Diatom's in a 3 y/o tank?

[Oldsalt01]

This one has me scratching my head. I have a 3 y/o, well established 14g BC that has suddenly started showing what I believe are diatoms. A brown “dusty” growth, mostly on the glass that is easily removed with my algae scraper. It's definitely gotten worse since I shut down my skimmer, but I'm trying to re-establish some nitrates for my zoas, so starting the skimmer back up, or adding something like Purigen would have a negative impact on that effort. The only new addition, a month ago, is a small frag of Candy Apple zoas, and this started showing up shortly thereafter. I’m aware they feed off silicates in a new system but unless the very small frag was absolutely crawling with silicates, I’m at a loss as to where it could be coming from. I suppose it could be another form of brown algae, but it certainly appears to be diatom's. I'll post a pic or two today once the lights come on. Ideas, gang?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Check the rodi is all I have.

Run gfo. It’ll pull the possible silicates and some of the Po4 and not touch your nitrates.

Purigen , as far as I know , will effect no3 very little , save that it will bond some of the organic particles.

 

[Oldsalt01]

Good idea, Salty. Hadn't thought of that. My RO/DI comes from my trusted LFS but I can certainly have them check it. I've been considering going to distilled anyway. I'm pretty sure this all started with a small frag of Candy Apple zoas from AD. Unfortunaely I lost about 75% of the polyps, for whatever reason. But things started going downhill about a week and a half after the frag addition. Today, all the zoas seem to be opening up again........ I think I had coral war going on from my leather, as I hadn't changed my carbon in about 2 months... my bad, and everything but my green Acans are looking much better. I may get some GFO tomorrow and see if that helps the situation. Reading the blurb on Purigen it states it removes "organics and helps control nitrites, nitrates and phosphates". The last thing I need right now is "control" of my nitrates (0 reading by API, am waiting for my Salifert Nitrate test kit to come in), so I don't want to change too many things until I know what my Nitrate readings really are. Kinda like my old formula car. Change two things at once and you'll never figure out what the fix was, lol. Thanks for your input. I'll update when I have more info.

 

[Oldsalt01]

Wait. Will silicates show up on a TDS test?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Wait. Will silicates show up on a TDS test?

They should yes.
In a very few occasions that I’ve seen from other posts , it didn’t seem to and the gfo cleared the diatoms.

A fwiw , a manufacturers claim in my book is suspect. All of em lol.
I’m kinda going by he science (as I understand it)of how products actually work.
So the resins binding some organics May control nitrate yes but to what scale it actually does it over a product like GAC is hard to say.

 

[brandon429]

all you have to do is take the tank apart, clean the sandbed fully, rinse the rocks in sw creatively outside the tank to dislodge the pent up waste, put back together w a full water change and re acclimate fish

then, do hand siphoning out to guide any regrowths on a few more 50% water changes, I can't see how that would fail to work. post pics, it might not be diatoms but the ID wont matter in the steps above, if its a matted invader that'll do. large tanks don't have the simple and quick cleaning options a nano has, they have to wait mos and mos for water actions to hopefully work

the sandbed is cleaned correctly when you can reach in and grab it and drop it and nothing clouds, it snowglobes. nanareefer has a thread showing 4 yrs of diatoms, the sand rinse thread emerged shortly after that thread on 4 year diatoms. her tank was sixty gallons, not as easy to clean as yours would be. I think we must've rip cleaned like 300 nano reefs by now, innumerable ones online. most tiny pico reefs online runs this way, its why they never have matted invader challenges, we became the grazers required to keep invaders out (by keeping their fuel out, the cloud that would currently emit from any rocks n sand not rip cleaned in the last three years)
whether you have an sps nano or an lps one, or zos, rip cleaning helps it never hurts.

it makes your system ready for more feeding, its negative long term nano reefing not to run them. Its a cheat, and a dandy one to make nanos live forever biologically speaking.

 

[Oldsalt01]

Not the best pics but I cleaned the side day before yesterday and this is regrowth since then. It sure looks like diatoms to me but an algae expert I am not.

 

[brandon429]

sent messg

that tank looks clean for 3 yrs, and that film isn't bad at all, its cuc food. in its aging process, the tank is simply selecting a bit for that organism. sent message w more info

a rip cleaning still doesn't hurt, it allows for deep cleaning, which then allows for better feeding wo nutrient maxes being reached so fast etc

 

[Oldsalt01]

Brandon. Got ur message and I don’t take offense. Any input is appreciated. I’ve had the turf algae almost from the get go. I kinda like it and have yet to find anything that will eat it other than an urchin, and I can’t find one small enough to fit the tank, nor am I inclined to add one if I could as they have a rep for redesigning the tank, lol.

 

[brandon429]

that's awesome for sure. I was diving in the caymans in 1996, east end cayman diving lodge before it was wiped out by Ivan later on and, there's turf algae right in perfect waters. and some cyano, right around the coral bommies of wonderful lps and ventilina fan gorgs galore.

how else could all those parrotfish survive, its literally what divers know to be natural, I say roll on. Its not full coverage, and its pod refuge as well. if you ever did want to cut it back a notch, next time your able just lift out the rock, use a precision steak knife tip and debride it off the crevices in that rock (easier said than done, that's nice live rock w convolutions) and then use peroxide on the cleaned/debrided and scraped off areas.

it w still grow back in time, cuz that's what feeds parrotfish that just keeps it at bay a while ideally. The dinos are not like I thought they'd be, my own tank has that amnt of growth on the glass right now too. If youll rip clean its really good for the system, and that low of diatom/suspected diatom wouldn't be hard to get under control first go I bet


Lights that are too white vs blue intensity can bring about those growths as well

 

[Oldsalt01]

sent messg

that tank looks clean for 3 yrs, and that film isn't bad at all, its cuc food. in its aging process, the tank is simply selecting a bit for that organism. sent message w more info

a rip cleaning still doesn't hurt, it allows for deep cleaning, which then allows for better feeding wo nutrient maxes being reached so fast etc

I think refreshing my cuc may be in order. Right now there’s several hermits, one 3 y/o trochus, a couple of dwarf Ceriths, and two Astrias, and two nassarius. Think I need more snails, but I’m hesitant to add Florida ceriths as the hermits have a habit of murdering them for their shells. Never had much luck with nerites.

 

[Oldsalt01]

I dove the Caymans 10 years ago and it was awesome!!! I figured while I’m at it might as well update my tank shot.

 

[brandon429]

well that looks balanced and just great, really well done and there's telltale signs of that aging too. that little dotted spot of coralline lower left, the coralline coverage and the shroom all set by pedal laceration on the rock. spirorbids on back wall detail.

you shoulda quizzed us before telling age and made us guess off pics

let the record reflect the algae-opposing nature of coralline algae, shown there as well.

im amazed your sandbed cross section is as clean as what it is, they're usually brown n black along the lower lines. do you clean that bed in any way??

 

[Oldsalt01]

Thanks for the positive feedback. I try to give it a pretty good vacuuming every other water change (= 2 weeks). What I can't get to under the cave, I try to stir as well as I can with a long chop stick. My zoas, RPE's, Rics, and Acans have been very grumpy lately but since I finally changed out the carbon they all seem to be bouncing back. I am considering moving some of the GSP onto the back wall, as I've seen some tanks like that and I like it. I do realize it will be a continual battle to keep it from clogging my intakes, so I'm still on the fence. Still battling a small GHA outbreak which started about the same time as the brown dust, which is why I'm thinking of upping the CUC. Alternately, I may go with the Purigen to see if I can drop my Po4 down from 0.09. I'm not inclined to rip clean it right now. I'm afraid of doing more harm than good and I have some funky tube worms, that I just discovered behind the left rock, that I don't want to disturb. I've tried getting pics of them for ID but they're in an impossible position. I'm hoping they'll spread more and become more visible.