Brown stuff on plants....

[patti_n_jojo]

hey hey, wassup? over the last few weeks i have observed some brown stuff on all my silk plants, is it dirt or is it algae? i havnt tried 2 remove it yet but 2morrow im "supposed" 2 give my tank a deep clean. i do water change and gravel vac every week. but i really wanna know what the brown stuff is. thanks.

 

[fishwatcher]

Although I don't have any myself, I've read some posts on here and it sounds like algae. You should wash them all really good, and then play with the lights a bit. I've read that sometimes it's caused by too much sun light, and sometimes by not enough light. If you have a really well-lit tank, or if it's by a window, try moving it or putting up a curtain. If it's kind of dim, trying adding brighter light.
Hope this helps!

 

[Torrean]

I must say that this is not a necessity but you could also consider a small algae eater such as the rubber nose (aka rubber lip aka bulldog) pleco or a trio of ottocinclinus. You would need (well not more than once a week so nevermind) to do more frequent gravel vacs but they would scrape the algae off of everything and poop it out in the gravel.

 

[loafybones]

algae is not necessarily a bad thing. if you really want to get rid of it though you could either get an otto to eat it or there are things you can get to put in the water from your lfs.

hope this helps

Loaf

 

[cation]

. if you really want to get rid of it though you could either get an otto to eat it or there are things you can get to put in the water from your lfs.

Actually, if s/he really wants to get rid of it, s/he needs to address the inbalance in the tank's water chemistry (or light balance, as mentioned earlier). Algae eaters only clean up the algae, they don't keep it from coming back - and adding fish to a tank in order to fix an algae problem means you better be damn sure you know how to take care of them when there's no algae to eat.

As for " things you can get to put in the water ", I would always recommend trying to find and fix the problems other ways before adding chemicals to my tank.

 

[dwarfgourami]

Is your tank new? I have heard that brown algae (they are actually not algae, but I've forgotten the technical term) are often a new-tank problem.
Also, that they may be exacerbated by low light levels.
I would not get a fish to deal with the problem unless you are really sure a) that you want this fish for its own sake B) have space for it. Having said that, my livebearers did a good job of cleaning the brown algae off my plants and ornaments (they don't do the glass). In my cory tank I get to do the cleaning, but it seems to be slowing down now so I'm hoping it will get easier as the tank gets more mature.