I am in month 4 of a truly brand new tank, right off the assembly line. I had a horrible brown algae issue for about 3 weeks. I kept after it so as to not get out of control and did frequent water changes as well as cut back the amount of food a little bit.

Sure enough, the brown disappeared (seemed like overnight) and the green has shown up. Water is now crystal clear and everyone is in a good place.

Patience and persistence.

 

The water is crystal clear. No cloudiness what so ever. And frequent water changes are conducted as well.

 

If it bothers you keep scraping and maybe reduce the hours of lighting. Otherwise, just be patient and it will pass. Everything seems to be doing it's thing.

 

I set up my tank on 2/15/09 and then slowly brown algae covered all my rocks and DIY background. I beleive most of it was from over feeding and my light being on 12+ hours a day but it could also be normal. Personally in my tank I have dark sand so the algae just covered the rocks and matched nicely. I just cut back a little on feeding now its just one pinch instead of two and it seems like it is starting to go away but also it has been there for a couple weeks so it may be passing and starting to turn green. Hope it all works out for you.

 

The diatoms don't actually turn into green algae, rather the green algae once established outcompete the diatoms for nutrients. Diatoms are actually associated with low light, but in my case the lighting hasn't really made a difference.

In my case, the diatoms used up the available silicates (from which them make their shells), and reduced, but I have no green algae (and nothing that eats it) whatsoever. Over the course of two months or so it got progressively worse, than dropped off almost completely. If you have only a little it will likely get worse before it gets better, but with water changes it will eventually recede. Good luck!

 

The brown algae really isn't much of a problem in my tank. Its a very little amount. It does male the Greek columns look pretty cool. But thats all about it covers. I did have a small female fiddler crab that loved to eat it, but she passed on. (probably from the hardness of the water)

What I'm getting at is this:

I'd like to see some green algae in there so I can watch the cichlids eat it off the rocks.

Or is this not a wise idea?

 

I have a low light as well but leave in on for countless hours hoping to offset that. The only place the algae in my tank grows is on the rocks and also the DIY wall. Glass stays pretty clean its just the rocks. I wish I could get green algae to grow but I dont think I have a good enough light.

 

Well if you want to grow algae there are probably a lot of people willing to trade places with you! :lol:

Short of running the lights a LOT I can't think of anything to help you I'm afraid, though I've heard that planted tanks frequently have much more algae...

 

You can have some of my algae if you want it. In the pictures you can see the start of hair algae less than 24 hours after it's been siphoned almost completely off. With 10-12 hours of light it will grow around 2 inches per day. I have been siphoning it out and treating with normal dosing of flourish excel. Being mine is planted this hair algae is the bane of my existence. If you really want algae then dose with regular flourish. 1 dose should do it. Do not dose with flourish excel as it contains a form of formeldahyde which is an algae inhibitor.

How many watts per gallon of lighting do you have and what type of bulb?

 

6500k that came with the cap and a 5000k full light spectrum tropical.