Algae & Noisy toilet

[LD500]

So glad we found this forum on toilets!

We have American Standard toilets with the yellow colored floats in our 4 year old house. 2 issues I hope you can help me with:

- We get dark brown algae-like stuff in all our toilet tanks (not bowls). I would install in-tank cleaner tablets but I heard it breaks down the components. What can be done?

- One of the toilets is extra noisy and seems to take a bit longer to refill. When I watch the toilet refill it appears that the yellow float has water leaking from underneath it into the tank. Is it simply broken and needs replacing? What is the yellow knob on the float for?

I should add, not sure it matters, that this toilet is connected to our in-hour fire sprinkler system too. It's obviously not the water supply for the sprinkler system but I remember the builder telling us the water supply to this particular toilet is connected to the sprinkler system. Maybe it slowly refills the water loss?

Thanks!

[Gary Swart]

I would suggest you get a new float assembly and new flap for each toiilet. I think the float may have a leak so that it contains water which doesn't allow the float to come all the way up or at least stay all the way up. Being on the fire sprinkler line will have no effect so long as you don't try to use the toilet while you are having a fire.

[LD500]

I called American Standard customer service and they are sending me a replacement float tower unit. I hope they're not too difficult to install.

As for the algae, has anyone else seen anything like that in a toilet tank?
It's quite disgusting looking. It's in all my toilets so I would guess it is something from the water. Maybe I can put in a toilet cleaner tablet for a week or so and hope that it kills off the algae? Hope that doesn't hurt the flapper and other components too much.