Help Please

[Trevor Johnson]

Hi guys,

Only had my small 10 US gal tank set up for about 2/3 months and all is going well, platys and corys all seem happy with fins up, smilly faces and eating well, even think one of the platys in pregnant, as there is a black mark at the back of her belly. Temp ok at 24/26c and nitrite levels perfect.

My Q is: I am now getting brown marks covering the rocks on a regular basis and starting to form on the ends of tha plastic plants too. If I take the rocks out (only 4 small ones) when I do a water change and rub these brown marks off with a small bush, it all comes off and everything looks nice again.

What is it that causes this? what is it anyway? could it be some kind of algie? it does not seem to bother the fish, although I do worry when I see my corys all over the rocks sniffing about!! and how or is there something I should be doing/buying to prevent this from happening?

Your help and advise is much appreciated. What a great site this is to learn and get excited and motivated by, my wife wont see me again, cos Im noe always up here reading the post.

I already want to set up another small tank ready for any platy fry that may come along to see them grow up, what do you think??

 

[ncjharris]

Good to have you on board!

It'll help us if you can say a few simple things about your tank.
What are your other water stats (ammonia, nitrite etc)?
What size is the tank?
What do you have in it?

However, from the sounds of things, yes, its algea. Nothing to worry about, occurs naturally and it won't harm the fish. Without pictures we'll be unable to 100% diagnose though, but I would say 99% thats what it is.

If it bothers you, you can clean the rocks/plants everytime it comes up, (rinsing throughly if you use detergents), but it should be ok to leave.

As for avoiding it, make sure your tank isn't in direct sunlight, and that your tank lights aren't on all the time. If you get a sudden increase in any algea, its usually linked to the nitrates in the water, usually caused by overfeeding or infrequent water changes.

As for the platy, look into keeping the fry seperate from your main tank, otherwise they'll probably become lunch!

GL

 

[dwarfgourami]

Sounds like brown algae. Very common in new tanks and NOT thought to be caused by excess of sunlight; indeed, it can be caused by not enough light, but is often just a result of fluctuating water stats in a new tank. Will probably clear up in time, platys may eat some of it, anyway, it's harmless.

Whether your fry get eaten or not will depend on how heavily planted your tank is and whether those particular platys happen to be fry eaters or not, impossible to foresee. You probably will not be able to rear all fry anyway (though it is great fun rearing a few). But if you do want to rear fry you will have to look at expanding your tank capacity.