Brown filmlike algae/hillstreams

[mikev]

Hmmm, something I just realized. If mts eat this, then probably ordinary snails eat this thing too, and this would explain why I only got the problem in this one tank: I made sure it has no snails.... does this make sense? The easiest solution may be to put the snails back in...

[shari2]

Not if you want to keep at least one snail-free tank...

[wasserscheu]

Mike, ... does the coating feel e little "sandy", as if there were calcium in it? or just slymy, like the "touch" of cyano-bacteria?how much light does "it" get?

[The Kapenta Kid]

As far as I know there are no freshwater algae that are likely to harm fish.
The only exception is blue-green algae which isn't algae anyway, it is a cyano-bacteria, and may release toxins harmful to fish.

[pedzola]

I'm curious if anyone has ever had this and then gotten rid of it...

I've had this type of algae in my various tanks since i started keeping fish a couple years ago. I just always figured scraping this stuff off the glass and cleaning my plastic plants was one of the things you have to deal with in a fish tank.

I would rather not have algae, or at least some attractive green stuff (I think?). Inside a month after cleaning the tank, absolutely EVERYTHING will be 100% brown w/this algae.

It is a constant fight.

I have very clean water, and low light.

Any ideas?

I haven't seen much yet in this thread... do most people get this or is it rare or what?

[mikev]

Mike, ... does the coating feel e little "sandy", as if there were calcium in it? or just slymy, like the "touch" of cyano-bacteria?how much light does "it" get?

Actually, neither. Most certainly, not slimy, but I cannot feed any sand either, only very slight "roughness".

Not if you want to keep at least one snail-free tank...

I think I'll rather take snails, at least they are doing something useful... and maybe schisturas will eat them...

[wasserscheu]

I agree with Joe (post above Mike´s picture), Mike, the way you describe the "touch" it may be Diatomeen (Bacillariophyceae). diatomeen implements chert (SiO2) - therefore the rough touch.... I think

I add a german link, no worry, with pictures, perhaps you want to check it out and compare...the pic´s show a lot of detail.

http://www.aquamax.de/DefaultDyn.asp?Gr ... ieselalgen

... look Mike, I am learning from you pasting things in ... thanks by the way

I will try a summarizing translation....

there are roughly 100.000 kinds of D.... occurs frequently in new established tanks....depending on the content of silicon dioxide (SiO2) (amongst other stuff) - because the plants do not grow yet, and do not compete with D. A good fix is fast growing plants like : Ceratophyllum demersum, Egeria densa, Egeria najas, Najas guadalupensis

Most alge eaters do a good job here as well: Ancistrus, Otocinclus, Gyrinocheilus und Garra. as well as snails....

in the old days, it was meant low light creates them, however it´s due to slow growing plants, consuming not enough SiO2. More light - plants grow faster - D. starves

during translating this page was great help cut/paste word ... knows everything... http://www.leo.org/ english/german and vise versa....


@ pedzola,
they are harder to clean from rough surface , then from smooth ones like glass... if you feel that also you propably got D. ... it´s the minerals in the water, that helps them grow...
yes many not cycled tanks (starting tanks) have them...

@ The Kapenta Kid
people say "... even though I have good water - I have alge" lets turn it around, "we have good water due to the biochemical action of algea"
They are very usefull. However sometimes we dont want them because they grow all over... but thea are theoretically valuable.

[JoeKuhlii]

people say "... even though I have good water - I have alge" lets turn it around, "we have good water due to the biochemical action of algea"
They are very usefull. However sometimes we dont want them because they grow all over... but thea are theoretically valuable.

Well said and a valuable point often lost in this hobby. To extend this further, our higher ordered plants can easily outcompete algae while consuming these nutrients we can not easily test for. Everyone has algae. People who focus on plants often limit it to nuissance or unobservable levels long-term.

mikev, you should trim off that dying growth. Let your plant put its energy towards new growth instead of repairing old growth. Also, just as plants uptake nutrients, dying plants release them. Trimming that growth will help avoid water quality issues.

Is it an Amazon sword? Several leaves look like Echinodorus sp. grown emersed (out of water -- common in most plant nurseries). Its okay and to be expected that growth does not survive submerged. I cannot see the big yellow snail on left, but if it is one that consumes healthy plants, well...

The common pest/hitchiker snails, like Pond, the small sp. of Ramshorn, and MTS will eat diatoms. They may also be loach food, but, well... Otocinclus are fun fish.

Good luck.

[shari2]

Mts will eat diatoms? Will they eat the fuzz on my plants too, or is the fuzz just the detritus that shows? The fish (esp. the bristlenose) were going crazy on it yesterday after a waterchange. It's mostly gone from the wood. :;-):

And that brown algae is good stuff for algae eaters. If I ever get any it's the first stuff they go for. Never lasts long. Now the green carpet of algae I had before I got algae eaters? THAT was something to see. Foot long green strings and a fur carpet on the back of the tank. I could swirl my finger around on the surface and come out with green cotton candy. Never had any water issues, but the stuff was slimy in the extreme. Kinda fun to watch waving in the flow, though.

[mikev]

Thanks a lot, wasserscheu and JoeKuhli, I'm getting some sense of it finally..planted tanks are fairly new to me and I never realized that I should actually think about the balance in them.

The German page is excellent (and thank you for the translation!) -- now the picture is clear. Probably the fact that I also loaded a lot of flora base into the tank and only very small plants was another reason for the diatom explosion.

I cannot see the big yellow snail on left, but if it is one that consumes healthy plants, well...

Sorry, a lame (and sad) joke. I was referring to the BN. Two of them figured out long ago that eating plants is much simpler than cleaning them from the algae. Swords are preferred, but they eat Java Fern too. Actually, I think they eat everything, they even eat bloodworms and shrimp.... In their presense trimming the damaged leaves would doom the plant, because then they will go for the healthy ones in the middle,... this has been tried already. Cannot stop them, and the only thing I can do is to move them to another tank, to destroy plants there, while this sword recovers....

[JoeKuhlii]

Hey Shari. By the way, feel free to precede "In my opinion" and append "There are exceptions, of course" to anything I type.

Mts will eat diatoms?

Sure. MTS will often stray very far from the substrate in search of food, and they're one of the many animals that love to eat diatoms.

Will they eat the fuzz on my plants too, or is the fuzz just the detritus that shows?

I think your pictures show thread algae or diatoms, and this is covered with detritus. Since your tank has nitrite, and quite possibly ammonia/ammonium, algae can flourish. As wasserscheu said, this is your ecosystem trying to correct itself. (Not to say you shouldn't help by doing water changes and focussing on removing nitrite and ammonia. You should.)

If you have thread algae, fwiw MTS doesn't touch it for me. There aren't many animals that eat that stuff. Barbs might. Some say FlagFish do. Algae-eating shrimp munch on it. Still, you shouldn't add any animals until solving the issues. Twirling a toothbrush in it is the easiest way to remove it.

I can't offer more than a guess if it's diatoms or thread. Here's an example of the clumped thread-like algae I was fighting a few months ago.
(These thumbnails are clickable for larger images.)



It may be important to mention that the above is pictured with nitrate limitation, where the plants starve and stop growing, so the simple algae capitalizes. The basics of filtration with plants in your, mikev, and helen's threads are assuming low light. At higher light, plants consume more nutrients faster, well past the output of sane bioload. In this situation the rules change, including how to balance a tank.

Only something to keep in mind as you read.

Hope this helps.

[shari2]

Thanks Joe.
My 55 has 65w compact florescent lights. Fairly bright.
Also got some test kits and tested the water (finally)

Yes, I have ammonia. Bummer.
.5-1.0ppm if I read the color right.

there is also phosphates in the tap water:
2ppm
The tank itself tests at almost 10ppm! Lovely midnight blue color in the test tube...grrrr.

I washed off the cabomba and put it back in the tank as I did not want to remove it all and create more problems. Water changing daily ~sigh~
It looks like I will be re-cycling this tank with 5 clowns, a bristlenose and a mature angel. Not the best idea in the world...

[JoeKuhlii]

Glad to help out. One 65w CF over 55gallons is good low light.

If you can, also float some Anacharis or Hornwort to help bring that ammonia down. These plants are like machines in how they consume ammonia. You shouldn't pay more than a couple bucks for a bunch, and they will grow fast. When there's too much you can just trim these plants whereever you want, and they will just keep on growing.

[wasserscheu]

@shari2

... don´t want to go to far away from the subject of this treat, however, do you use a bio-filter or so? the bacteria, converting ammonia into nitrite and then further to nitrate, need a cosy home (often its the substrate/ground, specially when its somewhat floated). Many use a slow-floated filterfoam, as the speed of the water rushing by the bacteria could be key.... I use suche filtermatt as a pre-filter to the outside filter...my bac´s life in there and it works lilke a water purifying faculity, with lots of great and valuable mud in there, that built up with time... and only gets cleaned from "big" (rough) dirt - I never clean it unless it gets clogged (no water passing) and that hardly ever happens...so the bac´s can do their work without getting disturbed...

where do the bac´s life? you also need to look after them really well to get ammonia down...

[The Kapenta Kid]

@ The Kapenta Kid
people say "... even though I have good water - I have alge" lets turn it around, "we have good water due to the biochemical action of algea"
They are very usefull. However sometimes we dont want them because they grow all over... but thea are theoretically valuable.

I agree entirely, I don't know what I wrote that made you think otherwise. The only 'algae' that should be removed for anything other than aesthetic reasons is BGA--cyanobacteria.