New sand bed. Diatoms?

SoCalReefer19 · Mar 29, 2020

Hey, fellow reefers. My tank is 1 year old with a total system volume of about 80 gallons. The first year I ran bare bottom with dry pukani in the display and pukani rubble in my sump. Plenty of filtration. Pods growing like crazy down there. I make my own 0 tds water. I added a 1 inch sand bed using Carib sea aragonite dry sand maybe 3 weeks ago. (Not live sand) I heavily rinsed it before adding to the tank. I also added a bottle of dr tims bacteria just to help with seeding the sand. In the last week I’ve had what appears to be diatoms on the sand and the sand only. The rocks and glass are clean. Sps, lps, and zoas are happier than ever. My question is the build up accumulating on the sand. If I stir or vacuum it’s back in a few hours. Running a pair of kessil a360x 12 hours. I’m just trying to figure out if I should ignore this and let it pass. I’ve never had algae issues. Added the sand and now brown dust. If I don’t stir the sand for 2 days it actually clumps on the sand. My purple tang and Scopas tang will graze on it. Thanks in advance

Copingwithpods · Mar 29, 2020

Very common and normal for newly added sand. The new silicates introduced are allowing the diatoms to take hold. Some people stir them up or vacuum them. When I upgraded tanks and went with new sand, got diatoms. I just let them bloom and consume the silicates as fast as they could, within days they were gone. My live rock has plenty of sponges and I run a uv which I'm sure sped that up.

In any case it's nothing that won't take care of itself within reason.

SoCalReefer19 · Mar 29, 2020

Thanks. I’ll treat it as a mini cycle and ignore it.

Birddog61 · Mar 29, 2020

Any filter feeding corals will enjoy diatoms suspended in the water. Your nitrates may elevate as thay die off however the bloom appears minimal in the pic , stirring up the sand can expose additional silicates and prolong the bloom