Constant diatoms

[eddie.pr]

I have a 90g mixed reef that is about 2 1/2 years old .for the past two months i have been experiencing diatoms on my sand and lately on my rock and back glass .i have not put anything new as equipment or any plastic materials . Just to make sure that was diatoms and not brown cyano or dynos. i blow the rock with turkey baster and it come out as dust !. Need some ideas on what it could be causing this constant diatoms bloom !
Ca.440 ppm
Kh.8.4
Am.0
Nitrite.0
Nitrates.les than 1ppm (0.50) red sea test
Mg.3600 ppm
Ligjtss .2 hydra 52
Flow . Jebao wp40 and wp25
P sk .reef octopus sro 2000
RO/DI from fountainhead water sistems 5 stage .
Change the sediment every 3 months .and carbon bloks every 7 months .. the only thing i have notise is my di recine has change color just half of it during 1 year of use .. and is a empty gap on the bottom when i turn the filter on about 1 inch ..and the DI recine tumble inside the canister (the DI recine is the one that came original with the filer sistem)
Use redsea pro salt mix
Do water change every month 30g
Phosphate dont measure since i have no visible algae .. any sugestions or ideas

 

[brandon429]

I call that to be spirulina most likely, cyano second likely

In small tanks we beat that easy by rip changing the whole systems water and rinsing out the sand totally, reassemble without a cycle

90 is too big for that. If that was my system id beat that out with a uv filter off amazon

That is a natural reef organism indicating nothing bad about your tank, they can come back anytime, so I never recommend dosing meds to the water for that, uv would beat it easily. We would clean out the tank, install an oversized uv unit, it doesn't come back

Bluing up your lighting vs as much white is the quickest thing you can try without consequence or purchase, it's not widespread enough to be nutrients issue from the water column. From the sand I can agree, but ninety is big tank I'd just zap it and be done.

 

[eddie.pr]

so spiruline is dust like .just like diatoms ?

 

[boozeman27]

Sorry to hijack, but what’s that green bushy coral called on the right of your tank? I have one similar and don’t know the name. Hope your algae goes as quickly as it came

 

[eddie.pr]

Im asiming you are talking abouth greenstar polyp

 

[boozeman27]

The right side on the sand bed

 

[eddie.pr]

Migjt be green neon tree

 

[MamaLovesHerReefTank]

I call that to be spirulina most likely, cyano second likely

In small tanks we beat that easy by rip changing the whole systems water and rinsing out the sand totally, reassemble without a cycle

90 is too big for that. If that was my system id beat that out with a uv filter off amazon

That is a natural reef organism indicating nothing bad about your tank, they can come back anytime, so I never recommend dosing meds to the water for that, uv would beat it easily. We would clean out the tank, install an oversized uv unit, it doesn't come back

Bluing up your lighting vs as much white is the quickest thing you can try without consequence or purchase, it's not widespread enough to be nutrients issue from the water column. From the sand I can agree, but ninety is big tank I'd just zap it and be done.

@brandon429 Are you saying to turn the lights up? I don't have a uv filter and now isn't a good time to purchase one. I have been dealing with this in my tank for about a month now. I did chemiclean thinking it was cyano. Didn't touch it. We clean the glass and mix up the sand a bit with our weekly water changes. I've had my lights a bit lower the last couple months battling gha. I finally used fluconazole and haven't turned them back up.

 

[brandon429]

Just meaning that for whatever intensity is selected, less white helps to suppress that growth blue for some reason in my tank keeps corals intense enough without feeding the side invasions too much. This tank looks to be in great balance, that invader belongs on a reef that’s in good balance, to be totally free is the unnatural condition that’s why it’s tricky to wrestle out. Uv expensive agreed

Perhaps ss goby is easy try too

 

[brandon429]

Another thing sure to be simple and effective: A recirculating cleaner, any simple mock up that siphons with force through a low micron catch/filter and water goes back into tank. Cheapest possible ROI it’s what I’d do, just dawned on me at breakfast.

Because your invader is localized, topical and not anchored, and specifically the kind of organisms a scuba diver sees on Fiji, and because organism mats left in place are by rule self supporting (sticky surfaces trap and hold food/silicates/etc) for sure you can just garden that out in time by simple force.

 

[jsker]

I found when I started to run my white at 30% for 5 hours instead of 8 my cyano and diatom went away like magic

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Diatoms should have a textural difference if you put it between your fingers and thumb. They have a silicate Skeleton
You can do a silicate test pretty easily. add some gfo to the tank to pull it out or just let them burn it up.
The RO membrane and the di pull of the fine silicate. So look at those two. Sometimes it does get past them.

 

[Yuki Rihwa]

I found when I started to run my white at 30% for 5 hours instead of 8 my cyano and diatom went away like magic

There might be a thing to do with light vs Cyano, I noticed when I acclimating my new light system and Cyano show up at certain light spectrum, after I ranked up my color/intensity to a certain point it went away by itself, it's might be a coincidence but since then I'm doing thing pretty much same as before and they never make a come back. My current light schedule is start ram up at 6AM to peak at 10AM then stay at peak until 5PM and start ram down to off at 9PM 80% color and 80% intensity.
* Cyano showed up on the week that my light at 45%, start fading away at 50% and gone after 60% color/intensity