Diatom Outbreak

rhorn67 · Jan 3, 2016

I am having a diatom outbreak. I know this can be common in a newer tank such as mine which is moving into month 3. Interestingly I never did experience a diatom outbreak during cycling like I read I may have or should have gotten. My tank has been good up until two weeks ago and I have made no changes other than adding a few lps corals. I have had some leathers and mushrooms for 4 weeks now and a cardinal which have all been doing great. The causes of this type of outbreak I dont seem to have so I'm asking for help as to why this may be happening. It literally takes two days after a WC and glass/sand cleaning for the brown to start appearing on the glass and on top of the sand again.

Thank you

Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 0
Phosphates 0.16
PH 8.1
Alk 10.6
Calc 488
Mag 1440
Weekly water changes of 30-40%
Instant Ocean reef crystals
RODI water
Lights on 2pm 2hr ramp 4-9 full 9-11 ramp down

Tristan · Jan 4, 2016

Add some cerith snails to your tank. These are usually good at eating diatoms, cyano, and film algae.

All your parameters seem fine. I had this happen to my 10g tanks around the same time. Everything had finished cycling but around 3 months I got hit with a diatom bloom.

Mykulak · Jan 4, 2016

I had the same problem and after adding more members to my cleaning crew everything was gone.

rhorn67 · Jan 4, 2016

I will look into adding some cuc members. Just so frustrating to be on top of your aquarium maintenance and parameters to have this stuff flare up for no apparent reason.

rhorn67 · Jan 12, 2016

Tristan said:
Add some cerith snails to your tank. These are usually good at eating diatoms, cyano, and film algae.

All your parameters seem fine. I had this happen to my 10g tanks around the same time. Everything had finished cycling but around 3 months I got hit with a diatom bloom.[/

So should I clean glass? It gets super bad after a day or two? Does cleaning glass spread or make the outbreak worse?

rhorn67 · Jan 12, 2016

This is two days after a cleaning and wc.

IdahoNano · Jan 12, 2016

What kind/how old is your filter media (i.e., Chemi Pure, Purigen, etc.)? I find that when my old tank media started to "demise", the diatoms came back, and I'd lessen the light (manufactured or sun) until I changed my media, and then things would start to "calm down".....

Lenny_S · Jan 12, 2016

If your phosphate is really at 0.16 then that's probably what is doing it. The "recommended" phosphate level for a reef tank is 0.02 and a maximum of 0.05
Your reading is more than 3 times the recommend maximum.

rhorn67 · Jan 12, 2016

Sorry guys that was incorrect. I recently purchased the Hanna ULR phosphorus checker so I messed up on the formula to convert to ppm. I just did another test and I am at 0.03 using the below conversion

11 ppb x 3.066 =33.726 / 1000 = .0337 ppm

Prior to this one my readings have been single digit ppb. I am using SeaChem Chemi-Pure Elite and it is approaching the two month mark. I have filter floss at both returns and change every two days.

Lenny_S · Jan 12, 2016

rhorn67 said:
Sorry guys that was incorrect. I recently purchased the Hanna ULR phosphorus checker so I messed up on the formula to convert to ppm. I just did another test and I am at 0.03 using the below conversion

11 ppb x 3.066 =33.726 / 1000 = .0337 ppm

Prior to this one my readings have been single digit ppb. I am using SeaChem Chemi-Pure Elite and it is approaching the two month mark. I have filter floss at both returns and change every two days.

That's much better [emoji3]
It might still be plenty to keep diatoms coming back. You could try running GFO or some other phosphate binder and see if that helps. A CUC is good, but need to determine the cause so you can address that. This would help confirm or rule out phosphate.
And if you notice any bad side affects from dropping the phosphate level, it's super easy to get it back up again. You can just stop running the GFO and let it slowly rise again. Or you can dose a tiny amount of phosphate. It's available from Seachem and you can even use a couple of drops of Fleet enema for every 10 gallons of water to raise it to about 0.02 ppm. Sounds weird I know, but it absolutely works.

rhorn67 · Jan 12, 2016

Lenny_S said:
That's much better [emoji3]
It might still be plenty to keep diatoms coming back. You could try running GFO or some other phosphate binder and see if that helps. A CUC is good, but need to determine the cause so you can address that. This would help confirm or rule out phosphate.
And if you notice any bad side affects from dropping the phosphate level, it's super easy to get it back up again. You can just stop running the GFO and let it slowly rise again. Or you can dose a tiny amount of phosphate. It's available from Seachem and you can even use a couple of drops of Fleet enema for every 10 gallons of water to raise it to about 0.02 ppm. Sounds weird I know, but it absolutely works.

I have a phosban reactor I purchased for c02 scrubbing. I wasn't having much luck getting my PH up so it helped a little bit with that. I have since been using kalk so I think I would be ok to convert reactor to GFO.

Does cleaning the glass spread the diatom or am I good to clean?

Lenny_S · Jan 12, 2016

rhorn67 said:
I have a phosban reactor I purchased for c02 scrubbing. I wasn't having much luck getting my PH up so it helped a little bit with that. I have since been using kalk so I think I would be ok to convert reactor to GFO.

Does cleaning the glass spread the diatom or am I good to clean?

Sounds good, and IME worth a shot.
As far as the glass goes, clean away! The buggers are in the water anyway. [emoji6]

rhorn67 · Jan 12, 2016

Lenny_S said:
Sounds good, and IME worth a shot.
As far as the glass goes, clean away! The buggers are in the water anyway. [emoji6]

Will do! Thanks so much.

rhorn67 · Jan 12, 2016

IdahoNano said:
What kind/how old is your filter media (i.e., Chemi Pure, Purigen, etc.)? I find that when my old tank media started to "demise", the diatoms came back, and I'd lessen the light (manufactured or sun) until I changed my media, and then things would start to "calm down".....

I will cut my lights down a bit and replace chemi pure. With this as well as giving gfo a shot hopefully things will settle down.

Reefboy1 · Jan 12, 2016

are you doing bio pellets? Or anything like that? I heard if you are and are not skimming you will get a crazy outbreak.

rhorn67 · Jan 12, 2016

Reefboy1 said:
are you doing bio pellets? Or anything like that? I heard if you are and are not skimming you will get a crazy outbreak.

No bio pellets or similar. I have a pretty basic setup which up until the past 2-3 weeks has been great.

Reefboy1 · Jan 12, 2016

rhorn67 said:
No bio pellets or similar. I have a pretty basic setup which up until the past 2-3 weeks has been great.

are you running a skimmer? If not I would look into getting one. It is one of the best ways of taking out organics. Oh and you can clean the class.

rhorn67 · Jan 12, 2016

Reefboy1 said:
are you running a skimmer? If not I would look into getting one. It is one of the best ways of taking out organics. Oh and you can clean the class.

Yes I have a Tunze DOC 9001 which is dialed in and taking care of business. I swear this is the most frustrating thing as what I can tell I am doing everything correctly and keeping my params where they should be yet I have this going on.