Why is my fish tank turning brown
Why New Aquariums Go BROWN | Fixing Brown Diatom ALGAE
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hello my friends and welcome back to a
another video in this particular video
we are going to be talking about brown
algae of course and that is something
that pretty much every fish keeper will
have encountered so if your tank has
gone brown and is looking as horrible as
this one is right now you're probably in
a little bit of a worry a little bit of
a despair as to what you've done wrong
and how can you get rid of this horrible
brown algae well I'm gonna let you know
exactly what to do in this video and why
and how this brown now he appears in
your fish tank so in terms of livestock
I've had this going with plants from day
one and then after a week I have added
some shrimps to it so this is the third
week and since doing those two things
and filling it up the aquarium has been
fine up until the last couple of days
and now my fish tank has gotten brown
now this is something that I was
expecting to happen but it can be really
disconcerting if you're new to fish
keeping or you've had a really good run
up to now and suddenly your tanks gone
Brown it can be a bit horrific so let's
go through what exactly is happening and
how you can prevent and/or
stop this from happening so the first
thing to realize is this Brown this is
not actually an algae it's a diatom
although they look very similar they're
completely different kinds of organisms
but we can treat them in a very similar
way that we would do to treating algie's
now the reason that the algae is
appeared in this particular tank is the
fact that this aquarium is still cycling
it's still a new cycling aquarium and
just for instance when you put stuff
into a fish tank there's nothing living
on it that can survive in the aquatic
world so you put in your dry rocks you
put in everything dry and it's gonna
take a while before the good biofilms
and the good ecological things start to
happen within this fish tank and really
you've got to imagine that this
colonization of these brown areas is
essentially the first stage to your
aquarium becoming live and becoming
healthy ecosystem with a full range of
organisms now many of these organisms
colonize a new aquarium in a kind of
sequence so you'll probably find that
when you set up your aquarium initially
it may have gone a little bit cloudy and
that's basically the first sequence
where the bacteria moves into the
aquarium that cut the aquarium goes
cloudy it's a bit of a bloom of bacteria
and that normally happens within the
first week or so and then it kind of
Peters out and goes clear and then what
happens is it goes Brown and that's
exactly what has happened in this
aquarium so the first thing to realize
is if it's a new fish tank you've set up
then it going Brown is kind of a normal
thing that's going to happen it's a
natural thing that's going to happen but
what we don't want to happen is for this
brownness to linger too long so how do
you get away from having this diatom
algae and how would you stop it from
coming back and how do you deal with it
while you still have it the first thing
is it's really easy to clean I wouldn't
really suggest cleaning it if it's on
your Rock work or if it's on your
ornaments the best thing to do is leave
it on there you can brush it away but
don't take it out and scrub it because
you're resetting that ornament or rock
back to being sterile and all that will
happen is the diatoms will just grow
back it's on your glass though
feel free to wipe it off the glass keep
the glass as clean as you like I like to
keep it nice and clean so I can see into
the aquarium and see the progress of
what's going on so the first thing is
cleaning is something that you can do
but limit it to just cleaning the glass
or a very slight brush over just for
aesthetic reasons the second thing we
can do is as long as your water quality
at this point is okay got no ammonia
you've got no nitrite then you can try
adding something that's going to graze
on the diatoms and there are quite a few
fish that will graze on diatoms happily
the first one if we got of nano tank so
if your tanks like this sort of size 30
litres then you can add auto-sync ulis
now they are very good are eating diatom
algae they tend to clear it up quite
well
and it just helps to keep the appearance
of your aquarium nice of in those first
couple of weeks two months if you've got
a bigger aquarium you can add larger
things like an sisterís or you can even
add some snails like narrow it snails
they're very good at eating this diet on
Maui as well another thing you might
want to look at is your water quality so
diatoms bloom in new aquariums but they
also bloom even more if your water
quality to begin with is quite poor so
they are very similar to how he works
they feed off nitrates they feed off
phosphates
but they also use silica out of the
water so that they can build their hard
shells so if your water quality is full
of those three things then you'll
probably suffer a lot worse than if they
weren't so high so it's just one of
these things that you might have to then
replace some tap water with our row just
to bring your levels back into where
they should be but that's something you
can only find out really by getting your
water tested or or testing your water
yourself another thing you might want to
look at especially if you're using
plants like this is the quality of the
lighting so I think this light in
particular may be contributing to the
fact that the diatoms are out competing
the plants in this aquarium because I
don't quite think it's bringing out
enough light to let these plants grow
fast enough to out-compete the diatoms
because that's the idea of the plants is
that they grow faster use up a lot of
the nutrients that the diatoms and the
other algie's would like and they
out-compete it in that way
so you might want to look at that and
look at your lighting see if it's
actually good enough for growing plants
now this light will be good enough later
on down the line when it's an
established aquarium but what I might do
just to give the plots a bit of a boost
is put a brighter light on here
initially and just get the plants more
established let them grow and they will
out-compete naturally the diatoms other
things we can do to limit the growth and
spread of diatoms the brown algae within
aquariums is increase water movement
because diatoms aren't the best swimmers
they tend to get blown around from place
to place but they also don't tend to
like to settle on
surfaces that have decent flow so again
this aquarium has a relatively low flow
and that might contribute to why there
are more diatoms in here than I would
expect if I set up a new aquarium with
really powerful filtration and really
fast flow so that's something you can
try is increasing your flow increase
your filtration possibly add power heads
or something along those lines just to
get that water circulating obviously in
small nano aquariums like this I don't
want that much flow in here so it's
something I'm going to have to deal with
in other ways generally though this is
very generally speaking diatoms tends to
happen in a bloom so they're a bit of a
boom and bust organism when it comes to
fish tanks being at this aquarium is
three weeks old and it's a new aquarium
with limited light and limited flow it's
something that I was expecting to happen
and it's something that I know will go
away on its own in general 90% of the
time this kind of thing just clears up
on its own the diatoms will colonize
areas which they like like these rocks
and the plant leaves but they will
actually then burn out eventually the
nutrients that they like will be used up
by other things such as the plants and
they'll also be out competed by other
organisms so once the green algae start
to colonize the rocks the diatoms won't
tend to grow on them so often and
eventually in a month or so there
probably won't be any more diatoms in
this aquarium and I'll be trying to
fight the other types of out is the
green algae and the hair Audis and
things like that
when it comes to brown algae especially
if it's in a new aquarium your best bet
is just to look at your water quality
look at your filtration look at your
lighting make sure everything is within
a decent tolerance and as it should be
and if it's still happening and you're
getting this brown algae in your
aquarium the best advice to really
follow at least for the first month or
so just to wait and let your aquarium
mature a little bit longer and then take
it from there because as I said most of
the time this brown algae will just
disappear and burn itself out now brown
algae in itself isn't actually harmful
to any
I wasn't looking really unsightly and
kind of ruining your aquascape for a
small amount of time it doesn't do any
harm even though it's covering the
plants
it won't potentially kill them it will
just limit their light and limit their
growth for the small period of time that
is there in terms of livestock as well
it's not going to harm any of your fish
even if you have fish that eat diatoms
it's not going to poison them and it's
not going to hurt them in any way so
thank you for watching this video I hope
it's answered a few questions you have
about brown algae if you like this video
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keeping
