Brown Algae Has Taken Over

[weathermen]

Hi all, I’ve tried using treatments for brown algae but it’s not working, the lighting on my tank is bright and fully planted but brown algae is now all over the plants, the tank is about three months old 70 gallons, how do I eliminate this problem and quickly, filter wise I’m using two aquaclear power head with undergravel, fluval 304, and lecton UV. No C02 unit yet!

What can I do as it’s destroying everything.

HELP!!!

 

[zig]

Post your tank stats.

Light, fert routine, testkit results etc etc.

 

[weathermen]

hi ya

does this help?

Lighting two 48” glow light tubes with reflectors lights on at 8.30an off 9.30 am

Amaonia 0
Nitrate 0
Nitrites 0
Ph 7.4-7.7

Use flourish fertilizer once a week and also use tetra fertilizer pellets

 

[zig]

Well at a guess your lighting is very low at a little over 1 WPG, too little light can cause issues with brown algae, the other more obvious point is that you have 0 nitrate in your tank, if this is the case and the testkit is accurate than your plants are starving and this is causing the algae, low levels of nitrate are good for tanks that only contain fish, but in planted tanks even ones with low light levels the plants need nitrate in order to survive, the nitrate in low light tanks usually comes from the fish and food waste. You need to dose nitrate or double check your nitrate reading is correct, make sure you agitate the A and B solutions correctly when testing. If the test is correct either Seachem or Kent do a liquid nitrogen product which would be suitable.

 

[weathermen]

ok cheers I will check the test kit, also should I think about having another 48" tubes, that's three tubes, is that not overkill for a 4 foot tank?

 

[Waterloo Kid]

You're way off overkill for a tank of that size. Just check out what some of the peps here run on their tanks. Some are into the 4-5 wpg range. then there's metal halide lighting which would make your tank at the moment look un-lit.

WK