Brown Patches?

[Buzz-Lightyear]

Finally my tank has almost cycled with only .5 Nitrite and going down daily
but in the past day brown patches have appeared and have started to spread
over everything and now the glass.

I think there Diatoms but I have seen mixed views on how to tackle this.
some say more light (which im doing), some say non at all.

Any advice from people who have actually had this and got over it? I know
lots of people will just give me advice they have read else where, Im after
past experience.

Many Thanks

[NetMax]

"Buzz-Lightyear" > wrote in message
...
> Finally my tank has almost cycled with only .5 Nitrite and going down
daily
> but in the past day brown patches have appeared and have started to
spread
> over everything and now the glass.
>
> I think there Diatoms but I have seen mixed views on how to tackle
this.
> some say more light (which im doing), some say non at all.
>
> Any advice from people who have actually had this and got over it? I
know
> lots of people will just give me advice they have read else where, Im
after
> past experience.
>
> Many Thanks

There is brown algae too. Keep your glass clean. Rotate your rocks
periodically (turn the algae side down). Everything is dynamic in an
aquarium, and the most obvious indicator is the algaes. Sometimes you
let them run their course, sometimes you attack them aggressively, but
mostly, you just tweak and wait to see how it settles out. Is that
sensible advice? If your fish & lights permit it, live plants can be
helpful.

Technically, you can play with your light levels (duration and
intensity), nutrient levels (low ash, low phosphate foods) and explore
algae-eating creatures (snails, SAE, Otos, plecs, flags, shrimp etc).
All these options are more practical with established tanks. With new
tanks, I usually do very little, preferring to wait for the parameters to
settle down (however, make sure that you are not at any extremes, such as
light duration or amount of food being used).

To give you an example (you did ask for specific experience ;~). A
couple of years ago I set up a heavily planted, high light, no CO2, hard
water tank. Over the first 7-8 months, I watched almost every imaginable
algae start, spread and vanish. At 8 months, the tank was algae-free and
the plants were doing great (a neat accomplishment, especially
considering my algae-control efforts were zero). Then I moved the fish
out (who had grown too large), and put in some small fish. The resulting
drop in bio-load devastated my plants (which in hard-water already didn't
have much of a safety margin). This caused an algae bloom which cut
visibility to about 2 inches. I did try a few things to eliminate the
green water (I do like to see my fish), all to no appreciable effect.
Then on it's own, after a couple of months, within 3 days, the water went
crystal clear.

Some of this may happen to you. None of it may happen to you. The point
is that an aquarium is a dynamic environment which seeks its equilibrium.
You can allow it to find that equilibrium and then address anything you
want to change, or you can constantly mess with it, and it will never
find it's equilibrium, but then your results lose predictability.

NetMax

[NaCl]

0.5 nitrite is not "almost cycled."

Wait.

Worry only about organisms that exist in the system when you know what
system you have.

Wait.


"Buzz-Lightyear" > wrote in message
...
> Finally my tank has almost cycled with only .5 Nitrite and going down
daily
> but in the past day brown patches have appeared and have started to spread
> over everything and now the glass.
>
> I think there Diatoms but I have seen mixed views on how to tackle this.
> some say more light (which im doing), some say non at all.
>
> Any advice from people who have actually had this and got over it? I know
> lots of people will just give me advice they have read else where, Im
after
> past experience.
>
> Many Thanks
>
>