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Re: brown algae





>Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 10:02:48 -0400
>From: "Kinney, Travis" 
>Subject: brown algae
>
>I'm having brown algae problems. It's covering my anubias leaves, starting
>to cover aponogetan leaves, bacopa leaves are covered (except for new grown)
>same with Elodea (old leaves covered, new growth looks fine). Tank is
>29-gallons and it is a new set-up. I read that I can just cut off clean new
>growth and throw out lower/ older growth with algae. What about anubias and
>others? I hate the idea of throwing away the plants that I have been waiting
>for to grow? I'm using DIY Co2 yeast, (2) 40w compact fluorescents,
>approximately 12 schooling fish (neon tetras, zebra striped danios, etc) I
>have one Oto Cat and plan to buy a couple more today. Selling freshwater
>shrimp in Maine is illegal, so I will have to wait until I'm in another
>state to make a shrimp purchase. Should I consider doing the "Clorox dip?"
>Should I get some potassium to add to the tank to help cut down on
>phosphates? Directing me to good website articles would be appreciated as
>I'm sure this is an old thread. Thanks

In my tank the brown algae was a "phase".  I had let things go rather wild so I had quite a bit of algae and poor plant growth.  A few months ago I gave the LFS all of my fish except three Chinese algae eaters, trimmed off all the leaves that looked anything but perfect, got a couple of otos and a pleco, then did nothing but fertilize, keep the DIY CO2 going, and do water changes.  First came the brown algae (which the CAEs loved), then green fur algae, then virtually no algae anywhere.  It took almost 2 months for things to get to that point, and that without putting any fish food in the water at all.  It wasn't until then that I added some non-algae eating fish, a dozen or so neons and rasboras and a couple of corydoras cats (who have spawned and blessed me with a bumper crop of baby cats, I'm proud to say).  IMHO, you may have an uphill battle if you keep and feed the neons, etc.
Try looking at the Sears and Conlin paper at www.thekrib.com.  I tried to follow that because my goal was to rescue my tank, much the same way that they described.
Best of luck, Mikey



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