Brown stuff on side of tank

[libra04ts]

Hi,

I had gotten brown stuff on the sides of my tank, there was once after I changed water and clean filter, somehow the tank became very clean... very clear.. don't know how. But now, there are brown stuff again. What is this brown stuff? How to get rid of it?
How to keep the tank clean looking all the time?

Thanks.

[leechaorui]

You can use a piece of cloth to scrub them off. I think they are brown algae. Was told that you have to keep the water condition good in order to restrict the growth of algae.

You may wish to get some SAE to help you do the constant cleaning.

[libra04ts]

Hi,

Thanks for the info. Just to check, what is SAE?

[Aquaculture]

Hi,

Thanks for the info. Just to check, what is SAE?

Siamese Algae Eater...


Other then that, my cleaning crew consist of otos and yamatos too.

[Shadow]

otos is effective againt brown algae. Try to stay away from SAE, the grow big and when they do they no longer eating algae

[beetlejuice403]

Hi,

I had gotten brown stuff on the sides of my tank, there was once after I changed water and clean filter, somehow the tank became very clean... very clear.. don't know how. But now, there are brown stuff again. What is this brown stuff? How to get rid of it?
How to keep the tank clean looking all the time?

Thanks.

Hi libra04ts,

guess those brown stuffs are some brown (diatom) algae... I had them in my crypt tank (& it's almost always when I dose in fertilisers into the tank...). As I'm not housing any Ottos/SAEs inside this tank, so what I did to remove all these unsightly brownish stuffs on the surface of the tank is to simply take a piece of expired credit card [Maybe it'll work better if you use an UNEXPIRED PLATINUM card... ] & then scrape them off the glass surface... Phew! Chicken feet, but your tank water will have all these scraped off brownish stuffs floating until they are taken care of by your filter... [PS: For me, I always try to scrape it off ASAP I see it forming on the glass, delay in doing so, I find it even harder to scrape it off in the future... Nowadays, I also does less frequent & quantity of ferts into this tank, so less forming of such brown algae again...]

Hope the above helps...

PS: By the way, my is a very small 1-feet tank with height of 16 inches, so scraping with my hands are easy... May be back breaking & more tiring if your tank is much bigger/ deeper than mine...

[hann]

It looks like there is water circulation in your tank. How is the circulation? Any dead spot? I used to have these brown algae when my filter flow is weak and due to many dead area, they start to bloom.

[fishking]

You can get rid of the brown algae by cleaning the glass. Let your filter do the necessary after that. Try to control your filter outflow to prevent dead spots.