Kleger86 Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 Can anyone help me ID whatever this is. It’s primarily only on this plant that is right near my filter. I notice a tiny tiny bit on another plant across from it. I went away for the weekend and when I got back it was there. The plant seems to be doing fine otherwise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monkeypoint Posted January 14 Share Posted January 14 It looks like brown algae, which isn’t really algae. They’re diatoms. Is this a relatively new setup? Diatoms aren’t harmful and after a few water changes they usually go away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kleger86 Posted January 15 Author Share Posted January 15 On 1/14/2024 at 6:41 PM, Monkeypoint said: It looks like brown algae, which isn’t really algae. They’re diatoms. Is this a relatively new setup? Diatoms aren’t harmful and after a few water changes they usually go away. It is. It’s less than 2 months old. Thank you so much! The plants are the one thing I was pretty confident about when starting all this and if I messed them up I don’t know what I’d do! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony s Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 (edited) Was looking at the base of the plant. If it’s white or mostly clear goo, probably a bacterial bloom. Nothing harmful, just looks unsightly. I had this from new mopani wood before. It goes away after a while or you can just siphon it off. if it’s a brown slime that seems to cover everything, then brown diatomaceous algae. Which happens to almost every new tank I’ve ever started. I use snails and otocinclus just for that. I would think a bristlenose pleco would work too. Or just time, it runs its course on new tanks and goes away after a while. Edited January 15 by Tony s 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 On 1/14/2024 at 3:06 PM, Kleger86 said: Can anyone help me ID whatever this is. It’s primarily only on this plant that is right near my filter. It might be bacteria. What is the filtration you're running and how is it setup? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monkeypoint Posted January 15 Share Posted January 15 On 1/14/2024 at 8:22 PM, Kleger86 said: It is. It’s less than 2 months old. Thank you so much! The plants are the one thing I was pretty confident about when starting all this and if I messed them up I don’t know what I’d do! I know the feeling! I got a 15 gallon tank going about a year and a half ago. It looked great for a few weeks. Then I noticed it was developing this fuzzy brown thing. I went away for a long weekend and when I got back, the entire tank was covered in the stuff. So of course, I totally freaked out about it. I did a water change and also picked off as much of it as I could. Then I googled, what is brown growth on plants and learned it was just harmless diatoms. I’d like to say that from then on, I would ask questions first before doing anything to the tank but it took some time and several more freakouts to learn that lesson. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kleger86 Posted January 16 Author Share Posted January 16 On 1/14/2024 at 9:48 PM, nabokovfan87 said: It might be bacteria. What is the filtration you're running and how is it setup? I have an aquaclear 20 in a 10 gallon tank modified with course sponges and a pre filter sponge in the intake 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 16 Share Posted January 16 Filtration should be fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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