Algae in ACF tank

[rodsboys]

I forgot I posted this. Thanks for the replies. My tank lights broke this week so it might stop growing so much until I replace the light unit :/

My tank isn't new but until recently I hardly ever turned on the lights. My flat is full of large windows that light up the rooms and tank so well that the tank lights aren't necessary. I've never had a spot of any kind of algae in this tank. A few days before it started to appear, I started turning the tank lights on for 7 hours a day because I added some live plants (just floating water wisteria). I added sand to the tank just over a month ago as well, so that might have contributed, although the brown algae didn't appear until I started turning on the lights for the water wisteria 3 weeks later.

When my lights are working again, would adding loads of plants to the tank help? That was what I was planning on doing anyway before the algae appeared and my lights broke.



The tank is 180 litres (47.5 US gal).
I'm keeping 3 ACF in there. They're only about 2 inches long, not including legs.
I'm using an external canister filter (for tanks up to 300L) and also an internal filter (for tanks up to 300L too, I think).
I usually feed them live earthworms every 2 days. One or 2 each depending on the worm size.
25% water changes every week.
No live plants other than water wisteria. I'm going to add loads more when I get my lights working again.
The tank just has two 30W T8 bulbs. I started keeping the lights on for 7 hours a day just before the brown algae appeared.

Again, Not algae, it's diatoms. Has nothing to do with light, you added sand which contains silica which diatoms eat. They will eventually starve themselves to death. Just keep cleaning it up and it will go away.

[mpmistr]

Again, Not algae, it's diatoms. Has nothing to do with light, you added sand which contains silica which diatoms eat. They will eventually starve themselves to death. Just keep cleaning it up and it will go away.

I still struggle with diatoms in my 40B tank and it's been running since last September.

[rodsboys]

Diatoms. What are they and how can I get rid of them?

[Gemma]

I still struggle with diatoms in my 40B tank and it's been running since last September.

Has nothing to do with light, you added sand which contains silica which diatoms eat. They will eventually starve themselves to death. Just keep cleaning it up and it will go away.

Me too, I can't seem to get rid of it in one of my other tanks too that's been running since September. That one doesn't bother me so much because the tank is smaller so easier to clean. What confuses me is the light definitely affects it in that tank. If I clean it off everything and turn the lights off it doesn't come back. As soon as I turn the lights on again, it starts to grow back.

The day my lights broke in my 180L tank, I cleaned it off the glass and it hasn't grown back. That was 6 days ago so there's still time, but when the lights were on and I did this patches of it were appearing in the glass within a day or two of cleaning it off.

[Felis]

Hi,

diatoms are pretty common in new tanks, but it´s true that they aren´t restricted to them.
I also have some in my ACF-tank which is running since July 2012- without any further problems. Although they´re ugly to look at, I think a low abundance is not a major problem. In the beginning, I also had quite many, but most of them vanished within the first three months. Now, I can successfully reduce them to an acceptable level by scrubbing the walls of the tank every two or three weeks with the regular (weekly) water changes. In my tank, they mainly occur on those parts of the walls that get a few hours of sunlight in the afternoon.