DIATOMS OR DINOS?

[Djwhitterz]

Could the lighting schedule be making the diatoms worse?

 

[Djwhitterz]

If you remove your phosguard and stop dosing the phosphate removers, the phosphate should naturally climb up. Nitrates should also naturally climb up as you feed more, unless the algae in the tank is using it all up. And yes, you can keep dosing kalk and do water changes. I think right now you'll see phosphate and nitrates at 0 for a while since the algae is using it up though.

Okay I'll do that and my cheateo is literally less than 40grams is that too much for a 20gallon? If so would taking some out help with bringing the nitrates up?

 

[BloopFish]

Okay I'll do that and my cheateo is literally less than 40grams is that too much for a 20gallon? If so would taking some out help with bringing the nitrates up?

I'd personally say that you should just let things be for a while. 40 grams doesn't sound like it's oversized to me (I've never weighed chaeto before though, going based off the fact 1 gram water = 1 ml of water).

 

[Djwhitterz]

I'd personally say that you should just let things be for a while. 40 grams doesn't sound like it's oversized to me (I've never weighed chaeto before though, going based off the fact 1 gram water = 1 ml of water).

Yeah I'll do exactly that thanks for the advice, I've been trying to sort this out for nearly 6 weeks now so it's not like I'm not used to the brown ruining my tank. I'll just wait and hope it burns out quick-ish. I only know the chaeto is 40g because the lfs I bought it from wrote it on the bag for some reason compared to other alage reactors I've seen on YouTube mine fills up after about 2 litres and the cheato is this size of a fist if that helps paint a better picture...

 

[BloopFish]

Yeah I'll do exactly that thanks for the advice, I've been trying to sort this out for nearly 6 weeks now so it's not like I'm not used to the brown ruining my tank. I'll just wait and hope it burns out quick-ish. I only know the chaeto is 40g because the lfs I bought it from wrote it on the bag for some reason compared to other alage reactors I've seen on YouTube mine fills up after about 2 litres and the cheato is this size of a fist if that helps paint a better picture...

I run a heavily fed 13.5 gallon tank with chaeto about the same size and my nitrates are consistently above 40. I wouldn't worry too much about it.

 

[Djwhitterz]

Ah fair enough so should I aim for like 5ppm nitrate?(I'm using an api master test kit) And will the phosphate also rise/recover on it's own? **Sorry so many questions I havent got grips with yet**

 

[BloopFish]

Ah fair enough so should I aim for like 5ppm nitrate?(I'm using an api master test kit) And will the phosphate also rise/recover on it's own? **Sorry so many questions I havent got grips with yet**

Phosphates will naturally be introduced through food additions and rise if you don't aggressively remove it.
I don't think you should necessarily "aim" for a specific level of nitrates.

 

[Djwhitterz]

Right okay, I just thought nitrates had to be kept under control...Boy have I got this all wrong Haha I'm gonna keep everything simple from now on

 

[Djwhitterz]

Its Diatoms made much worse by using natural sea water, irregular siphoning and allowing the diatoms to die and release even more silicate back into the water.
So my plan is to slowly raise nitrates using seachem flourish so that I dont encorouge dinos or other problems once the diatoms die off and keep my chaeto from dying. Use mixed saltwater instead of natural for a while, check the silicates in the rodi water. Then siphon out what I can from the sand/rock, replace with mixed up saltwater. Then maybe add jbl silicateEx if I dont see any improvement after a few weeks (just to make sure all silicates are being used up) then once the diatoms have worn off I'll concentrate on stabilizing my tank so that the chaeto can compete any other algae that may try grow with the low level nutrients I have achieved.

 

[Djwhitterz]

On another note ULNS is not a good idea for new tanks and despite having a very clean tank although some experienced reefers manage to pull it off, its literally asking for stress. And I'd much rather have a stable tank with a bit of algae than a pristine crystal clear tank with nutrients on a knife edge. Lesson learnt