Beginner looking for plant and algae help

sinadyan

I have a 55 gal fw tank that has been up for about 3 months. Ammonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 20, ph 7, water very hard, at 300. I have a t8, 8000k bulb. Substrate small gravel. I have 6 angels. 3 plattys, 1 cory and 2 pleco. I have used fert tabs once about 3 weeks ago. I have 10 plants that were put in tank about 1 month ago. I was told by lfs these were good for my setup.I also have 5 sponge filters and a hob filter. I feed twice daily and it appears these fish pretty well clean up food. Water temp is 80F. Light is kept on for about 12 hours daily. Problem is I have started to get brown growth on plant leaves. I could use some advice as it really looks bad. My tank also has some fake plants till real ones grow enough. The brown wipes off with fingers,

Flashygrrl

Probably diatoms. It'll go away by itself

sinadyan

FORGOT PICS

klosxe

I use to have something similar to what you are describing on some of my Amazon Swords. I had them in a 29 gallon community tank with just some java ferns and eelsweed. I had an algae almost identical to what you described. I then added a LOT of plants; over 150 $ worth from Aquariumplants.com, and after those TOOK OFF, I noticed that the algae that was on my Amazon Sword had disappeared. I did more research and found that that it was in fact, a brown diatom. Flashygrrl was right in both her advice and diagnosis of your problem. The pics will make to for sure though.