Getting brown algae in new setup...should I worry?

[Carissa]

I just set up a 32g with 40w of light 10hours/day. I'm doing diy co2 (only for the past three days) and it's getting up to a measurable level now although it's not really in the good range yet. Anyway my question is, now I'm seeing a lot of brown algae forming on the glass and on my anubias. The co2 really made it take off. Should I clean it off? Will it die by itself? Do I need to increase or decrease certain ferts (doing ei)? I'm planning on getting some fish this week, hopefully I can get something that will eat algae but I've had really limited success in keeping anything that eats algae alive for more than two days. Poor stock I think. I'm going to try to drop acclimate since my pH in the tank is way higher than the store's pH will be and see how it goes.

 

[riverrat]

New tanks usually go thru a diatom algae stage. It is common and usually will pass on its own. Ottos will clean the algae up if you can get four or so. Ottos are notorious for dying and usually at no fault of the new fish owner. If you do end up with a few good ones they will live a long time. I have two that have been with me for more than two years. Two others made it about a month and half.

Your lighting is rather low imho to need co2. Although I think your diy co2 would only benefit your plants.

Clean off as much as you can right before a water change and this will help but eventually it should disappear

 

[Carissa]

Actually I have had the tank up for two weeks but I haven't really been doing any water changes, just fertilizing once a week since there are no fish. But maybe I need to do one and redose ferts before I add fish just to make sure levels are good. I can clean off the algae then and then see what happens.

 

[Carissa]

After doing some additional research I think probably the brown algae is due to an overabundance of silicates in the water leaching from the sand. I hope this doesn't continue to happen since I don't really feel like unplanting the whole tank to remove the substrate. I know phosphate remover will take out silicates but it will also take out phosphate, obviously, which will probably harm my plants. But I could overcompensate by adding extra phosphate. I guess I'll give it a week or two and see what happens and pick up a pleco or something to start cycling the tank and eating the algae.