Diatom bloom? Brown stuff on rocks...

i_declare_bankruptcy

out of control
View Badges
Joined
Mar 14, 2018
Messages
744
Reaction score
1,196
Location
SoCal
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I want to make sure I know what is growing on my rocks! It's kinda hard to query for algae; googling "brown stuff growing on rocks" doesn't exactly yield specific results haha. Anyways I'm pretty certain these are diatoms and a normal issue for my ~2 month old tank to be facing but I just want to double check and see what everyone thinks. My Nitrates are around 1-2ppm and my Phosphates about 0.01. TDS of my RODI water is typically 0 but last couple top off fills were TDS 2 and 4, respectively. I don't think I've noticed an increase due to TDS increase but I'm replacing the unit regardless (they had bad tech support, buying a BRS unit now).

If you have any tips for dealing with it let me know -- should I just let it do its thing? It's spreading slowly but I'm noticing more and more each day. Haven't noticed anything on the sand but my CUC is pretty exceptional!

20181020_101429 by Andrew English, on Flickr

20181020_101440 by Andrew English, on Flickr
 

PDR

<°)))>{
View Badges
Joined
Jul 13, 2015
Messages
3,354
Reaction score
16,954
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I'm not great with algae ID, but I don't think those are diatoms. I have something similar that has been growing on my back glass for quite some time. Have you tried blowing it off the rock?
 

Looking for the spotlight: Do your fish notice the lighting in your reef tank?

  • My fish seem to regularly respond to the lighting in my reef tank.

    Votes: 104 75.9%
  • My fish seem to occasionally respond to the lighting in my tank.

    Votes: 15 10.9%
  • My fish seem to rarely respond to the lighting in my tank.

    Votes: 8 5.8%
  • My fish seem to never respond to the lighting in my tank.

    Votes: 3 2.2%
  • I don’t pay enough attention to my fish to notice if they respond to the lighting.

    Votes: 3 2.2%
  • I don’t have any fish in my tank.

    Votes: 2 1.5%
  • Other.

    Votes: 2 1.5%
Back
Top