Help diatoms!!!

[marc hill]

hello everyone, I'm new to the saltwater hobby and I'm having a nightmare with diatoms.

I have a fluval evo 13.5 this is my saltwater first tank, the tanks been set up since late December but I'm still having diatom issues. I get ready mixed salt water from my lfs, I have carib live Fiji pink live sand with live rock, I have a couple of fish, 2 turbo snails, 2 red hermits. I've added a strawberry conch at the weekend and he does a great job on the sandbed at night but during the day the diatoms come back again.

I came home from work tonight and the brown is all over my live rock and glass now. I've been using gfo and yesterday I added a silicate remover.

I love my tank but this is getting me down, should I still be having diatoms this late on??

 

[jsker]

Welcome to R2R Marc

 

[savetheocean]

hello everyone, I'm new to the saltwater hobby and I'm having a nightmare with diatoms.

I have a fluval evo 13.5 this is my saltwater first tank, the tanks been set up since late December but I'm still having diatom issues. I get ready mixed salt water from my lfs, I have carib live Fiji pink live sand with live rock, I have a couple of fish, 2 turbo snails, 2 red hermits. I've added a strawberry conch at the weekend and he does a great job on the sandbed at night but during the day the diatoms come back again.

I came home from work tonight and the brown is all over my live rock and glass now. I've been using gfo and yesterday I added a silicate remover.

I love my tank but this is getting me down, should I still be having diatoms this late on??

I had terrible diatoms as well, but one day they just never came back.. Just keep up with your water changes, test your water and it will go away.

The one concern I have is your water source, is it RO/DI water?

 

[mitch91175]

hello everyone, I'm new to the saltwater hobby and I'm having a nightmare with diatoms.

I have a fluval evo 13.5 this is my saltwater first tank, the tanks been set up since late December but I'm still having diatom issues. I get ready mixed salt water from my lfs, I have carib live Fiji pink live sand with live rock, I have a couple of fish, 2 turbo snails, 2 red hermits. I've added a strawberry conch at the weekend and he does a great job on the sandbed at night but during the day the diatoms come back again.

I came home from work tonight and the brown is all over my live rock and glass now. I've been using gfo and yesterday I added a silicate remover.

I love my tank but this is getting me down, should I still be having diatoms this late on??

I'd say test your water from your LFS for phosphates, nitrates, etc. You may be best just getting your own RO/DI unit. You won't need to make much water so your filters will last you quite a long time. A lot of LFS are notorious for selling bad RO/DI water. I know someone that runs an LFS and he doesn't even know when to replace his filters yet

I say to myself, "I'd never buy his water if it was the last water on planet earth "

 

[marc hill]

I had terrible diatoms as well, but one day they just never came back.. Just keep up with your water changes, test your water and it will go away.

The one concern I have is your water source, is it RO/DI water?

Yeah it's RO/DI mixed with salt from my lfs