Diatoms

[Jlahr16]

I believe what my tank is currently undergoing is diatoms, it does not have any stringy / bubbly type of growth like dino usually has in pictures I have seen. It comes on strong during the day and is almost non-existent when the lights are out, much like dino's behaviors. Has anyone seen a strain of dinos that does not grow any string like formations? I do not have a microscope available to look at the cells of the algae

the tank has been running since late December but only recently (maybe a month ago) has had 3 chromis and a fire shrimp added after qt. also has some nassarius snails for CUC atm as other cuc inverts are in coral qt/frag tank waiting to be added.

Params:
Salinity ~35.5ppm
pH: 7.96-8.09 throughout the day
Nitrate: 10-15ppm
Phosphate: 0 - .02ppm
Nitrite: 0
Ammonia: 0
use RODI for salt mix
I do run carbon ROX .8 as well as GFO

can look at others such as alk/mag/ca/potassium if need be

here are some current pictures of the tank during the later part of the days lighting period

any tips or thoughts on what this is would be greatly appreciated

 

[Jason mack]

Is your tank fairly new ??

 

[Jlahr16]

It is about 6 months old

 

[Jason mack]

what sort of flow do you have in the tank ?

 

[Jason mack]

It could just be you tank adjusting too the new bioload since adding your new fish

 

[Jlahr16]

This is going to sound crazy. But I have 2 mp40's running about 35% and a eheim 1262 return pump in a 40 gallon tank

 

[Jason mack]

I have the same diatoms in my tank

 

[Jlahr16]

Is it normal for diatoms to recede almost completely when the lights go out and come back in full force about an hour into the next days light schedule? I have been trying to read up on dino and diatoms but it seems a lot of people mistake diatoms for Dino in the beginning so it's hard to decipher in the posts on this site

 

[ReeferMaddness843]

I'm having the same brown funk due to new sand in a tank transfer. My diatoms fade at night and build during the day. I agree diatoms. Bad pic, but you get the idea.

 

[Jlahr16]

I appreciate your responses, I will be happy to find out that this is truly only diatoms. Guess only way to be sure is to invest in a microscope

 

[USMC 4 LIFE]

I had a similar issue three months ago. I had this brown stuff (never found out what it really was) growing all over my sand bed. It would appear quickly when my light came on and go away when my lights went off. It was only on my sand as well.

So here's what I did. I added Phosguard in a mesh bag and put it in my sump. I put the bag in front of a pump that's sole purpose was to add flow in my skimmer chamber which kept detritus suspended until it reached my refugium.

I chose to ad Phosguard because I couldnt diagnose what this brown stuff was and how to starve it off. Phosguard removes phosphates (killing it if it was a common algae) and silicates (what diatoms feed on). After a month of this, my sand bed was completely white.

I'm not saying this is going to fix your issue, but it's what fixed mine after weeks of experiments and failures.