Diatom Armageddon

[Kmst80]

So i got myself in a bit of trouble.
Was fighting Dino's and winning slowly the battle, one thing i started doing was dosing Silicate.
Now at the start i was dosing 1 ppm per week and i had a nice diatom film and everything was good, still what i thought was some dinos going around. So i thought i raise the dose to 1 ppm twice a week. did that for two weeks and Armageddon happened.
Sunday a huge diatom bloom started, every day its getting worse, all corals are majorly ticked off, exspecially the inverts. Fish are doing fine.
Got home today to brown water.
Atm. I clean filtersocks daily, clean s kimmer (each day quarter cup of brown), i am running activated carbon, running phosphate/silicate remover(keeping an eye on phosphates though) and i just now turned the lights off and intend to leave them off for a couple of days.

Anything else i am missing or should be doing? I am not worried about a few diatoms but this is exponential and i am worried about the corals.

Nitrates are around 15
Phosphates 0.16

 

[Kmst80]

Here a picture off the mess(even without lights you can see the brown in the water)

 

[JakeH]

How are thing’s looking now? It been about a month. I can’t offer any advice, I’m also looking to beat Dino with silicates.

 

[Kmst80]

How are thing’s looking now? It been about a month. I can’t offer any advice, I’m also looking to beat Dino with silicates.

Tank is going great. I ended up buying a green killing machine(uv), all the other uv's were ridiculously expensive. It's undersized for my tank but cleaned up that bloom in 2 days. Corals took a while to recover. Lost a acropora Dallas and my galaxea is partly coming back, thought I lost her too.

My advise: Be really carefull dosing silica, have the appropriate test so you know what you put in the tank.

The Diatom bloom was worse than 3 month dinos. Be patient with the dinos. Have Nitrates 10ppm phosphate 0.10 ppm and suck out what you can(I used a 5 micron Filter sock to keep the water in the system). You won't beat this in a couple of days. Let the algae overpower the dinos and then get rid of the algae later.

Good luck.

 

[Tradevg]

Hey guys. Will diatoms grow on glass as well? My nano is about 13 month old. I think my nitrates and phosphates maybe too low … both basically zero. Been dealing with the brown gunk for months now. Any suggestions?

 

[Kmst80]

Hey guys. Will diatoms grow on glass as well? My nano is about 13 month old. I think my nitrates and phosphates maybe too low … both basically zero. Been dealing with the brown gunk for months now. Any suggestions?

Diatoms will grow on glass, but if your nitrates or phosphates are zero it could mean dinos too. Best get a cheap microscope and you know for sure. I was fighting dinos when I had this diatom bloom, now my tank has virtually no visible algae.

 

[Tradevg]

Diatoms will grow on glass, but if your nitrates or phosphates are zero it could mean dinos too. Best get a cheap microscope and you know for sure. I was fighting dinos when I had this diatom bloom, now my tank has virtually no visible algae. Attaching pictures. Hoping someone can identify without me buying a microscope.

Hmmm… thought Dino’s are snot like with bubbles.. I see none of that.. just a powdery coating that I can stir up with some water movement.

 

[Kmst80]

Hmmm… thought Dino’s are snot like with bubbles.. I see none of that.. just a powdery coating that I can stir up with some water movement.

Looks like diatoms.