff.
How do you get rid of it? I have been reading threads on it and people are saying it goes away after your cycle has finished. But I get it all the time. Are people just not saying they scrape every weekend. Or am I missing something....

sorry for the rant...

 

[elfdoctors]

Have you looked into the causes for nuisance algae overgrowth?
As far as I can tell, the most common cause seems to be phosphates in tap water. Do you use RO/DI water?
How are your nitrates?

 

[bonghitter]

use ro water for changes. if your running your lights too long or if the tank is in direct sunlight that will do it too.

 

[cholland]

Thanks for the reply
I do know some of the causes....
One is the substrate---CC. It has been in there for over a year and I know it is responsible for alot the stuff. I am slowly removing this week because I have some LS ordered that should be here later in the week.
The other is what was suggested---tap water. My LFS doesn't sell any, so I am going to buy some RO water from local grocery store. Maybe later get a RO/DI unit, but those are expensive.
My tank is not in direct sunlight and the lights only run about 8-9 hours a day.
Thanks for the suggestions