Are micro organism harmful?

Just wondering if those micro organism or rather those slimy stuff that we usually find on the side of the tanks harmful to ABN fry? Hv read varying views on that, some says its harmful, while others say those were what the plecos like eating. So, are they good or bad, really, in your opinion? If they are bad, I will have to make an effort to manually scrub the sides of tank regularly.

is it the brown stuff?

its a bit of a double edged sword im afraid. They do eat it but if it builds up too much it can kill the fry. thats why people use grave lin breeding tanks, to stop it building up too much.

jett lee wrote:

is it the brown stuff?

The brown stuff are on the tank floor, I don't know what that is, I get lots of them, clear them daily, I still get them until I started using PP, it get lesser. There are still some that are orangy in colour, get me rather confused.

Anyway, what I am talking about here, is the ones on the sides of tank and is more whitish or rather translucent. The adults and juv seemed ok with that, but I am still not quite sure if it will affect the fry, so I do clean the sides occasionally, since I do not have a definite answer.

Doug wrote:

its a bit of a double edged sword im afraid. They do eat it but if it builds up too much it can kill the fry. thats why people use grave lin breeding tanks, to stop it building up too much.

I am just wondering, gravel help to stop building which type of bio organism? I m seeing the brown, orangy and translucent type, which is which? or are they all the same? or are some of them brown algae?

piccys?

brown stuff in the tank is usually brown algae, which is symptomatic of a new or unstable tank. once the water stabelises it usually goes away

the sort of translusent slime that eventually covers everything in the tank is a good thing, thats all the good bacteria de-toxifing the water for you. only thing is they can get to numerous and then they need something else to feed on as the ammonia etc in the water becomes too little...enter your bristlenose fry with their soft bellys resting on the bed of algae.

gravel stops this, not terribly sure why but at a guess i would say that as the fry are moving across the gravel it acts as a cleaner for their belly. or maybe there is just less on the gravel.

Thanks Doug for clarifying. So that brown stuff is brown algae, are they harmful? and the transluscent slime is safe, thanks.

only visually

Doug wrote:

only visually

OIC, so no worry, thanks.