Diatom bloom

[DanH86]

My 4/5 month old tank looks like it has finally started a diatom bloom. For the last week the glass has been covered in a thick brown dust which reappears within an hour of scraping. The water is very cloudy too and the sand bed is starting to turn light brown in areas where my gobies don’t go.
How long can I expect this to last? my torch and zoas don’t seem to be liking the cloudiness but fish seem fine.
It completely disappears overnight but within 2 hours of lights it’s back.

I’ve cranked up my return pump (Jebao 4000) to 80% to try and clear the tank and am running twin filter socks that now get changed daily but still my tank is cloudy and glass covered!

Nitrate 0.5-1
phos 0.03
salinity 1.025
alk 8
calc 390
mag 1350
Rodi water 0 TDS

 

[BeejReef]

Can you put up a picture Dan?

Diatoms are rarely a concern. They don't usually cloud the water though. They also don't go away in the dark. You may have something else, or a couple things, going on.

 

[DanH86]

Best I can do right now...it’s night time here so tank lights were off. I’ve just cleaned the glass and caused the sand bed to be stirred up. It’s definitely a brown dust, no evidence of strings/bubbles. I’ve just finished with brown hair algae and this moved in straight after. What makes me think diatoms is that there are rust looking patches on rocks and that this is so dusty.

You can see the unhappy torch, it’s normally a massive bushy thing!

This is looking end on, can’t even see the power head on the other side.

 

[brandon429]

we fix those all day long for 4 years in our sand rinse thread/30 pages of after shots.

Its true if the tank is really large you can detail it over the next few weeks and find some param that might could be changed to clear things up. This is common new tank headache, and might resolve over time.

You can also just rip clean the whole system, clean out the sandbed, change the water, and it will go away. The difference in the two approaches has nothing to do with your tank's age and maturation level, it has to do with how bad you want it fixed. We work with the whole system all at once vs working in increments and parts, this is why we get such strong after pics for tanks or keepers that are accessible and willing to just clean the tank thoroughly. a specific benefit conferred into our thread by tank cleaners is that they dont have to clean the glass like that for a long time after/the take apart cleaning renders the bed and the rocks 100% free of detritus and feed, and for a 4 month old system this type of deep access isn't harmful at all its actually great training for guiding the tank manually vs seeing the tank as a delicate object, they're tough.

vs trying to find the causative, a thorough cleaning removes 100% of sandbed clouding, 100% of rock clouding, and all new water means you have attacked the causative without even knowing what it may be. Your description doesnt sound like precipitation/chem events it sounds like bac bloom/diatoms or typical reef headaches. we wrote the thread to remedy those headaches, fast.

its ok to leave things alone if you dont want the work, but if you do want the work and the known outcomes, running a disassembly cleaning on a tank is never harmful its lifespan extending, its the opposite effect of what the masses think about disassembly cleaning.

in the sand rinse thread I subject my 14 year old nano to 4x rip cleans just to participate, nothing is wrong with my tank. Part of the reason why: preemptive not reactive tank maintenance.

 

[DanH86]

Thanks Brandon. So you’d go for a massive water change & scrub everything? I can make 40% saltwater, any more than that and I’ll need to buy more containers...plus I’d need to relocate fish/CUC...

 

[brandon429]

agreed that's why its more common process for nanos and/ or people who are moving homes, because they must take down at that point. We don't get a ton of participants for basic surgery simply because the work is pronounced. The only way to do a rip clean correctly is to hold fish and corals elsewhere, drain the tank, swish rocks around in saltwater so they cast off any detritus/castings/things that cloud when in good current, rinse the sandbed in tap water until its 100% clean and I mean 100%, then final rinse in ro water to evacuate the tap.

rocks with the critical bacteria are contacted by saltwater only.

sandbed bacteria are never required or critical for stable running/so removing that bed altogether or blast rinsing it doesn't matter.

re assemble system using all new water and nothing else can cloud, this doesn't harm or reset any bacteria vs what the common notion would be. That sounds scary to 99% of readers lol but we get participation in the thread exactly this way; fifty offers to one accepted and then the pages grow.

A UV sterilizer or lighting changes might can make a dent with far less work, but there are also marked benefits in making a reef cloudless occasionally, it helps tremendously in warding off GHA and cyano and all the things a reef sees as it matures

 

[DanH86]

How it looks today...

 

[brandon429]

yep, I would rip clean it for sure.

 

[DanH86]

Thanks, I’ll get mixing water!

 

[brandon429]

agreed I wouldnt reuse the water with the algae in it, we can just make new water. the rinsing of the sand is harmless and evacuates feed/detritus, and rinsing off rocks in saltwater only is harmless and keeps them free of cloud. If you lift a rock into mid tank and swish it around currently, I bet it casts off items that contribute to feed for invasions

you'll have to catch fish on the way down and hold them elsewhere and acclimate them back into the fresh tank

**lighting can be a big cause of your issue we should lower the intensity down from where its at now, and make sure white is lowered for sure. needs to be blue heavy the next month as you tune things back up in the totally clean condition. the only way the method is dangerous is to reassemble a cloudy system, incomplete rinse of the sand and no cleaning of rocks can put detritus right back in the new tank, and continue clouding.

this is how clean a sandbed can get, it contributes to zero issues when its this clean:

 

[Silent]

Wouldn't a UV sterilizer be an easier way to go for this?

 

[DanH86]

I wish my sand was that clean - I get little dust storms from my gobies.

My lights are Red Sea Reef90’s running one of their own lighting schedules so hopefully they are correct...

 

[brandon429]

their lighting has to be matched to a tank's need though, make sure it decreases intensity for sure a while if you want the best growback prevention and blue it up for sure, these are standout prevention patterns in our sand rinse thread.

Its true UV can help, but it leaves 100% of the waste in place for the next invader/worse/GHA

a clean tank is simply stronger and able to weather challenges better than a dirty one. UV might indeed clear it up topically for sure though. I would rip clean since its never harmful and only a lifespan increaser for aquariums.