I Need Help! Stubborn Brown Algae!

[FLFishChik]

So, I’ve recently had a brown algae outbreak in my 29g. I’ve tried all tried all the tips I’ve read and researched ( more light, less light, feed less, more plants, water change) but nothing seems to be working!

 

my parameters are :

here is what the plants look like:

 

Edited August 9, 2022 by FLFishChik

[nabokovfan87]

I'll trade your my algae issue in a heartbeat!  Staghorn algae is THE WORST.

I would start with doing a manual removal with a toothbrush and see how easy it is to get it into the WC.  Try to let it settle, gravel vac. then stir everything up and do a good 50% WC to try to remove it as much as humanly possible.  Just manual removal is the easiest way.  It's a nightmare, but it's a lot easier than other forms.  Make sure you're dosing enough to keep the plants growing, keep an eye that you DO see new growth and that's the focus.

This was the last video I took of mine.  What a mess.
 

 

[_Eric_]

On 8/9/2022 at 3:22 PM, FLFishChik said:

So, I’ve recently had a brown algae outbreak in my 29g. I’ve tried all tried all the tips I’ve read and researched ( more light, less light, feed less, more plants, water change) but nothing seems to be working!

 

 

 

thanks for providing good info / pics.  A couple of questions:

- how long has the tank been set up?  Sometimes this will pop up in newish tanks and go away on its own.  If this is the case, you could do some scrubbing knowing that it won’t last forever.

- do you have any algae eaters?
If you have room/desire for some otos in the tank, I bet they would go to town on that stuff and take care of it for you.

that’s my two cents anyway.

On 8/9/2022 at 3:42 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

I'll trade your my algae issue in a heartbeat!  Staghorn algae is THE WORST.
 

Not to hijack this one, but do you have any tips on staghorn?  I have some in a tank that only has corkscrew Val in it and it is getting annoying.  I haven’t spot treated as Val can be sensitive to the treatments…. I have an SAE which seems to help but once it gets a little longer/thicker, he doesn’t want to mess with it.  

[FLFishChik]

On 8/9/2022 at 4:53 PM, _Eric_ said:

thanks for providing good info / pics.  A couple of questions:

- how long has the tank been set up?  Sometimes this will pop up in newish tanks and go away on its own.  If this is the case, you could do some scrubbing knowing that it won’t last forever.

- do you have any algae eaters?
If you have room/desire for some otos in the tank, I bet they would go to town on that stuff and take care of it for you.

that’s my two cents anyway.

Not to hijack this one, but do you have any tips on staghorn?  I have some in a tank that only has corkscrew Val in it and it is getting annoying.  I haven’t spot treated as Val can be sensitive to the treatments…. I have an SAE which seems to help but once it gets a little longer/thicker, he doesn’t want to mess with it.  

So the tank has been “cycled” since the first week in June (was set up first week of May). Originally, it was filled with plastic / silk plant but eventually converted to full planted tank. I currently have a Top Fin silent stream 30 HOB filter and a 20g sponge filter running. It’s stocked with 1 Betta, 6 Panda Cory, 16 Cardinal Tetra, 5 Nerite snails and 5 ghost shrimp. Though I would love to, I don’t think I can add oto’s ( at least not the recommended minimum group of 6) according to aqadvisor. But they also don’t account for planted vs non planted tank.

 

this is what the tank currently looks like with plants 

Edited August 9, 2022 by FLFishChik

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/9/2022 at 1:53 PM, _Eric_ said:

Not to hijack this one, but do you have any tips on staghorn?  I have some in a tank that only has corkscrew Val in it and it is getting annoying.  I haven’t spot treated as Val can be sensitive to the treatments…. I have an SAE which seems to help but once it gets a little longer/thicker, he doesn’t want to mess with it.  

We can talk in DM or in the thread in my signature.  It has a timelapse of my staghorn / BBA issues.

 

 

On 8/9/2022 at 2:23 PM, FLFishChik said:

I don’t think I can add oto’s ( at least not the recommended minimum group of 6) according to aqadvisor

You can add 2-3 without issue I would think.  I have 4 in mine.

[_Eric_]

On 8/9/2022 at 4:23 PM, FLFishChik said:

So the tank has been “cycled” since the first week in June (was set up first week of May).

That is still newish in my book.  I bet it will fade with some more “seasoning”.  I am a chronic overstocker - I check aqadvisor sometimes to see how bad it is 😆 - so I won’t give you stocking advice.  I have a 20 G with 3 otos in it so I also break that rule with those guys.  I like larger schools with the active swimming fish but otos seem fine in smaller groups to me.  They are fun to watch in larger groups but they seem to generate a lot of waste.  

 

[FLFishChik]

On 8/9/2022 at 5:33 PM, _Eric_ said:

That is still newish in my book.  I bet it will fade with some more “seasoning”.  I am a chronic overstocker - I check aqadvisor sometimes to see how bad it is 😆 - so I won’t give you stocking advice.  I have a 20 G with 3 otos in it so I also break that rule with those guys.  I like larger schools with the active swimming fish but otos seem fine in smaller groups to me.  They are fun to watch in larger groups but they seem to generate a lot of waste.  

 

Lol… I’ll give the tank some more time and if it doesn’t resolve itself , I may look into getting 3 oto’s!

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/9/2022 at 1:22 PM, FLFishChik said:

do you dose 1 time a week or 2?

[FLFishChik]

On 8/9/2022 at 6:11 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

do you dose 1 time a week or 2?

I was dosing 1 weekly the full dose, but I dropped to half dose once week

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/9/2022 at 3:15 PM, FLFishChik said:

I was dosing 1 weekly the full dose, but I dropped to half dose once week

If your nitrates stay below 10....
If you see that stem plant yellowing moreso, paleness,
I would try to keep an eye on that specifically and consider dosing 2x a week. Even half dose 2x a week might be all it takes.

Test nitrates every 2-3 days after dosing, end of the day. If it's 0-5, then in the morning on the following day (so, midweek on your normal schedule) then I would dose again.

It's one of the ones that's incredibly hard to read for me, so please use your best judgement on the results you're seeing.

[FLFishChik]

Yeah, I can’t get the nitrates above 10ppm even with dosing full dose but too afraid to dose more because of algae 

On 8/9/2022 at 6:20 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

If your nitrates stay below 10....
If you see that stem plant yellowing moreso, paleness,
I would try to keep an eye on that specifically and consider dosing 2x a week. Even half dose 2x a week might be all it takes.

Test nitrates every 2-3 days after dosing, end of the day. If it's 0-5, then in the morning on the following day (so, midweek on your normal schedule) then I would dose again.

It's one of the ones that's incredibly hard to read for me, so please use your best judgement on the results you're seeing.

 

[bryanisag]

I would add 1 or 2 Otto's and maybe they aren't as happy as they could be but in my book your tank is a better life for them than they will likely have. And I'd say be patient and be prepared to wait another 2 months for your fight with the algea to get better. At least your tank still looks good with some algea and it's fun none the less

[anitstuk]

On 8/10/2022 at 6:42 AM, nabokovfan87 said:

I'll trade your my algae issue in a heartbeat!  Staghorn algae is THE WORST.

I agree 10000000%.  My hair algae and black beard algae are mood killers in my tank

[FLFishChik]

On 8/9/2022 at 8:57 PM, anitstuk said:

I agree 10000000%.  My hair algae and black beard algae are mood killers in my tank

Well, I’m thankful that I don’t have that stuff then!

[FLFishChik]

On 8/9/2022 at 7:24 PM, bryanisag said:

I would add 1 or 2 Otto's and maybe they aren't as happy as they could be but in my book your tank is a better life for them than they will likely have. And I'd say be patient and be prepared to wait another 2 months for your fight with the algea to get better. At least your tank still looks good with some algea and it's fun none the less

Just picked up 2 oto’s (cuz that’s all my local Petco had… tell you the story in a sec) and are now acclimating them. 
 

So I walk into Petco and ask the guy in charge of the fish “ Do you have any otocinclus?” And he says “what are those? I’ve never heard of them.”  😳

so I pull a photo of one up on my phone and he takes me to a tank and points to some small fish and says “I think these are what you’re looking for.”…. I respond with “um, no sir… those are Chinese algae eaters. Definitely NOT what I’m looking for.” So I thank him for his time and continue browsing the fish(cuz since I’m here, might as well look, right?) and lo and behold… in a tank further away are two otocinclus… there’s even a price sticker on the glass stating “otocinclus $3.95 ea.”

 I call the guy back over and show him and he says “huh… didn’t even know we carried those.”

so I had him met both and I brought them home. Hopefully they’ll be happy in my 29g tank with their new family 

Edited August 16, 2022 by FLFishChik

[MrWestCoast]

I was in the same boat as OP. My 20 gal planted tank has been running for about 5 months now and I tried just about everything. Tried smaller water changes since my tap water is high in silicates. Tried using GFO to get rid of silicates. Got rid of silicates but not the diatoms. Tried different ferts. Tried playing around with my light settings and schedule. Nothing helped! This aquarium initially had just nerite snails and they didn't really help with the diatoms. Recently I added Platies and things have improved tremendously. They cleaned up the diatoms off my plants within a couple of days. They love this stuff! I also added red cherry shrimp and I'm sure they are doing their part as i always see them on my plants scraping off algae. I'm happy with the results from this clean-up crew.

Edited August 16, 2022 by MrWestCoast

[FLFishChik]

Well, took the advice from @bryanisag gave of adding 2 oto’s… and what a difference! 24 hours and the tank already looks better! **see original post for before pics**