Orange In My Tank?

[gate113]

If the subject gets you a bit confused then I did i good job to make you come read thsi post/ question. I have already done a 15% water/ gravel clean up about a week ago. I have had my Tank for about 1 month now and I plan on doing a 10% water/ gravel clean every two weeks.

Anyways....little by little the fliter pipe, which has a little blue slide to increase/ decrease suction is turning orange. Some of my white gravel now is turning orange, and even my little castle in the tank, some parts are turning orange. Is this normal? Becuase i have not read anything about this. The only color i have read here, in the forums, is about the green algae, which I have none (knocks on wood).

So is this a normal thing? I know I'm going to have to clean it off, but what casues it to turn orange?

By the way i have 16 gallon tank with 2 sunset playwags (somethign like that), 3 Serpae Tetra, and 8 panda corys.

[Damon]

What kind of gravel are you using? Have you added any meds? Upon the surface I would say the gravel is loosing its color due to chlorine or something or maybe its brownish and its really brown algae. Hard to answer without a pic or more info.

[gate113]

hmmm ok i do not add any meds. The only meds i add, if you can even call them meds are the fish stress and the other one that has like bacteria in it. but i only add it once a week like the bottle says (or whenever i handle the fish).

The gravel i am using is the basic gravel. Its not sand, or anything special, it's the small kind that the fish stores usually have. Its comes in all different colors. Its the basic gravel that beginners usually get.

[Lexus]

Is there Iron in your water? I used to live on the Iron Range in MN and our water would turn our tub and other things red/orange.

[gate113]

From what I know I live in New York City, so we have pretty good water. And never had anything turn orange that was left in our water. But thanks for trying to help me cut down the possibilites.

Also my water does not smell, so i hope its not anything fungal, if it did i think it would ahve made that nasty aroma smell when i open the lid. Any other help guys/ girls?

[madmatrixz3000]

[schild=12 fontcolor=FFFF00 shadowcolor=00008B shieldshadow=1]WATCH OUT!!![/schild] I had the same problem in my ten gallon and now to this day I have green and I mean green water, my story is just like yours. I also use Stress Coat and Cycle.

I have done one thing to stop my algae that started first with beard algae. What I have done is I cut my light off first for 2 days. Then I let it go on its regular 8 hour cycle (important) for 2 days. After that I covered my tank in heavy towels and turned off the light for 2 days. Now I am doing the last step once every 2 weeks and it is cutting down the algae.

My last resort is unfortunately using the chemical

[gate113]

O really? Im getting nervous here. Actually its not Orange. Its Brown. When the light is on it makes it look orange, but when I took out the filter tube that had orange on it, on regular light it wasa brownish color. Thank you for the tip.

Is there any fish besides the pleco that eats brown algae?

[fish_doc]

Here is a link with lots of good info on brown algae.

http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/ma...algaebrown.htm

[gate113]

Thank you so much fish_doc for the helpful link. I printed it all out. Thank to everyone, this forum really does make caring for a fish a bit easier. Thank again!