cycling and diatoms

riche · May 27, 2018

I am about 10 days into the cycle and I used dead rock and dead sand. I did add one small piece of Live rock, and I also threw in a pinch of Pellet Fish food.

Yesterday I noticed That I'm having a good size Diatom Outbreak.

Is that just part of the cycle?

I'm going to test all the parameters Later today.

I'm in no rush to add any thing, just taking my time but curious about the diatom outbreak

User1 · May 27, 2018

Yes, part of the ride. Will happen in various stages.

Take a look at this thread, and a post by @KJ - it should help explain the cycle and the various stages. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/cycling-no-ammonia-no-nitrite-now-what.396532/#post-4767865

riche · May 27, 2018

Thanks I appreciate it :)

larryl · May 27, 2018

Yes it is, it always seems the cycling of a tank takes forever. Just remember to always go slow when adding your bio load.

Bayareareefer18 · May 27, 2018

I got a pretty heavy diatom bloom during my cycle that one day just went away on its own. Just the first stage of the ugly process. I am now about two months in and have hair algae, cyano and diatom [emoji17]

riche · Jul 11, 2018

Bayareareefer18 said:
I got a pretty heavy diatom bloom during my cycle that one day just went away on its own. Just the first stage of the ugly process. I am now about two months in and have hair algae, cyano and diatom [emoji17]

Well here it is 6 weeks later and Im now dealing with green diatoms, hair algae and stress LOL

I only added corals, and the clean up crew.

I know I have to have the lights on, but what else can I do to help with this? I have a fuge and the chetto is growing, actually have hair algae in the fuge.

I have a Jar of phosguard, should I run that in a reactor?

Skimmer is pulling dark brown skim, just did a water change 10 days ago.

I'm wiping the glass everyday and the hair algae is on the back glass and overflow and I am removing it every other day

Getting ready to have a knee replacement in 10 days so Im trying to get this taken care of so my wife and kids can just add top off water and feed the corals once every 5 days or so