Silica / Diatoms

Jorge Frazoa · Aug 30, 2023

Hello, everybody!

I need your help to understand the next step to take.
I have been having silica problems for several months. The ICP on osmosis water showed that I do not have silica in the osmosis. I think silica was present in the mantis biospheres. I say this because after adding another 1kg of mantis biospheres, my last ICP showed that the silica increased.

ICP Test (11-08-2023)
Silica - 1,007mg/lt
Po4- 0.018 (I've been dosing 0.22ppm/day, right now I'm reading 0.08ppm)
No3 - 35ppm

Questions:
1st- I would like you to help me identify, if this is diatoms?

2º- If it is diatoms, and since I have already eliminated the biospheres, how long do you think it takes the diatoms to consume this amount of silica?

3rd- What is the next step?

Thanks

Daniel@R2R · Aug 31, 2023

Hmm...looks like it could be cyano to me. How is flow in the tank? IME these things usually subside if you stay the course and maintain stability. If it is a flow issue, that's easily corrected.

Rick's Reviews · Aug 31, 2023

Jorge Frazoa said:
Hello, everybody!

I need your help to understand the next step to take.
I have been having silica problems for several months. The ICP on osmosis water showed that I do not have silica in the osmosis. I think silica was present in the mantis biospheres. I say this because after adding another 1kg of mantis biospheres, my last ICP showed that the silica increased.

ICP Test (11-08-2023)
Silica - 1,007mg/lt
Po4- 0.018 (I've been dosing 0.22ppm/day, right now I'm reading 0.08ppm)
No3 - 35ppm

Questions:
1st- I would like you to help me identify, if this is diatoms?

2º- If it is diatoms, and since I have already eliminated the biospheres, how long do you think it takes the diatoms to consume this amount of silica?

3rd- What is the next step?

Thanks

If mantis biospheres added to silica then at least you have troubleshooted the problem and found root of cause

In regards to sand bed algae, this is generally a normal issue due to lights.
If you can turn down intensity of white lights this will slow the growth, if not raise the light higher above your aquarium, this stuff turns into turf algae which can easily be removed by a turkey baster "at this stage", just blow it and it will roll up into a clump "hands in and pinch/remove"

Jorge Frazoa · Sep 1, 2023

Thanks for the replies. I think it's not cyano because I've tried Red Cyano from Bule Life and got no results. As I have very high silica I deduced that it was diatoms. My question is, if you have eliminated the source, how long should this amount of silica