Neverending Diatoms

[mpoletiek]

Hi Everyone,

My 165g is a little over a year old and I've been battling what I believe to be diatoms since the beginning. While they tend to ebb and flow and I have experienced a massive bloom and die-off, the dang things always come back and seem to have stabilized now, but even after 0 water changes for months they still won't go away.

I have about 26 fish in the tank of various types, all seem to be getting along and healthy.

My clean up crew consists mostly of Astria and Trochus snails, but there are other crustaceans in there as well.

The coralline algae is growing in at what I think is a decent pace. It began on the powerheads and now every rock has a little on it somewhere. Other spots are growing quite well.

I haven't tested for silicates, but like I said, even after probably 4 months of no water changes, the diatoms just won't go away.

The only other thing I can imagine that might be bringing silica into the tank is changing the filter socks. I've been washing them in the clothes washer with a tiny splash of bleach.

I even tried 4 DI cannisters and mixed up about 160 gallons of fresh saltwater. I did 4, 40g water changes over the course of 4 weeks and 2 weeks later the diatoms are still going.

About 8 months ago my nutrients were super low and I experienced both Dino's and Cyano. After a round of chemi-clean and dosing microbacter clean and microbacter 7 for a few week those went away and I don't think they ever came back... The diatoms did though.

I feed 4 cubes of frozen food every morning and night. Nitrate and phosphate levels are in the pics. When the dinos and cyano were in bloom I had 0 nitrate, but my phosphate was around 0.2ppm.

Any ideas?

 

[mpoletiek]

More pics

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

Do ypu notice any micro crustaceans in the tank?

If so it must be very unlikely to be diatoms.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Why do you think you have diatoms?

The pics look like green hair algae.

 

[mpoletiek]

I was thinking at this point it might be green hair algae, but I'm not very confident in either direction.

I should add over the year I've lost count of the times I've added some copepods. I did a large addition in the beginning and have been seeding it every now and then since. There's one fat mandarin goby in there who has been getting fatter since I dropped him in about 2 months ago so I imagine the copepods are doing well.

I keep assuming diatoms because they seem to recover on any surface a snail clears before it turns into hair.

Do I need a microscope to verify diatoms VS GHA? I need an excuse to get one lol

 

[Rewd]

That is hair algae or possibly Lyngbya which is a type of cyano. Looks absolutely nothing like diatoms. Try a turbo snail.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

diatoms are single celled, they are just little brown dots, thats not diatoms. Pods won't eat that hair algae.

 

[mpoletiek]

If I find out I've been staring at GHA thinking their diatoms then I've learned something today

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

If I find out I've been staring at GHA thinking their diatoms then I've learned something today

If you are talking about the hair, it is gha. I just assumed you were talking about some of the brown dust.

Looks too fine to be lyngbya in my experience.

 

[Tuan’s Reef]

Did you start with all dry rock?

 

[Rewd]

Did you start with all dry rock?

My next question lol

 

[apb03]

Definitely GHA in those pictures and a lot of it. I think you should manually remove as much as you can and add Tangs and a Sea Urchin or two. Try to get a Kole/White tail bristletooth those things will make sure your algae is kept at bay.

 

[mpoletiek]

Yeah, started with dry rock.

I'll look into an urchin or two.

I have a purple tang, bristle tooth, and blue hippo, 2 of which are always picking at the rocks

 

[The 262 Reef]

if you started with dry rock i would try to make sure the tank and rocks are seeded well with bacteria. you can try dr tims one and only, microbacter7 just a few examples. however dont use more then one at a time and stick to the proper regimen stated on the bottle. in the meantime i would proactively start to remove any hair algea on you existing rocks as much as you can and throw in some assortment of snails such as turbo snails, being the first option. and maybe pick up a utilitarian fish such as tangs or blennys, they are awesome caretakers for algae. i would then begin to test your phosphate levels and make sure they arent high which can be a big contributor to the continuous problematic growth as you state. you can keep your phosphate low by not over feeding the tank, frozen foods and rinsed before entry will mitigate the amount of phosphates introduced through food. i also see no coral? maybe im wrong but if you dont have coral you can cut back on the light intensity by half if this is just a fish only tank or if you only have soft corals on the bottom. they typically dont mind and prefer lower lighting as well, i say this because too much light can seriously make your algea grow fast specially if you have alot of red in your spectrum. with high nutrient levels such as nitrate and phosphate, lots of light, lower flow and inadequate filtration methods you are more prone to growing algea fast, very fast. i do believe this is green hair algea. you can purchase a small reactor and some G.F.O. to put in it at a reasonable price. however.. if phosphates are high do not attempt to put alot of gfo in your system as a dramatic drop in phosphate is just as bad as an increase, however im not sure how this works if you only have fish as i dont believe that rapid phosphate drop will matter if you dont have coral, but im not 100% certain. if you phosphate levels and nitrate levels are high you can also start with a water change after the removal as much as you can by hand. these are all great things to help bring your tank to a happy place and a peace of mind. I hope this helps! good luck to you ! =]

 

[Rewd]

Rather than buying all of that bottled nonsense, try to get yourself some true ocean cultured live rock (Kp aquatics is my fave). Your tank is lacking in biodiversity making it easy for the bad crap to out compete the good.

 

[mpoletiek]

Rather than buying all of that bottled nonsense, try to get yourself some true ocean cultured live rock (Kp aquatics is my fave). Your tank is lacking in biodiversity making it easy for the bad crap to out compete the good.

I was thinking about this. I actually dropped in some Carib sea "live" "dry" rock, but I don't think that helped much. I'm already a bottle of microbacter 7 into it so I wasn't planning on adding more. Honestly I just let it ride for months before I decided to reach out because I knew I was missing something. Confusing GHA for diatoms was obviously blocking me from progress lol.

I think I'm going to try to cut back on feeding a bit. I know I'm over doing it a little, so we'll see where we're at next month.

 

[jda]

I agree. Green hair. There might be some diatoms too, but the GHA dominates to me.

Get 8-10 rock or pencil urchins from the Keys. They stay on the rocks more than the glass. When they come, siphon that algae out of there and let the urchins get to work. You can siphon the algae through a sock or net and put the water back in the tank. It is pretty easy to siphon when it gets that large.

It might not look like the urchins are doing much at first, but then you will start to see.

Although I do know of one dude who can have urchins thrive with nitrate really high, I would try and keep the no3 under 20 for these to function the best.

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

I was thinking about this. I actually dropped in some Carib sea "live" "dry" rock, but I don't think that helped much. I'm already a bottle of microbacter 7 into it so I wasn't planning on adding more. Honestly I just let it ride for months before I decided to reach out because I knew I was missing something. Confusing GHA for diatoms was obviously blocking me from progress lol.

I think I'm going to try to cut back on feeding a bit. I know I'm over doing it a little, so we'll see where we're at next month.

The dry stuff, even love dry won't have anything on it.

I had resolved a lot of my bad nuisance algaes by adding 8lb chunk of live rock an LFS got that was loaded with crud and critters.

It helped increase the competition in my system to reduce the odds of a single algae going berserk. Though I think the point you are at will either require you having your traces deplete for it to die back, OR manual removal. I recomend manual removal, just do a section at a time.

 

[Rewd]

I was thinking about this. I actually dropped in some Carib sea "live" "dry" rock, but I don't think that helped much. I'm already a bottle of microbacter 7 into it so I wasn't planning on adding more. Honestly I just let it ride for months before I decided to reach out because I knew I was missing something. Confusing GHA for diatoms was obviously blocking me from progress lol.

I think I'm going to try to cut back on feeding a bit. I know I'm over doing it a little, so we'll see where we're at next month.

If you're talking about caribsea "life" rock, I hate that stuff with a passion lol. I started my 90 gallon with that and 3 years in to that build, I STILL have problems. I experienced every pest algae and annoyance imaginable. It didn't turn around in any meaningful way until I added some real ocean rock. Since then I've also started a 50 gallon and a 120 gallon with exclusively REAL live rock and 0 ugly stages. The difference between the two methods is unreal, for me at least. YMMV

 

[brandon429]

I have a working theory regarding reef tank invasions, culled from online post patterns since 2002

my opinion is that reef tank invasions are psychological to the near exclusion of anything biological or chemical. That’s why they’re ongoing, they’re a choice we keep opting into


example

ive seen ten thousand reefs that look like this:

we have a way to turn that above, into this, within ten hours

(Notce a lighting hue change? We factored growback prevention in the second go + other hidden changes)

that pic isn’t my tank, it’s a tank sent to me to fix via chat. The results are in other people’s tanks, not my own, stated because this option to go from wrecked to clean over night works well for others, in pattern. It is a choice to make a tank look like pic#2

biology or chemistry words discussion didnt get us that second pic, action did. Overnight action

resolve

non procrastination

a willing party, a choice, an attitude by the owner to enact something we already know will cause that clean condition in any reef tank (a rip clean)

reasons I’ve seen people decline that direct fix, and opt to remain invaded in some cases for years (you can track choice outcomes by subbing to someone’s invasion thread and see where they wind up eight months later)

-my rocks are glued in place, can’t unglue them (a choice)

-I’m worried it will just grow back (choice)


-I’m worried about upsetting the tank (choice/fear, does pic #2 look upset?)

-too much work (choice)

-I’m waiting on an ID of the invasion (as if that alters earning pic #2)


there are ten more excuses

I have about seventy before/after pics collected solely by willing parties in 2023 chats, that’s only two above.



reefers have been trained to confuse prevention and removal options I’m 100% sure.

if action/item/doser X didn’t prevent an invasion, they’ll leave it in place forever until a magic preventative is found. Even if it means owning a tank that looks like picture #1 for years.


the other side of the option set is that all aquarists, I mean all of them, have the fundamental ability to own a pic #2 reef if they simply own the right size reef tank and are willing to maintain that condition.

if reefing conditions slant towards eutrophication you’ll be cleaning a lot, but there’s no excuse to not own a tank #2


The reason my HOA doesn’t fine me for having a pic #1 lawn is because I work to keep it looking pic #2, I cause that condition without excuse.

to have the ability to make any pic#1 reef look like reef#2 overnight and not choose it is to literally choose to be invaded


chemistry, biology, ability to shape reefing variables favorably affects your rate of tank cleaning (lowers it, hopefully to the ideal self-balancing tune)


chemistry, biology and ability to shape reefing variables ideally has absolutely nothing to do with owning a wrecked tank. You clean them until you don’t have to. If I just let my lawn sit there all jacked, the fines are coming and then eventually the bulldozers.

if there’s ever an hoa for reef tank compliance i want on the board heh

Naturalreef cleaned up his lawn:

next day:

From the clean condition

From the clean condition


ponder ways to reduce growback and apply them

do not ponder ways to get from pic 1 to pic 2 overnight, it’s not a state secret. It’s an option we had ten years ago still available today

the challenge, the essence of reefing, is growback balancing

cleaning out a wrecked tank is a choice to own a pic#2 reef, not cleaning it out is wanting a pic#1 reef.

is behavioral passivity and excuses not the sole cause of reef tank invasions? even if someone is using poor source water / which we verify in growback prevention/ there’s still no reason to own a wrecked tank. They should be cleaning it every Tuesday if that’s what it takes.

dont own a wrecked reef is the first step in tank rehab.

robbing a system of its waste stores goes a long way in tank remediation

that blanketing coverage is preventing live rock from expressing whole waste pellets, all surface area is plugged up vs exposed.


that ripped clean tank is open, and breathing, and it looks that way

reefers who start with dry rock setups are choosing more cleaning work required even if they didn’t originally know that.