Ok so I'm getting really frustrated about this algae pretty sure it's diatoms! But still diatoms still after my tank cycled! My tank is 3 and a half months old now. Diatoms came on quick but will not go away!!!! I know I have a little nitrates at 5-10 and phosphate.02 to 0. I've scrubbed them off everyday cleaned rocks and glass every day!!!! Please help I was told they will go away in their own. I use RODI water only and do not over feed. HELP ME!!!!!
Algae!!!
- Thread starter Travis91
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Shaddow_wolf169
Valuable Member
Water source black sand gravel has a not of silicates in it. Increase flow they will go away.
mcarroll
10K Club member
@Travis91,
Three months seems like a long time in Internet Time, but that's still a very new tank.
Did the tank have a nice, easy start or was it "on" GFO, carbon dosing and/or anything else like that from the start?
If increased flow + siphoning this "algae" out doesn't work, then the lack of a silicon source (noted above) and lack of phosphate that you noted may actually point to a dinoflagellate bloom.
Are you doing anything to limit PO4? (If so, stop.)
How's your cleanup crew?
Three months seems like a long time in Internet Time, but that's still a very new tank.
Did the tank have a nice, easy start or was it "on" GFO, carbon dosing and/or anything else like that from the start?
If increased flow + siphoning this "algae" out doesn't work, then the lack of a silicon source (noted above) and lack of phosphate that you noted may actually point to a dinoflagellate bloom.
Are you doing anything to limit PO4? (If so, stop.)
How's your cleanup crew?
I know I need more snails for sure and my phosphates are somewhere between 0-.25 on the API test. And no I just started to run carbon to clean the water and I have been vodka dosing to help get nitrates down to 5 ppm as I will be keeping softies and lps.
mcarroll
10K Club member
That PO4 level is actually the problem – not the NO3 level. Possibly a side-effect of the fishless cycle.
The base of your tank's bio-load – the microbial food web – is trying to grow in right now. But the high NO3 levels are causing a bloom/PO4-starvation cycle to happen.
The better course wold be to dose a little phosphate fertilizer into the tank to balance out what you've done so far with the carbon dosing.
THEN when things get to normal, I would stop dosing anything for nutrients or nutrient control and focus on having a healthy, well-fed tank. Don't stock it up too fast, and don't let the fish get out of balance with the corals.
Skimmer is fine, but there's no call for carbon dosing at this stage of a tank's life.
I would stop carbon dosing now. (vodka, vinegar, nopox, et al.)
A new, healthy tank will have no problems getting rid of those nitrates by denitrification and growing corals!
More importantly, the nitrates aren't going to hurt anything in the mean time. There's no emergency. There's not yet a call to action.
That's not impossible, but Diatoms absolutely require a source of silicon in order to bloom and then keep blooming – they more or less permanently use up their source of silicon in the course of blooming.
That makes diatom blooms rare under normal, healthy circumstances. Usually just at the beginning of a tank.
Diatoms and cyano (among many other invisible things) both generally have a bloom while a tank is getting started....diatoms fade back once silicon levels drop....cyano fades out once there's a stream of nutrients into the tank. (They fix N from air, so they have "a role" at the beginning when the tank is completely N-defficient....or in otherwise N-defficient scenarios.)
Remember: If you're fighting algae, you're doing it wrong.
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