In order to help you it would be helpful to know more about the tank and how you manage it.
Lighting? CO2? Fertilization? Types of plants you are growing? Maintenance/water changes? Substrate? Age of tank? Since you mentioned "brown" algae I am guessing it's a newer tank?
And pics are worth a thousand words. A full tank shot always helps too.
Just saying it's best to take a holistic approach to the entire tank. Makes helping much easier and meaningful.
Thanks, yes…set up details!
My first planted tank.
- set up 7 months ago
- 6 by 2 by 2 foot, plus sump (designed for marine) - total capacity around 920L, but less accounting for substrate wood, medium…
- peninsula style, which means a struggle re circulation…
- LED panel appropriate for planted tank - currently set on 60% for 7 hrs
- CO2 reactor in sump - drop checker for monitoring (have a pH controller, but haven’t set it up yet - not sure how to use it yet!) - starts 2 hrs before lights, but need to dial it back in after changing cylinders…
- substrate - MasterSoil in medium bags, capped with sand (MD Tanks style)
- fertiliser LCA All-in-one - 2 - 3 times/week
- water changes 75% weekly to 10 days
- stocking - one BN, 1 mature SAE, 6 cories, 9 columbian tetras, lots of various shrimps…. Eventually I would like apistos and Bolivian rams +/- some larger cichlids Eg. Acara…
- plants - Overall plan was to have a “jungle” vibe (epiphytes, crypts, swords, lotus, eventually buce) - never keen on stems for final “scape” but put in beautiful stems as had read that was advisable at the start.
Started off with densely planted - loads of easy to grow stems, Christmas moss, Java ferns (broad leaf, needle leaf, windelov, trident etc), bolbitus, H pinnatifida, and various Anubias….everything seemed to be going well.
….every pre-water change testing since cycled has been 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and approx 20 nitrate.
…..then GSA appeared (now sorted), BBA appeared, then Cyanobacteria, and then dreaded hair algae, and the thriving pinnatifida developed holes and died!
To fix these, I added a gyro to improve flow, and increased ferts as that was consistent advice, but algae if every variety has persisted….the worst being HAIR ALGAE!
Challenges:
….unfortunately over holidays CO2 ran out, so none was running for more than a month! Now up and running, but not optimally.
….flow is a real problem, as driftwood and ferns +++++ obstruct flow to outflow
….dead spot due to ferns etc…
….pouring in a lot of ferts ($$$ given side of the tank) as per advice to meet stem needs
After posting, I did a major clean out, removing as much algae (and therefore moss) as I could see, trimmed ferns obstructing outflow, and pulled nearly all the stems!!! (Hoping to put them in my smaller low (?soon to be high) tech tank.
….I’ve got a feeling the consensus will be that pulling the stems was the wrong thing to do!…
….(my motivation was I felt like I was pouring in crazy amounts of ferts to maintain plants that I hadn’t actually wanted in my final set-up, and didn’t have time to keep trimming etc…, and they were looking dreadful, creating loads of organic matter which ended up in the sump!)
………gulp…….!