# Brown algae in cichlid tank



## NeoViking (Aug 17, 2012)

About 2 months ago my cichlid tank was poisoned.
I lost a lot of fish and had a lot of hard work trying to make it safe again for my fish.

Many days water changing, seeding and testing later I finally got my water perfect again!
I've been testing it weekly just to make sure all is well, but only since this event I've got a lot of brush algae and brown algae.
There was bluegreen for a little while but that went away on it's own when the water quality improved.

How do I get rid of this? the brush algae is the worst! its all over my plants and rocks!
I've been wiping the brown algae away but there's a lot of it I've missed.

I swear my plants have been struggling too since then.


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## ChoclateBetta (Jul 22, 2012)

How was it poisoned a Pleco might be the right size for your fish's what kind of cichlids do you have.


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## kfryman (Nov 7, 2011)

Chocolate betta most fish don't eat brush algae till its weak.

Have you tried doing the hydrogen peroxide treatment? I don't know the recipe, so you would have to look that up, but it does work. You just turn off the filter, and get some type of syringe to directly dose the brush algae. Then you would do a water change. That is the basics of it.


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## Tazman (Jan 15, 2012)

What exactly poisoned the tank and what cichlids do you have?

The brown algae is likely diatoms which will disappear by themselves almost as fast as they appeared. 

What lights do you have on the tank and how long do you keep them on, is there any direct sunlight getting to the tank?


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## ChoclateBetta (Jul 22, 2012)

kfryman said:


> Chocolate betta most fish don't eat brush algae till its weak.
> 
> Have you tried doing the hydrogen peroxide treatment? I don't know the recipe, so you would have to look that up, but it does work. You just turn off the filter, and get some type of syringe to directly dose the brush algae. Then you would do a water change. That is the basics of it.


I am sure a Pleco would I would suggest Oto but cihlids.


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## Tazman (Jan 15, 2012)

Otos will not do well with cichlids.

Either a BN pleco or a Synodontis Multipunctus would work.


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## NeoViking (Aug 17, 2012)

Wow I'm sorry, I left this thread in the dirt! 
Sorry about that, I wasn't ignoring anyone on purpose.

The cichlids I have are only dwarf cichlids, I only really call it the cichlid tank because the cichlids are my main fish (2keyholes, 2kribs and a firemouth which my friend gave me) but there's also a young flying fox and 2 petricola catfish in that tank.
Its a 180ltr well planted tank (I only use real plants)


The neighbours kids went and chucked in a large dose of fish wormer which killed 2 catfish, 1 sucking loach, my rainbow fish, my rams I had at the time and almost saw the death of my other fish which were either gasping at the surface or laying on their sides. the bloody stuff starved their oxygen and gave the fish some mild red marks.
(I've since added the flying fox and new catfish, I'm not replacing the other fish though)
One day I had a full bottle of the stuff and my fish were fine, the next day I didn't have a full bottle of the stuff and my fish were far less than fine.
It took some effort making the water safe again.


Daylight: Very little natural daylight gets on the tank, it's against the same wall as the window but a good couple of meters away from it.
Anywhere else in the room and it would have had sunshine galore since its quite a bright room usually lol.

Tank lights: 5 hours'ish a day? it goes on in the evening.


Feeding wise (just thought i'd throw this one in there)
They get hikari cichlid gold pellets in the morning, some frozen bloodworm at night and every other day I'll put in a sinking wafer for the cats and fox (which the other fish tend to peck on anyway, in fact firemouth swims away with them half the time like a naughty child stealing a cookie.

There's 2 filters in the tank, the external one it came with and an extra fluval u3 which I chucked in for good measure lol.
Though I know filtration doesn't touch algae, only helps the water quality.


I haven't tried hydrogen peroxide treatment yet, to be honest I've only just heard of it.
It doesn't affect fish does it? I'll give it a go if it's safe 

I love plecos, but most of them get huge don't they?
It's not that I don't think my tank can handle one, its just I tend to stick with small to medium sized fish in that tank.
Would hong kong plecs be too small with my fish? I read they get to 5cm long and stop growing there.
My firemouth is my biggest fish fully grown and probably my grumpiest, although she's not too bad for being grumpy, she just tells the other fish off if they get in her cave. she's like a grumpy old woman telling the kids to get off her lawn lol.


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