Stringy brown diatoms. How to remove silicates without removing po4

chevegan · Jul 25, 2017

I don't know where the silicates are coming from. I used reef saver mined rock and, the stupid part, used sand. Now I know that's a noob mistake (embarrassing for being in this hobby for 13 years) but I was kinda thinking used sand would jump start decay and beneficial bacteria which I think it did.

That being said I also thought using used old sand would be silicate free (since all of it would have dispersed previously). I don't want to get rid of po4 since I'm having a hard enough time keeping it at .01ppm. Going to have to dose soon. But these stringy diatoms persist.

My di resin is only 4 months old and I use 5 gallons a week for top off and 10 a month for WC's in a 30l tank. It started about 2 weeks ago.

In an effort to raise nitrates and phosphates I use skimmer only a couple days a week. I also have an upflow scrubber which grows algae very slowly. Any other tank I would toss in some phosguard and call it a day. I just don't want to risk phosphates getting any lower. My sps is JUST starting to sprout now with nitrates reaching ALMOST 1ppm.

Any help would be much appreciated

Also I did start dosing acropower amino's right around the same time (to increase nitrates) as this started but I can't remember off hand if it was right before or what. hmmm

saltyfilmfolks · Jul 25, 2017

I assume you have tested for silicates and have confirmed that in fact they are diatoms

chevegan · Jul 25, 2017

No and yes

Velcro · Jul 25, 2017

Do you have a picture?

saltyfilmfolks · Jul 25, 2017

chevegan said:
No and yes

I would get the test.
It's $16 or so.
Test the tank water and the rodi.

chevegan · Jul 25, 2017

But I remember reading something a loooong time ago courtesy of Randy, saying they're structure consists of po4 and silica. So just using deductive reasoning.

I'll take pics when I get home

saltyfilmfolks · Jul 25, 2017

chevegan said:
But I remember reading something a loooong time ago courtesy of Randy, saying they're structure consists of po4 and silica. So just using deductive reasoning.

I'll take pics when I get home

My personal concern would be spending money on trying to remove what's not there.

chevegan · Jul 25, 2017

Does the test check for the correct silicates? Again we read so much online sometimes hard to get the correct answer

saltyfilmfolks · Jul 25, 2017

chevegan said:
Does the test check for the correct silicates? Again we read so much online sometimes hard to get the correct answer

Lol. I hear you.
I belive salifert is what I would look at. And perhaps reread Randy's article.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 25, 2017

Is the RO/DI still producing 0 ppm TDS water?

Velcro · Jul 25, 2017

I just noticed you said you got these after dosing aminos. We really need to be sure you aren't actually fighting dinoflagellates, since they are brown strings (which are often fueled by amino dosing).

chevegan · Jul 25, 2017

Check and double check. Will post when I get home

chevegan · Jul 25, 2017

TDS from tap 50, tds post DI 4. This is after a 3 day black out (green birdsnest browned in the process) which got rid of 99% of them until the lights came back on then almost instantly the chains started to form. Gotta ignore the bubbles, they're never there. I had the stupid ghost skimmer on which LOVES to eject microbubbles. I don't mind it since it's my form of using the bubbling method lol. Let me know what you think.

31 second mark you see little bits of the algae(?)/diatoms where the mag didn't get it. Also I used chemiclean in case it was cyano (have had great success in the past with cyano) and no go.

chevegan · Jul 25, 2017

you can see the dead strings attached to the powerhead from the 3 days lights out. Again this all bloomed in the last 2 days of light. Today being the second day. Tank was near spotless after 3 day lights out

chevegan · Jul 25, 2017

Ok I have been stacking squares of 100 micron filter in one bay of the overflow in this nuvo 30 and where the light bleeds over a dozen strings had formed in the last 4 hours. I've been replacing them every few hours. Went through 3 today. First 2 with lights off turned brown in a few hours each with no strings till the lights came on. Diatoms or algae?

Velcro · Jul 25, 2017

Those are dinos my friend. They look just like the ones I had. Do they somewhat dissipate at night?

chevegan · Jul 25, 2017

You know what I'm not sure. Again they never ever have bubbles on them. That's why I wasn't thinking dino's. I've been trying the bubbling method for awhile now and haven't had to use carbon to clarify water since. I had stopped using it for a couple weeks and just started again yesterday. But now that you mention it I'm thinking it must be.

I haven't done the jar shake test yet. If I get a good sized patch of it I'll do it.

rc1626 · Jul 25, 2017

Tagging along. Certainly not looking to hijack by any means but I have something very similar if not the same. It looked worse but I turned the sand over a couple of days ago while running a diatom filter. In the 3rd pic it's the brown spots on the rock. No hairs coming out of this. Not sure if it's the same algae as the hair stuff from the 1st two pics. looks a lot like yours though. In the middle of a Chemiclean addition also in case it was bacteria. Not sure if it's had any affect.

rc1626 · Jul 25, 2017

Mine has not grown on any corals (the few I have at the moment) nor does it seem to grow on rocks that are covered in coralline......at least not yet. I'm waiting on a new RO membrane to see if that helps. TDS is still showing zero but DI seems to be exhausting faster and my membrane is about 2 years old. I'm also going to try running a UV sterilizer to catch any free floating spores and see if that helps.

Velcro · Jul 25, 2017

rc1626 said:
Mine has not grown on any corals (the few I have at the moment) nor does it seem to grow on rocks that are covered in coralline......at least not yet. I'm waiting on a new RO membrane to see if that helps. TDS is still showing zero but DI seems to be exhausting faster and my membrane is about 2 years old. I'm also going to try running a UV sterilizer to catch any free floating spores and see if that helps.

Many will tell you that UV will have no effect. I can tell you they are wrong if you have a strain that goes into the water column at night. Mine was 95% gone the morning after UV and 100% gone within 72 hours. I've also done a 20% water change and dosed aminos to challenge the dinos as these two things seem to bring them back, but there wasn't even a hint of them coming back.

Here's my thread: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/i...gellates-overnight.316126/page-3#post-3906415