# brown dust



## manic666 (Jul 8, 2009)

i just changed my tank to tropicals ,after years of marine keeping,the expence was to much in the end ie, £10 a week ro water for a start,anyway i have filled my 70 gallon tank with plants an well soaked bog wood , hopeing for the jungle look,i hane keeped my 150 watt halogen light it hangs a foot above the tank, the tank has no lid,i conected a 1200 maxijet with periscope air pipe to use as a air supply instead of a power head. i also changed the pump in mt trigon tanf filter to a maxi 1200to work the filter faster,my problen is a dusty film collects on the plants ,its not alge as i can wipe it off.the gravel is small an spotless an the bog wood looks clean ,but could it be comming from that.is there enough air an circulation or should i add a nother 12oo converted maxijet. in the tank is 30 congo tetras,an the halogen picks the rainbow coulors great.advice please should the flow in the tank be strong or slow


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## Veloth (Jun 25, 2008)

Welcome to APC!
Diatoms wipe off very easily, could this be the film? The flow in all my tanks are more like a gentle flow through out the whole tank, unless you're trying for a fast moving stream. Maybe one of the mod can move this to a better forum so you'll get more people to chime in


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## Seattle_Aquarist (Mar 7, 2008)

Hi manic666,

Welcome to APC! There is lots of great information here and friendly, knowledgeable people to help. Is it possible that your "dust" is coming from something you are dosing in your tank, possibly a fertilizer, calcium, or magnesium? Glad you are here!


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## manic666 (Jul 8, 2009)

could be the fertilizer. when i set the tank up i filled it with ferns, an other plants no fish , i tied the ferns to the bogwood to try to get them a start , before adding my 30 congo tetra shoal, bought some liquid tetra plant food , an when i read the instrutions i needed the hole bottle as a start up dose, as i said i soaked a cleaned the bog wood but it always looks flaky


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## Diana K (Dec 20, 2007)

Aquariums do not usually need added bubbles from a power head or any other source. More bubbles usually means more surface movement and this allows CO2 to leave the water. Some pumps are less efficient if part of their energy goes to operating some sort of bubble creation such as a venturi. You may be getting less water movement from the pump than if you removed the bubble making part of the system. 

Dust like you are describing could be debris. Dust from the substrate, decomposing food and fish waste, other things stirred up if any of the pumps or filters create a water flow near the bottom, or if the debris is disturbed during a water change. This sort of debris settles on the tops of the leaves and any other flat surfaces that are horizontal. Water movement will knock this debris off the surfaces, it is not really attached. If this is what is happening then you might simply aggitate the plants at least once a day so the debris keeps moving in the tank, and allow the filters to remove it, or allow it to settle to the floor of the tank. It can get stirred up again, though, by as simple a thing as active fish swimming past it, and especially if they dig. (Never had Congos dig, but they sure can be active!) Altering the water movement may help, too. I would try to keep the stuff moving until the filter picked it up. This actually removes it from the tank, and is the main thing that a mechanical filter media is doing. 

Brown Algae, AKA Diatoms is alive and can cling to vertical surfaces. It is easy to wipe off, but it can grow where the water is flowing. It is attached. 
Diatoms seem to grow in lower light than most other algae. 2 watts per gallon is plenty of light for this sort of thing. (.5 watt per liter) Many algae eating fish will eat it. Otocinclus, Bristlenose Plecos, and Mollies are some of the fish that have helped in my tanks. In your large tank one or two BNs would be a great help against many sorts of algae, but they are too heavy to stay on the leaves to clean. Otos are smaller, and can hold onto the leaves, so might be better. 
Diatoms incorporate silica in their body structure. This is most common in new tanks, and new substrate. As the diatoms use up the existing silica there is less in the tank, so growth slows. As some diatoms die their silica is freed to be used again. The best control is to remove diatoms, so you are removing the silica. Vacuuming the substrate so you remove fish waste helps, too, because fish do not use the silica when they eat the diatoms.


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