Tropical Fish Keeping - Aquarium fish care and resources

Tropical Fish Keeping - Aquarium fish care and resources (http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/)

- Freshwater Aquarium (http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/freshwater-aquarium/)

- - Brown Algae (http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/freshwater-aquarium/brown-algae-2576/)

I have brown algae in my tank and cannot seem to get rid of it. Quoting from information found in one of the post

Quote:

Low lighting and high silicates are often the causes of this growth. Removal is done by increase of light level but they may disappear as your tank matures

What I don't understand is how much lighting is needed? How do you check for high silicates? How do you remove silicates if levels are high?

I have a 55g cycled tank, 1 1/2 years old.
Ph 7.2; Am 0, Nitrites 0; Nitrates 10
Water changes every 2 weeks (I've been treating ich the past week so, have been performing small water changes every 3rd day primarily to vacuum gravel.)
Currently treating tank with salt
Filter: Emperor Bio-Wheel 400
Lights: 2 15w bulb. Do not know type of bulb but lighting came with the Petsmart "complete startup" package, so I'm guessing its bottom of the line. Lights are left on for 12 hrs / day.

Incurred heavy losses last week so currently tank has:
3 Bosemani Rainbows
2 Cherry Barbs
3 Black Neons
3 Emperor Tetras
1 Otto
1 Snail

Since you are under-stocked and can fit more fish, maybe you should get otos. Otos (from what i heard, not from experiance) love brown algae. In fact, its there favorite food! Sorry i didnt see you already had one, try getting more, like 3 or 4 more

Yes, I will re-stock with Ottos. I had 2, purchased 2 a couple of weeks ago but did not quarantine and introduced ich into my tank. Of the losses, 3 of the 4 ottos. (I'm setting up my QT now)

ah thank you! you reminded me that i need to set up a quarantine tank

Quote:

Removal is done by increase of light level

This I don't agree with. Increasing light should not be away to fight algae.
This will lead to more algae.

Your tank is a little unbalanced right now causing the diatoms. It will go away in time :D

If the algae is hard to scrape off it may be diatoms, not algae. Otos will not take care of this problem (unfortunately)

As some of you may know I'm not a big fan of getting fish to control algae. A fast growing live plant will almost always out compete algae for nutrients and the algae will die off. My tank has lots of light for about 16 hours a day and occasional direct sunlight and yet no algae despite the addition of fertilizer. No otos, no plecos, no algae eating anything. Just a bunch of live plants. Scrape the algae off the tank, put in some live plants (wisteria grows like crazy) and the algae will have a hard time keeping up with the plants for food. Also watch the amount of food youre feeding. Uneaten food goes a long way towards feeding algae.