Algae Issue

[DETWingsFan]

I have a recurring brown algae problem. It comes in the form of patches on the glass and it begins on the upper part of the plants(fake plants).

It seemed to go away after awhile after a treatment a LFS reccomended. But the treatment cost about $20 which is ridiculous.

Do I have too much oxygen or something. I am very cautious not to overfeed.

Reccomendations anyone???

 

[SaltyMist]

How long has the tank been setup? Sounds like either simple brown diatom algae or maybe the red cyanobacteria, if the LFS is giving you something for it, Im going to assume its the red cyano that your experiencing (and the reason why I say that is because my LFS said theres nothing really to do for diatom algae, but will cost me $20.00/bottle for something that should help red cyano) . With that said, check your water paramaters, including PH, maybe to a phosphate test as well, and all the regular tests one would normally do on a marine tank.

Now the problem with my assumption that it's the red cyano, is that you stated, it's a brown patchy algae on the glass, which would indicate that it's just brown diatom algae which everyone experiences in the beginning and sometimes later on, if it's that, it will just go away on its own eventually (assuming you keep up on the maintenance on the tank and use good quality water change water, like RO water). I still get a very small ammount of it that comes in in my 2 month old tank, but mostly Im just getting the green variety now.


That might help people to help you better.

 

[RamJet]

Get some snails.

 

[SaltyMist]

Get some snails.

Snails will certainly possibly help, but they wont get to the root of why the algae is in the tank to begin with. I have friends tanks that are absolutely pristine, no algae anywhere in the tanks and no snails either.

On the other hand, I have one nanocube thats always got algae in it, and I have about 8 or 9 snails in it, and it's still got algae on the glass, but the snails do a good job of keeping it off the liverock, but they mostly just make snailtracks on the glass and inevitably I think some glass scraping is going to be necessary.

I thought I read that if the water is too high in phosphates that algae will occur, but best to check with someone more knowldgble in algae before assuming whatever I say might be correct.