Cyano

Steven27 · Feb 9, 2022

My tank is 29 gallons and turned 3 months today. Only fish are 2 clowns. Water changes are roughly every 2 weeks using imagitarium sea water and topping tank off with distilled water. I have added chemi pure blue to the HOB and added chemi clean once. The question is the best way to remove the cyano? Vacuuming? I am going switch to mixing my saltwater using distilled water because I don’t have an RODI system. Any thing that could address the issue also feeding once a day gonna switch to every other day.

thatmanMIKEson · Feb 9, 2022

Looks like diatoms, the distilled water could be high in silicates

zoaprince · Feb 9, 2022

How long do you have your lights on? and are they always that white?

thatmanMIKEson · Feb 9, 2022

zoaprince said:
How long do you have your lights on? and are they always that white?

Plus this +

damsels are not mean · Feb 9, 2022

You're not doing anything wrong, just keep doing what you're doing. It goes away eventually.

thatmanMIKEson · Feb 9, 2022

Just be careful of silicates, I was using spring and distilled many years ago and had diatoms for a while until I got water from lfs. Just a possibility of maybe an issue good luck give it time, good advice will roll in.

Steven27 · Feb 9, 2022

thatmanMIKEson said:
Looks like diatoms, the distilled water could be high in silicates

That’s what I figured.

Steven27 · Feb 9, 2022

zoaprince said:
How long do you have your lights on? and are they always that white?

Usually 10 hours and yes they are

Steven27 · Feb 9, 2022

damsels are not mean said:
You're not doing anything wrong, just keep doing what you're doing. It goes away eventually.

Appreciate the feedback!

Steven27 · Feb 9, 2022

thatmanMIKEson said:
Just be careful of silicates, I was using spring and distilled many years ago and had diatoms for a while until I got water from lfs. Just a possibility of maybe an issue good luck give it time, good advice will roll in.

I found a lfs that sells RODI water. Im gonna purchase some and mix some saltwater this weekend.

zoaprince · Feb 9, 2022

Steven27 said:
Usually 10 hours and yes they are

White light encourages algae growth. Personally, I would lower the light to maybe 8 hours.

Also definitely get some clean up crew.

Personally, I don't think the issue is distilled water. Distilled water is very clean, if not 0 TDS then very close to it.

Nanojoe · Feb 9, 2022

I agree with above that this is diatoms. They will go away in time and good water source so you know you arent shooting yourself in the foot with more silicates. Give it time.

thatmanMIKEson · Feb 9, 2022

zoaprince said:
White light encourages algae growth. Personally, I would lower the light to maybe 8 hours.

Also definitely get some clean up crew.

Personally, I don't think the issue is distilled water. Distilled water is very clean, if not 0 TDS then very close to it.

How do you know what the tds of the distilled water their using?

thatmanMIKEson · Feb 9, 2022

zoaprince said:
White light encourages algae growth. Personally, I would lower the light to maybe 8 hours.

Also definitely get some clean up crew.

Personally, I don't think the issue is distilled water. Distilled water is very clean, if not 0 TDS then very close to it.

Tds isnt a measurement for silicates

Ghost25 · Feb 9, 2022

I would refrain from using Chemipure and Chemiclean. You don't need to worry too much about light since you don't have corals, but I would recommend significantly bluer light when you get corals.

Steven27 · Feb 9, 2022

zoaprince said:
White light encourages algae growth. Personally, I would lower the light to maybe 8 hours.

Also definitely get some clean up crew.

Personally, I don't think the issue is distilled water. Distilled water is very clean, if not 0 TDS then very close to it.

Okay sounds good I’ll lower the light exposure. I have three snails and two hermit crabs. Could it be the imagitarium water that I use? Also if I switch to mixing my own water would it shock the tank because of the difference in water?

Steven27 · Feb 9, 2022

Nanojoeaquatic said:
I agree with above that this is diatoms. They will go away in time and good water source so you know you arent shooting yourself in the foot with more silicates. Give it time.

Appreciate the feedback!

Steven27 · Feb 9, 2022

thatmanMIKEson said:
Tds isnt a measurement for silicates

Could the seawater Im using have silicates?

Steven27 · Feb 9, 2022

Ghost25 said:
I would refrain from using Chemipure and Chemiclean. You don't need to worry too much about light since you don't have corals, but I would recommend significantly bluer light when you get corals.

I just added the chemi pure a couple days ago noticed a little difference in the diatoms.

thatmanMIKEson · Feb 9, 2022

Steven27 said:
Could the seawater Im using have silicates?

Materials you store water in can release silicates but I am nowhere near an expert i can just point you in that direction.

And also like I said before about my personal situation using distilled and spring water years ago once I switched to r.o.d.i water about 2 weeks it cleared up...it was the silicates in the water that got used up by the diatoms and algae.

I only use rodi and produce my own now, its the only way to go honestly no matter the size, so is storage.