Well let's start with questions then and I'll be glad to help:
What's your water parameters?
What kinda light and what wattage do you have over the 3g?
How often and how much water do you change?
And how long has this tank been set up?
Do you ahev any live plants in it?
Last but not least: What does the algae look like? Green slime? Fine thin long green hair? Brown lil bushes? Brown lil patches like someone sprinkled cinnamon? Green dots on the glass?
Your nitrate being 40 is pretty high I'd do a little larger w/c was this my tank until its settled some. And yes the as Stephanie already said diatoms are superst common in new/ young set ups like this. Just rub it off the plants with your fingers right before you do a w/c and suck it up and let the tank do its natural thing to establish (you can help it by not vacuuming your gravel nor 'clean' the filter) and it will soon subside by itself.
How is your plants growth?
+1 on everything. Not to worry. I actually have the same issue in my new-ish 5g right now. It's been set up since Mid-January. I had pretty bad brown algae on all my plants as well. I simply scrape it off the best I can with my fingers before doing my pwc and vacuum the dust out during the pwc. I am starting to notice it is not growing back nearly as fast as it was, so I have a feeling within the next couple weeks it will all be under control.
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
Tropical Fish Keeping
597.8K posts
83.7K members
Since 2006
forum community dedicated to tropical fish owners and enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about species,breeding, health, behavior, aquariums, adopting, care, classifieds, and more! Open to fish, plants and reptiles living in freshwater or saltwater environments.