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Brown stains have developed on the inside walls of my fish tank What are they2007-11-24 23:10:23

You can get R/O (reverse osmosis) water from those water dispensing machines you find in grocery stores and WalMarts, but I would test the water first, and every so often. I found one machine at a WalMart that had water with nitrates and nitrites in it!!

What I do is I buy the WalMart brand "Drinking Water" (green cap). It is R/O water according to the label. Other stores may carry R/O water this way.

From what I understand, nothing eats cyanobacteria, but there's a rumor about a certain snail that you can read about on the link below if you scroll up to "blue/green algae".

Other methods of controlling it can be found on the first link I listed.

According to another source-

http://www.fishpondinfo.com/plants/algae...

"Brown algae are actually diatoms and not true algae. They coat ornaments, real and fake plants, glass, and gravel with a thin, dark brown layer. Brown algae prefer low light levels. They commonly grow in new tanks or those with low levels of light. Increasing the intensity or quantity of lights may decrease the growth of brown algae but in turn will increase the growth of other algae. Brown algae is easy to physically remove with an algae pad as it does not adhere as strongly as green algae. While some snails and algae-eating fish will inadvertently eat some brown algae, most algae-eating fish prefer green algae and will only eat brown algae if they have no alternative food source. Plecostomus and otocinclus are the most likely fish to eat it."

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Sounds like algae to me. You can remove it manually, or get an algae-eating fish to get rid of it for you. Stick with otocinclus catfish; they are easy to keep and are fairly small. Plecos can get absolutely humongous and require up to 50 gallons each, while Chinese Algae Eaters are very aggressive; though they stick to algae when young, once they have matured, they will leech onto your fish's slime coat and kill it.