# Brown hair algae?



## eug

I posted this a while ago and didn't get any feedback, but the stuff is growing more prolifically now so it's maybe easier to see in photos. It basically grows on java fern leaves, some of it is seen on java moss and on some of the stems of hygrophila, particularly on older leaves.


















Can somebody identify it for sure? From my reading it seems it might be a form of brown diatoms, which you can also see the brown powder form of it growing like crazy on some of those leaves. What can I do to remove it?


----------



## Varkolak

I would see about finding some oto catfish to clean it up, pretty sure they will eat brown algae


----------



## Byron

Otos and indeed all of the "algae" fish like Bristlenose pleco, Farlowella, and such will eat diatoms. But I see more here than simply diatoms, there are some plant issues that are likely related.

How long has this tank been running? What is the light? And what if any fertilizers are you using and how often?


----------



## eug

I've been doing 25% water changes weekly, putting in a micro-nutrient fertilizer (dennerle V30 complete, I posted the specs for this in another thread before..) and since there is no fish load I've been dosing small amounts of P and N liquid ferts becuase the Dennerle explicity says "no nitrates, no phosphates". I'm dosing the ferts every time I do a water change. The Dennerle I add as according to the instructions, and I added enough nitrate fert to get 5ppm nitrates, and enough phosphate to get .5 ppm. I did a nitrate test today and the value is between 0 and 10 ppm, looks closer to 0. This is 2-3 days since last dosing of nitrate fert. The tank has a slight bio-load due to the small colony of Malaysan livebearing snails. They seem happy to just feed off dying leaves and also the diatoms, I'm not adding any other source of food into the tank. The tank has been running over a month, and plants went in on May 24. The lighting is T8 fluorescents, 2 tubes @ 18W 6500K. The tank size is 112L or about 30 gallons. Water hardness is 15dGH, ph ~8, probably a bit under since the official numbers from the water supply folks says up to 7.9 pH.


----------



## Byron

Are the plant leaves really as yellowish as the photos show, or is this just a camera/photo distortion? I would suggest you not add nitrogen fertilizer.

[I'll come back to this tomorrow, as I have some ideas, but have to be off now.]


----------



## eug

I wouldn't say the leaves are yellowing no, it must be the camera and the tannins in the water making it appear more yellow than it is. Everything is showing good growth including the java fern. Stem plants are growing steadily and pygmy chain sword putting out runners everywhere.


----------



## eug

Adjusted the white balance in an attempt to get more accurate colour rendering, but meh, it's not so great still, the substrate looks seriously yellow in the pic, but it's not quite so bad in real life. The new piece of wood is still putting out considerable amount of tannins it seems, so it might take a while before the tank water clears up a bit. I think the big piece of wood actually will never really stop putting out tannins, so maybe I should concede that the water will look tea-stained and embrace it. By the way you'll note that I put a smaller piece of wood to the left of the large one as you suggested. 

Oh, and the Hygrophila Polysperma stems are seemingly short because I did some aggressive pruning yesterday.


----------



## eug

Did a 50% WC to clear up the water a bit and let me suck up some of the mulm left behind by the snails:









Edit: adding pics of individual plants:

Brazilian pennywort:









H. polysperma









Pygmy chain sword









Java fern, you'll note that although some old leaves are in rough shape, plantlets are forming on leaf tips on the right side, and in the middle there is a new leaf growing. There is actually a rhizome that is doing better with producing new leaves, but it's at the back of the tank and rather hard to get a good zoomed photo.


----------



## Byron

That's looking fine. What fish are intended?


----------



## eug

Once I'm back from holidays I'd like to, after making sure everything's in good order and plants are still healthy, add some Corydoras. I worried that my water at hardness 16 dGH and pH a bit under 8 woudl be a bit hard for them, but it seems there are enough tank-bred species out there that should cope fine from what I've read (and what you told me in my first thread here). Apart from them, I am not decided. Pristella tetras seem like a nice shoaling fish that do well in hard water, or I might put in some livebearers. The only thing is that I don't really want to deal with endless fry, so is putting in a group of all-males a good option? Please throw out other suggestions for a mid-level swimming fish.


----------



## Byron

eug said:


> Once I'm back from holidays I'd like to, after making sure everything's in good order and plants are still healthy, add some Corydoras. I worried that my water at hardness 16 dGH and pH a bit under 8 woudl be a bit hard for them, but it seems there are enough tank-bred species out there that should cope fine from what I've read (and what you told me in my first thread here). Apart from them, I am not decided. Pristella tetras seem like a nice shoaling fish that do well in hard water, or I might put in some livebearers. The only thing is that I don't really want to deal with endless fry, so is putting in a group of all-males a good option? Please throw out other suggestions for a mid-level swimming fish.


Assuming this is a 30g tank as mentioned preivously in this thread, the Pristella are fine. The common corys will work too, Corydoras aeneus, Corydoras paleatus, Corydoras leucomelas possibly, may be a few others, check the profiles. And yes, male livebearers alone are fine to avoid fry, just bear in mind size and numbers for this tank.

For other options, some rainbowfish suit basic water, most get largish, but perhaps the Dwarf Neon Rainbowfish is a possibility, check the profile. This would be a centre fish. There are a few cyprinids, would have to browse the profiles to see. Memory isn't that great with numbers.


----------



## eug

Byron said:


> Assuming this is a 30g tank as mentioned preivously in this thread, the Pristella are fine. The common corys will work too, Corydoras aeneus, Corydoras paleatus, Corydoras leucomelas possibly, may be a few others, check the profiles. And yes, male livebearers alone are fine to avoid fry, just bear in mind size and numbers for this tank.
> 
> For other options, some rainbowfish suit basic water, most get largish, but perhaps the Dwarf Neon Rainbowfish is a possibility, check the profile. This would be a centre fish. There are a few cyprinids, would have to browse the profiles to see. Memory isn't that great with numbers.


We're veering off topic quite a bit now, so I'll make a mention that if anything the hairy growth is getting worse but it is easily removed by twirling the strands around a toothbrush. I'll just try to keep it in check like this for now and hope that as the tank matures the stuff also goes away.

More about stocking - I've been looking at lots of youtube videos and I have to say I've fallen in love with tiger barbs, but I'm afraid my tank is on the smaller side for them. It's a 30g tank, 80 cm long. From the pictures you've seen of the current setup, would you say there's enough swimming space for them? At the very least they seem to be happy in harder water. If the tank contained only corys as tankmates, would they get along fine? How many tiger barbs would I be able to keep in here?


----------



## Byron

eug said:


> We're veering off topic quite a bit now, so I'll make a mention that if anything the hairy growth is getting worse but it is easily removed by twirling the strands around a toothbrush. I'll just try to keep it in check like this for now and hope that as the tank matures the stuff also goes away.
> 
> More about stocking - I've been looking at lots of youtube videos and I have to say I've fallen in love with tiger barbs, but I'm afraid my tank is on the smaller side for them. It's a 30g tank, 80 cm long. From the pictures you've seen of the current setup, would you say there's enough swimming space for them? At the very least they seem to be happy in harder water. If the tank contained only corys as tankmates, would they get along fine? How many tiger barbs would I be able to keep in here?


As it mentions in our profile, a group of 8 tiger barb in a 30g is minimum. Corys might be OK with this, but no other upper fish. The TB will (should) be less feisty and any nipping will be confined to the group.


----------



## eug

Back to the original topic - many sources say high silicates cause diatoms to thrive, and after doing some research it seems Berlin's tap water, probably due to the fact that the whole city is basically built on sand, has high silicates. I haven't asked directly about the water in my district, but I've found people posting replies from the official water people for neighbouring districts saying the tap water has 14mg/L (ppm) silicates, which seems very high. I've read from other sources that 0.5mg/L silicates is enough to cause problems, so I'm not really sure what to do if this is really the case with my water.


----------



## Byron

eug said:


> Back to the original topic - many sources say high silicates cause diatoms to thrive, and after doing some research it seems Berlin's tap water, probably due to the fact that the whole city is basically built on sand, has high silicates. I haven't asked directly about the water in my district, but I've found people posting replies from the official water people for neighbouring districts saying the tap water has 14mg/L (ppm) silicates, which seems very high. I've read from other sources that 0.5mg/L silicates is enough to cause problems, so I'm not really sure what to do if this is really the case with my water.


That is an issue for some of our members, so I will let them comment on their method of handling it, since I've never had this issue. I'm trying to remember who it was that posted something on this, but can't; it was a couple months back. I think the phosphate-remover filter media was mentioned, but I can't be sure. To draw attention to this, you might want to post a new thread in this section headed silicates or something, and others will see it easier.


----------



## eug

Just thought I'd update this thread in case anybody else encounters similar issues. I went on holiday for 3 weeks, reduced the light timer to 6 hours a day, and hoped for the best. Before leaving, I did a large water change and did my best to remove the hair-like strands in the process. When I came back, to my delight there was hardly any of the stuff left, and the patch-like brown diatoms were also nearly gone, which supports my theory that the strand-like growth was also a form of diatoms that died off as the tank settled.

The white fungus on the wood has also died in the meantime, so I felt it safe enough to add fish. The cories after nearly 2 weeks have shown no signs of distress.


----------

