fatman7574
New Member
Forums sites are filled with inaccuracies and myths. Even diatoms (small brown algae cells) require light. They are classified as low light, but still light is needed. They can be eliminated by total elimination of light, but that is hard to achieve. Cracks around net pots provide sufficient light. Lighting the at penetrates through plastic is adequate light. For an example, you,need flat black to absorb all light so none penetrates, but u you need white to reflect the light if at all possible to prevent heat gain. IE to prevent all algae you must paint the reservoir and all pipes flat black then cover that with flat white paint. So approximately 85% of the light is reflected by the flat white paint and what is not is absorbed by the flat black. So 15% of the heat energy is absorb by the painted surface and the rest is within the reflected light BUT no light penetrates into the reservoir. The other choices are using something like Mylar plastic, aluminum foil or Panda wrap. Krylon fusion paint is made for painting plastic. It is the same paint used to paint plastic bombers and plastic body panels on vehicles. Normally the way to control brown algae is to limit its food source. Can't do that with a nutrient reservoir. Usually brown algae is pretty much ignored as it is preferable to green algae and it prevents green algae growth as green algae can not grow over the brown algae. Algae causes some pH issues but as it uses CO2 amd produces O2 it is actually beneficial to some degree. In aquariums it causea sizable DO rise when the lights are on. The few nutrients it actually uses in a nutrient reservoir is negligible overall.
