Plants and aquarium turning brown!

[giuly87]

Hey everybody! =) its's been long since last came around here! I have a question. I recently (3 weeks ago) changed my GSP from his 10 gallon tank to a 30 gallon tank. He's doing extremely well and eating shrimp, freeze dried bloodworms and krill, and lots of snails. The thing is his plastic plants and the back side of the aquarium turn brown from time to time, and I clean it but it goes back to brown. I had to throw out some decorations cause they looked really bad, and I was scared that maybe it would hurt Puffy. When he was in the 10 gallons, the front side of the aquarium had some brown stains from time to time too. Could salt cause this or something else? He's in 80 degrees temperature, nitrates 20, nitrites 0,alkalinity 180, and ph 8.4. I'm just afraid that this could harm him but he seems to be doing fine.

Thank you =)

[LilGreenPuffer]

It's just algae, I think.

[Iliveinazoo]

all of my brackish tanks started with a bit of brown algae before turning to green algae after a couple of months. I think that the high nitrates from a cycling tank stimulates the brown algae growth.

[Dadof4]

Diatoms! Nasty brown looking stuff that grows on surfaces of most new BW aquariums. Usually caused by high salicilate levels. It should go away with time.

[marksrush]

My brown algae problem started about midway in the process of converting the tank from freshwater to saltwater. It lasted for a few months, then one day recently I noticed that there seemed to be less of it than I remembered. The next day, there was no doubting it - the brown algae was disappearing. In the space of 4 days, the entire tank was free of brown algae. It was amazing to see it go away so rapidly.

[giuly87]

hey guysss =) THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH! I feel relieved now. thank you!

[pufferfreak]

Tanks go through algae cycles. Brown diatoms just being the first.