# Brown Rusty Algae Spots on Everything



## MrRiley (Feb 13, 2007)

So I am pretty new to planted aquariums and set one up two weeks ago. I have a 4 foot 50 gal w/ two t 12 6500k on a vho ballast 220 watts. I used soilmaster select for the substrate and have co2 coming in at about 1 bubble every sec and a half. I developed this brown rusyt algae on most hard surfaces after about a week and a half. I dosed a little with some ferts from greg watson but then i was away for 4 days. I get lots of bubbles on the water surface and some light film. My tank is fairly well planted. Also other algae in the form of green hairs grows off many plants. Any advice on keeping the algae down would be appreciated. I included some pictures of the algae.

 : click on this pic to see more

http://thumb10.webshots.net/t/57/457/3/86/84/2573386840100578690VNSWWn_th.jpg



















I am a tiny grasshopper :hail: :help: Thanks for your time


----------



## Laith (Sep 4, 2004)

New tanks sometimes get a bit of algae until things stabilize.

However, if you have 220w of light over a 50g, that's quite a bit of light. I remember the discussion in another thread about whether (and by how much) your lights were overdriven... did you manage to confirm that you are in fact putting out 220w of light?

Assuming you do have that much light:

- You must keep the CO2 levels up. A bubble every 1.5 seconds does not sound like it would be enough. Read up on the drop checker method of measuring CO2 in this forum.

- You must also keep up with fert dosing.

The key is the right levels of nutrients for your tank and that the levels remain *consistent*...


----------



## MrRiley (Feb 13, 2007)

*Thanks for the advice*

The algae is making more progress than me however I turned up the CO2 and started dosing every other day with some fertilizers, I still have to add some trace mix. I think the lights are a lot and all the algae grows on surfaces that the light hits. One side of the tank that is in shade from dense plants gets no algae. The algae on the front of the glass had spread everywhere. Is it ok to wipe it off with a paper towel? I tried this and the brown comes off but not the green spots with hair. I am going to get some glass suckers too, which could be fun to wartch if not anything more. Thanks for all of your help this place is great. Any good chat rooms for this stuff??

-Riley


----------

