# Would more plants cure brown algae?



## Huugs (Apr 25, 2005)

Hi. At the moment I have 2 new ish tanks. They are both under 2 months and have a serious brown algae problem. The water is fairly hard water and has nitrates at 20ppm from the tap which means I have trouble keepig them down in the tanks anyway.
This stuff comes off easily but grows back within 2-3 days. I have tried a few things but Im still having huge trouble with it.

The 13Gal has a few plants and the light is a 36W Triton
The 20Gal has no plants and a triton 36W light.
I have tried a having the tank lit for 10, 12 and 13 hours a day. The water circulation is good and aerates it well.

At the mo the planted tank has a couple of plants but they are in pretty bad shape (probably coz i only had an 18W light on there) the leaves are covered in algae and they just dont seem to grow or recover. The hygrophilas is a bit yellow and straggly (maybe from low light?).
If i plant the tanks heavily will this help?


----------



## Mr Aquarium (Jan 18, 2005)

The only thing I learner about brown algie, is it;s your lightning, not enough, the othr thing is it won;t go away, you have to wipe it off or get a bristle nose pleco, they will do a good job of cleaning your algie for ya.


----------



## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

It may impede its growth but no they won't stop it. They will keep other algaes from growing.


----------



## Huugs (Apr 25, 2005)

Right well Im guessing it isnt my lighting as I have about 2.8Wpg but i started off with the standard lghting which was just over 1wpg and I was getting the algae I know that you have to manually remove it but after i do that it grows back within a few days its on the plant leaves which looks disgusting. If it was just on the tank sides and maybe the gravel it wouldnt bother me so much.

My thoughts at the moment are that the plants I have in there were not doing well because of the low ish light and they then got the algae partly because of the low light and they wernt doing well. 

If I replace these plants will this keep the algae off them? 
ShouldI put plant food in the water aswell or will that mean the algae grows quicker too?


----------



## Damon (Jan 18, 2005)

Don't replace them. Try mixing the watersource up a little. Using R.O. (Distilled water) will reduce the amount of silicates and lower the hardness of your water. This would be my next step. Keep removing as much as possible.


----------

