The case for diatoms

[pseudorand]

I've got diatoms. Not overwhelming, but they do take over one rock or another between biweekly water changes.

The thing is, I kind of like them. They come in deep maroon, bright green, dark forest green and are at least as pretty as any coraline algae I've seen.

And better yet, they're easy as pie to suck off the rocks and substrate during my water changes. Hair algae has to be scraped with a toothbrush, bubbles algae has to be carefully removed so as not to break it. Diatoms -- just suck 'em up and wait to see where next week's beautiful bloom will occur. I have to attend my water change anyway, so it's minimum extra effort to clean the rocks.

I ask, because I'm installing a protein skimmer which I expect to deprived the diatoms of food. But in the reef, when one thing dies something else takes its place. What will that be? Will it be as easy to deal with and pretty as my diatom "problem"?

 

[xxkenny90xx]

I ask, because I'm installing a protein skimmer which I expect to deprived the diatoms of food. But in the reef, when one thing dies something else takes its place. What will that be? Will it be as easy to deal with and pretty as my diatom "problem"?

I dont think pest algaes are just a part of life. As your tank matures things will stabilize and you shouldn't have to constantly battle these things. That being said I don't think any other algae will be as easy to deal with as your "battle" with diatoms. Cyano is also pretty easy to remove but it really covers things thick and fast

 

[ReefLab]

Diatoms aren’t a problem at all IMO. They are self limiting cause once silicates are gone, diatoms die off.
IIRC diatoms are actually a source of food for corals but I could be wrong

 

[taricha]

IIRC diatoms are actually a source of food for corals but I could be wrong

Indirectly.
Diatoms->copepods->coral

 

[pseudorand]

Indirectly.
Diatoms->copepods->coral

Can I speculate about my copepod population based on having diatoms? Have my amphipods eaten all my copepods?

 

[taricha]

Can I speculate about my copepod population based on having diatoms?

They come in deep maroon, bright green, dark forest green and are at least as pretty as any coraline algae I've seen.

actually this part tells me it's not diatoms, or at least not just diatoms. diatoms are invariably a tan golden brown.

near pure culture of diatoms from my glass. If you concentrate them enough they can look like tea.

Your color description sounds like you have cyano in there.

 

[pseudorand]

actually this part tells me it's not diatoms, or at least not just diatoms. diatoms are invariably a tan golden brown.

near pure culture of diatoms from my glass. If you concentrate them enough they can look like tea.

Your color description sounds like you have cyano in there.

Okay. Same questions/argument, but with cyanobacteria.

 

[taricha]

cyano is also usually not so bad, for the reasons mentioned in the first post.
Lots of amazing tanks have cyano - they just don't care / notice because they so much wonderful coral growth.
(but cyano is not going to feed copepods and encourage coral growth like diatoms may.)

 

[pseudorand]

Hum. So If the skimmer I just installed starves my cyano, perhaps diatoms will take its place. Which will feed my copepods. Which will feed both my corals and the Mandarin I aspire to get. I love it when a plans comes together! (Unfortunatly that's just wild speculation rather than a plan, but...)

 

[pseudorand]

Dispite my original post, I do want to control this stuff. What eats it?

I have a big red leg hermits that appears to be doing so right now. SwellUK says almost nothing eats it, but Algae barn says torchus and certh snails and court jester gobies do. This post agrees about the snails and adds tiger sand conchs and red leg hermits.


And there's the whole redfield ratio thing, which the SwellUK article mentions. Any thoughts other than redfield, nutrient control and the listed "predators"?

 

[pseudorand]

And there's the whole redfield ratio thing,

I just read what appears to be the canonical r2r post on redfield. TL;DT you need somewhere between 10 to 20 times as much nitrate as phosphate. More == green algaes, less == cyanobacteria. (It's more complicated than that like all things reef, but...). I consistently test at about 1ppm nitrate (barley detectable using Nyos kit) and my phosphate has been falling from .5+ to around .1 a few days ago thanks to Phosguard. So that's consistent with theory. I guess if my new skimmer doesn't pull phosphate down more I'll have to figure out how to dose nitrate.

I also have a QT tank with 1ppm nitrate and off the chart phosphate (1.0+, maybe due to reef roids for my frags. I'm now doing small daily water changes). It has hair algae issues when redfield predicts it should get cyanobacteria. I guess it is more complicated than that.