Weird brown buildup on tank surfaces

Hey all, quick question. I have this weird brown stuff that keeps growing on the tanks surfaces. It doesn't seem to be bothering the axies, but it is unsightly. I recently installed an airstone and this seems to have accelerated the build up, any thoughts? I guessing its some kind of algae, is there anything I can do to get rid of it?

Hey,
It could be brown algae, that normally grows in new tank set-ups between 2-12 weeks, I don't know if this is the case for you however. If this is the problem minimising overfeeding, changing water and gravel cleaning will help reduce the amount of nutrients available. This isn't an algae effected by light so it is more problematic than green algae in that limiting light will have little effect, probably why brown algae likes darker axolotl tanks! If this is a well established tank, it might be worth checking the nitrate and phosphate levels to try and determine the cause, unfortunately its one of the more problematic algaes to remove and may take some persistence! I hope this information is of some use to you and may help you to diagnose the problem! I hope everything clears up soon, good luck! :happy:

thanks, thats a big help! I'm using a mixed substrate of sand and large pebbles, what would be the best way to clean it?

You have diatoms, or more commonly known as Brown algae. Brown algae can and will synthesize sunlight even though it doesn't need light in the capacity that regular algae or plants need light. The diatoms don't get energy exclusively from light itself.

Here's a list of when brown algae likes

Light
Silicates and silicon
Nitrates
Still or stagnant water
Hard or mineral rich water

The two main differences between regular algae and diatoms are, regular algae does not consume silicates, and regular algae could be eradicated by eliminating the light or the nitrates.

So the first step to getting rid of brown algae is to make sure the tank has adequate filtration.

Step two you need to get in the tank. Remove all plants and decor from the tank, leaving only the substrate and hardware. Wipe the diatoms off of the hardware and try to scrub it out of the rocks or sand to the best you can. You could bleach all the plants and decor or you could scrub them with an abrasive sponge. Either way, get the diatoms off the plants and decor while they are NOT! inside the tank.

Step three do a 30%-50% water change. Then return all decor and plants to the aquarium.

Step four REPEAT. Do this about every two weeks and you'll see the diatoms bloom less each time until they're gone. It should only take two or three times till they're gone.

If this doesn't work then...

Your aquarium is exposed to too much light
You keep scrubbing the diatoms off in the tank water
There's too much diatoms in the substrate

Thanks this is helpful! I have the same problem.

But I also have some brown algae on the glass. How do I get rid of that? If I scrape it off then it will also 'float around' in my tank, and that's the stuff we don't want, right?

Hey
Depending on the size of the pebbles you use, you could take the pebbles out of the tank, leaving the sand behind and clean the algae off them individually. For cleaning items like this from my own tank I use a toothbrush and that seems to do the job! Depending on how much sand you have in your tank and the distribution of the algae you could attempt to remove some with an aquarium vacuum. If the algae is just sat on top of the sand this could work. When I have had problems with algae myself I have scrubbed the algae off the glass just before changing some of the water, therefore removing some parts that are now floating as opposed to being attached to the glass. However I'm not the expert here, I'm sure Bdyoung knows a good reason why this may not be the best idea. Good luck guys! :happy:

Tanks bdyoung will give that a go, i have brown algae but ever since reducing the time the light is on (to 6 hrs) the growth has reduced quite dramatically.

What you could do is scrape it off with a siphon tube. That way none of it is getting into the water. The reason you don't want to just scrape it off is because it is still alive so they'll just end up spreading making it worse.