Why is this happening

[NickD]

There is particles all around my plants and it make them look dirty, I didn’t want this to happen but it did. I have things in the water column is that why?

[knee]

Are these juncus repens? Juncus needs high ligjt, co2 and softer water to thrive. I tried keeping them in my tank without co2 and low/medium lighting and they didn’t do well. 
 

Looks like the plant is struggling to grow so algae took over. It’s probably filamentous algae and some of the debris and mulm got stuck to it. 

[doktor zhivago]

Looks like diatoms. You're gonna get tons of things in your water column. Especially if it's a new tank 

[Tony s]

On 3/26/2024 at 7:20 PM, NickD said:

There is particles all around my plants and it make them look dirty, I didn’t want this to happen but it did. I have things in the water column is that why?

If your tank is new @doktor zhivago is correct. You have what’s known as diatoms or brown algae. Completely normal. It will go away on its own. Eventually. Every new tank gets it to some degree. And yes. Looks horrible. I’ve had it in tanks where you could barely see it. I’ve had other tanks where it covered everything in a 1/4 inch of brown goo. Where I thought it was going to kill my plants. It mostly depends on the level of silicates in the water. Diatoms make their bodies from it. They go away when the silicates drop. 
 

you can gravel vac it off. Use an algae scraper on it. Or enlist help in the form of snails. My bad tank I gave up on. Until it got infested with pond snails and it cleared up. 

 

[Tony s]

Or… if it’s an older tank it could be just bits of detritus stuck to the plants. As @knee said. I struggle with that in my angel tank. I keep the water parameters good. But don’t have time to do the maintenance like I should. You know. Getting the dirt and gunk off the substrate. It eventually floats around and gets stuck on plants and things. And hopefully doesn’t cause the bioload to get too big. That’s an easy fix though. Gravel vac and get the substrate clean. And it won’t necessarily go away right away. But it does go away