More Diatom Help

[Thor2j]

So my tank is 4 months old. Everything doing really well except my diatoms on sand. Never had hair algae , and have been getting coral line for about a month. After I vacuum surface of sand it looks great but it literally starts coming back within an hour or 2. It's better after a night of lights out then as the day goes on blooms. Everybody said it will go away but it's been here for 3 months. Running GFO, 0 phosphates most of the time. Good flow, 2 gyre 150s on 60" , red sea 525xl. I have about 10 nasarius snails and a tiger tail (useless, won't venture more then 6 inches from home under rock). Trochus Snails, hermits, and some Mexican turbo snails.

1.025SG
77-78
0 amonia
0 Nitrites
2-3 Nitrates
425 Calcium
8.8 DkH

Everything else is perfect but this drives me crazy.

 

[alyee5]

Is some that stringy? hard to tell....you wouldn't happen to have access to a microscope for a positive ID would you? If they are diatoms, folks usually recommend either 1) wait it out- sounds like you have a good husbandry routine going or 2) maybe check your RO/DI water quality TDS at zero?

 

[nex64]

Just takes time and due diligence. Just be patient and you'll get passed em.

 

[truffle22]

I'm having the same issue in my tank. So it will go away after awhile? Why would it go away?? And is it harmful or just visually not appealing. It doesn't seem like any corals r effected by it.

 

[Thor2j]

Is some that stringy? hard to tell....you wouldn't happen to have access to a microscope for a positive ID would you? If they are diatoms, folks usually recommend either 1) wait it out- sounds like you have a good husbandry routine going or 2) maybe check your RO/DI water quality TDS at zero?

None of it is stringy. Now I went out of town for a week and had a guy take care of the tank. He left it alone and when I got back a small section did turn stringy.

Ro/Di water is 0 TDS.

 

[Thor2j]

Thought about getting 3 large conch fighters to help with sand.

 

[CoralNerd]

Does it have bubbles or just the brown dust?

 

[Thor2j]

Does it have bubbles or just the brown dust?

Brown dust, never had bubbles

 

[CoralNerd]

That's good. Suck it out what you can, then add Dr. Tim's One and Only and Vodka. Take the cap off your skimmer. [emoji106]

 

[nex64]

Variety of reasons it could be occurring. One most common cause is the presence of silicates. In your sandbed or perhaps in something that is being added to your tank. Something to look into. Another option is getting like a goby or some invert to turn your sand over more often to prevent other algaes and stuff from settling as well.

 

[Brandon42]

Does it have bubbles or just the brown dust?

what would bubbles imply?

 

[CoralNerd]

Dinoflagellates if there is bubbles.

Be sure to use RODI 0 water you don't want silicates as nex64 mentioned.

You either have silicates or PO4

 

[Thor2j]

Dinoflagellates if there is bubbles.

Be sure to use RODI 0 water you don't want silicates as nex64 mentioned.

You either have silicates or PO4

Check po4 regularly, mostly zero with hanna ulr. I realize that u can still have phosphates even if it reads zero. Bought silicate test but regent was contaminated.

 

[CoralNerd]

Use the bacteria treatment I mentioned. Beneficial bacteria is good stuff to have in your tank.

 

[nex64]

+1

Always used dr tims and always will.

 

[cromag27 Verified Sponsor]

Diatoms are caused by silicates in the water and they'll go away once the silicates are consumed. If you mess with the sand bed, they'll just come back. two reason could be if you added anything new to the tank (sand, rock, equipment, etc) especially plastic. second would be using anything but 0 tds water.

 

[Thor2j]

Diatoms are caused by silicates in the water and they'll go away once the silicates are consumed. If you mess with the sand bed, they'll just come back. two reason could be if you added anything new to the tank (sand, rock, equipment, etc) especially plastic. second would be using anything but 0 tds water.

As stated earlier, everything is new. 4 months old. And 0 TDS RO water. Half the people say remove it as I do, then a few say leave it.

 

[nex64]

Nothing looks better than a banging white white sandbed. However it does take work to maintain .


If you don't want to deal with the obstacles , go bare bottom

 

[cromag27 Verified Sponsor]

You can remove it, but it will continue to come back until the silicates are depleted. so it's up to you.

As stated earlier, everything is new. 4 months old. And 0 TDS RO water. Half the people say remove it as I do, then a few say leave it.

 

[Thor2j]

You can remove it, but it will continue to come back until the silicates are depleted. so it's up to you.

So in a new tank what's the time frame? Most people said weeks, it's over 3 months. Guess I'll get another silicate test kit. Never had hair algae, algae on tank glass isn't bad, run magnet 2-3 days.