# Brown Algae



## marktown (19 May 2008)

Hi all

This is my first post
I have set  up a community tank that has been going for 5 weeks now.
All the plants are doing well especially the Vallis.

The only problem I am having is Brown Algae which seems to to most prominant
just above the gravel.

Any advice would be great
Thank you


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## ceg4048 (19 May 2008)

Hi marktown,
     Welcome to the forum!  
Newly setup tanks often suffer from this type of algae called diatom algae. This particular type completes it's life cycle within a few weeks and rarely ever recurs. The best thing is to lower the lighting and to perform a 2X or more per week 50% water changes. Remove what you can during the change. Be sure to dose appropriately after each water change.

Cheers,


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## marktown (19 May 2008)

Thanks for that, at the moment I have the lights on for 4 hours off for three and on for 4 on.

I have converted my garage so the only light it gets is for the lights.

I will step up my water changes.

Thanks for your help


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## ceg4048 (19 May 2008)

marktown,
               I've seen a couple posts recently where folks report that they program a lights ON-OFF-ON sequence during the day. As clearly demonstrated by the appearance of this algae, ON-OFF-ON does nothing good for your plants, could arguably harm their ability to produce food for growth and does not prevent algae. What is important regarding your lighting is the intensity of the bulbs and the distance from the bulbs to the plants surfaces.

A much more useful lighting sequence would be something like 50% Intensity->100% Intensity->50% Intensity.

You did not specify what your lighting levels were but in general, it might help to lower the intensity to approximately 50%-75% of their current levels for a few weeks.

Cheers,


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## Egmel (20 May 2008)

ceg4048 said:
			
		

> I've seen a couple posts recently where folks report that they program a lights ON-OFF-ON sequence during the day.


I had this for a long while when the tank was only lightly planted and I wasn't using any ferts or CO2, I got it from George Farmer's pinned post on TFF  Maybe this is out of date now as it's at least a couple of years old, if so I'm sure he'll update it if you PM him, he's probably forgotten it's even there.


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