Nitrates

The brown algae is a bit annoying. It develops on the glass and rock pretty fast. Im going to cut back on some light time and reduce nitrates to see it that takes care of the brown algae.

 

The brown dusting you are seeing are dead diatoms thats make me suspect the make up water . You must be somehow adding a source of food for them to feed on and they feed on silicates .. Don't dose the plankton for a week or so you may be adding the food source via. the planktons and worse case would be you get a full blown plankton explosion and wind up with a pea green tank . That stuff can kill a system if its not cultured correctly or gone sour from age..

 

The water does have a little yellowish hue to it. Alright im going to try without that plankton stuff.

 

Put some Carbon in there to pull that yellow /greenish look You brewing your own plankton ? or buying someone else's ? Its more to culturing the stuff rather then a few bottles and some F 2 fertilizer