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Brown scum on tank sides...

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mithciriel

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Hi all,
I'm a little concerned about my axolotl's tank, it has patches of bown slimy stuff growing on the sides. Bear seems fine, so I don't know whether to take him out and do a complete water change or leave him in there and do the usual fortnightly two-third water change, scrubbing the scum off at the risk of it floating around in the tank...

Can anyone advise me? Should I be taking this more seriously?
 
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optimist

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hi
have you tested your water -- is the chermistry ok? Have you introduced any new plants to the tank recently? What's the light like? I change 20 per cent of my water weekly -- two weeks seems a long time to go without freshening up the water. If it was me, I'd take out and replace 50 per cent, and change ten percent every other day, whilst keeping a close eye on it. I'd scrub it all off prior to adding the 50% new water. Good luck.
 
Kaysie

Kaysie

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Sounds like brown algae. Unsightly, but not dangerous. Elbow grease and appropriate water changes (20% once a week or so) are about the only things you can do to combat it.
 
Jennewt

Jennewt

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I'd recommend removing the growth only from the areas where it is most unsightly, and leaving the rest. Does the tank have a filter? If so, the debris will be removed by the filter. If you really release a lot of it, you could try dipping out some of it with a fish net. Then be sure to rinse it out of the filter before it decays in there.

See:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/Tank_critters.shtml
 
SludgeMunkey

SludgeMunkey

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You may want to adjust your lighting time in addition to the excellent suggestions above. Brown algae, while harmless, looks horrid. I get it here often, and found that minor filtering of my fluorescent lighting with a piece waxed paper (any translucent paper will work) helped out quite a bit.

Fun thing about brown algae is it varies from place to place. Sometimes its actually a type of diatom that looks really neat under the microscope.
 
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