Vacation

[hawkeye]

I have had my tank for approx. 9 weeks and have been done with cycle for over 2 weeks. I returned my damsels and added two fish (clown and valentini) when the cycle finished. I did my second water change last week and since then the alge growth has been pretty bad. I was gone for 3 days and when I returned the tank looked really bad. Basically, a lot of brown alge. I realize this happens at the start of new tank, but is it normal for you to have to wipe the tank down daily w/o it looking dirty. The fish were fine, but it was looking really bad. It was like this when I first got it and then it got better, but after my water change it has had some bad growth, is this normal?

 

[aston]

Unfortunately, I think you'll see a lot of this cycle for the first few months but the root cause is the nitrates being generated. To minimize those I'd suggest holding off on adding any more fish, keep the food limited to what the fish will eat and finish off in 2-3 minutes, and think about options like adding in live plants to soak up the nitrates in the water. Add in a few little hermit crabs and/or snails to make sure all the leftovers in the tank are consumed too. Once the filters all start to mature, and as the tank settles you'll see the situation change. Then you can think about adding any more fish etc if that's what you want to do. It's frustrating but just give it some time and manage the tank tightly, you should be ok.

 

[oceanblue]

Agreed with Aston, it's all due to water quality. Any variation can cause a quick swing in the line(ammonia, nitrite, nitrate) and cause an algae bloom. You might also want to test for phosphates, as they are a big culprit in algae blooms. Additionally you could have your lfs test for silicates. That was a problem that evaded me for a good year or so, and was a bit of a surprise to me and all the lfs guys. Anywho, patience and diligence is the key. Have fun and enjoy! Dave

 

[strinalsh]

I'll be curious to know what your chem reading's are and where your temp typically sits.

 

[noogiefish]

let me please preface my comments by saying i am FAR from anything resembling an expert, SO, here it goes...
i recently started up my third tank about 4mos. ago and i had the same problem. It has been a while since i have started a tank and you forget some things. But from what i have absorbed scouring this site (often in a panic) i think the brown algae build-up is actually diatom skeletons, which bloom when their food supply is exhuasted- that being silicates as ocean blue mentioned above. It seems to jive with what you are saying about your water changes. Each change of water will introduce new silicates for the diatoms to feed upon. Being incremental amounts, they quickly exhuast the supply and die off, forming the brown gook on the glass. I have another tank in addition to the new 200g i just started. This tank is a 30g and is quite stable, running about 6 years now. I used to think i had to scrape it all the time, but now i have the new 200g i never realized how good i had it. I scrape my 200g about twice a week- and it still doesn't look good. You might want to look into getting a diatom filter, which mght solve the clean up problem, or a water purifier, ro or similar, which will allow you to prevent introducing more silicates. To borrow from someone else's sign-off, its just my opinion, its not like i have a phD in this. good luck.

 

[dugan]

The two things that come to mind as I read your post are:
1) Are you using RO water? If not, you should be. When I switched to RO my algae problems nearly disappeared.
2) Are you running a protein skimmer? This will help keep your nitrate levels down.
Katie

 

[devante]

If silicate is a problem, an cheap and temporary solution would be to buy some silicate remover and put it in your filter. It helped me until I was able to buy a skimmer.