When I added live plants a month or so ago I scraped most of the bright green algae off the tank and I've noticed that I'm starting to get brown algae (I know, not really algae) all over the place-- even on the plants!

This happened when the tank was newly set up and I upped the quality of light and have changed the light usually about every three months or so. I can't remember when the last time I changed it was... is three months too soon to be changing these things? It seems excessive.

What do I do? Is it just that my light is all weakened and it's time for a new one? Or did something go terribly wrong?

If this is a light problem, could someone please tell me the best brand and name of a really good long lasting planted aquarium light?

Thanks ya'll.

--Sarah

how many galls is the tank?
whats the light watts?
what is your nitrates?

and what kind of plants do you have?

The tank is 29 gallons, it has one five inch fantail, a three ince bubble eye, a dojo loach and three white cloud minnows.

There is one onion plant (with eight or nine leaves), some java moss and a small anubias nana.

The light is 20W.

The nitrates are currently at 10.

This is just a thought, and it may be totally off base, but here goes...

For the size of your tank, the wattage is really only good for low light plants (because for medium and high level light plants you need ~2.5-3 watts per gallon, I believe), so maybe your plants are not able to use the nitrate as successfully as the algae can, because the plants need more light. I think the algae (or diatoms, Whatever!) can use the lower level light, and are able to proliferate.

I have a bunch of brown algae in my tank right now also, and I can't seem to get rid of it. Oddly enough, it does worse the LESS light I have in my tank, which makes me wonder if it is brown algae at all. But it is not any other color, that's for sure! It is brown and super ugly

Hopefully someone else can help you as well, since I'm still pretty new to aquatic plants and that is just a guess. Good luck

I also have brown algae, tons of it -- I have to clean off my glass every day or two -- and I'd love to know how to reduce or get rid of it too. I have 55 watts on my 20 gal, so I know its not low light thats the problem. My nitrates are always 20 ppm. Will having a lot of plants help reduce algae by out-competing it? I don't have the tank fully planted; I'll be receiving my new plant shipment tomorrow so I sure hope it helps! I'm tired of constantly removing all that algae! <_<

Sometimes brown algae isn't even algae at all but instead is an abundance of diatoms. When diatoms are the case it is good to check the tanks silicate and phosphate content. There are resins that can be bought for removing silicates and phosphates and this generally clears up the problem.

I have brown alege to. No worries, just wipe it off as before and rinse the plants.

Is there n e thing i can 2 so brown alge stays away???