Diatom filter for treating external parasites?

Brew12

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I see, I was thinking if it removes only 60 percent of the irritants each time, if you were to run it enough times at the end it should eradicate all eventually.

How long can I run it? is it ok to run it 30 -60 days continuously?
It will never get them all since they are continuously reproducing. You can run a diatom filter continuously if you can keep up with the maintenance. The tend to clog up quickly when used on a reef tank.
 

Paul B

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They also get hot as they are not built very well. But yes, it will clog.
 

Turboreefer

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Paul which filter Are you refering to ? I installed marineland magnum internal filter
 

ROD SCOTT

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I HAVE RUN A VORTEX FOR UP TO 90 DAYS TO FILTER THE WATER. IN THE PAST 30 YEARS I HAVE REMOVED SEVERAL CASES OF ICH VELVET FROM MY DT. I NOW HAVE A MARINELAND MAG. NOT AS EFFECTIVE AS VORTEX. VORTEX CAN CLEAN SAND. REMEMBER THE EGGS ARE IN THE SAND, DO IT FIRST
 

Paul B

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Oh, My Bad :eek:
 

zed102

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I finally added one of these to my QT tank and it has been one of the best additions I have added. My hang on keeps ammonia down, but can’t touch this thing in terms of keeping the tank clean. The polishing filter keeps the water crystal clear and the bottom free of any detritus. It also has inhibited algae growth. In regard to parasites, I am currently qt’ing a group of anthias to see if it fixes my issues with Uronema. 10 days in and so far everything looks good.

When I first added this to the tank I started with the recommended amount of diatomaceous earth, but it clogged after a day of running. After cleaning the filter I only added 2 tsp to the filter and it ran all week without issue and without any noticeable reduction in performance.
 

Paul B

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2 tsp is not enough powder. It is supposed to clog, that's because it is removing things. With such a small amount of powder, you are using the bag for a filter and that won't filter parasites.
 

zed102

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I should of clarified that I am using the marineland filter. It still has a very fine filter that does not require the use of of DE to work.
 

reefwiser

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I use the Marineland with 6 tsp of DE as they suggest. I would not consider the paper filter of any use except for the DE coating it. Especially for a QT tank.
 

Brew12

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I should of clarified that I am using the marineland filter. It still has a very fine filter that does not require the use of of DE to work.
I believe it is a 50 micron filter that comes with it. That would not be small enough to help with most parasites.

I use the Marineland with 6 tsp of DE as they suggest. I would not consider the paper filter of any use except for the DE coating it. Especially for a QT tank.
I'm pretty sure the directions call for 6 tbsp, not 6 tsp.
 

DanielJameS

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I wanted to jump in on this because based on this thread I decided to experiment with a few parasite “management” tactics including this and UV. I bought the marineland filter and can say as a piece of kit, it’s invaluable to have around for many tasks so no regret on the purchase.

I chose to grab an extra pleated cartridge via petsmart online (they were cheap) so that I could alternate/clean the cartridge every 24-48 hours.

My first experiment was to run this straight for 15 days as an initial experiment. I found the cartridges clog up QUICK with the DE powder and by about the 24 hour mark the filter starts kicking out air bubbles/particulates, not a lot but enough to be concerning. It became very very tedious swapping the cartridges and recharging almost daily. My findings were.

A.) Definitely clears the crap out of the tank in a hurry.
B.) Any reduction in signs of parasitic infestation escalating? Meh [emoji58]

I then decided to DIY beast of a UV using a Phillips HO 60w compact bulb with its own ballast and run it in my sump off the return at an optimal flow (around 110-150gph.) with the higher wattage bulb I was certain with an extra 40-50 gph what’s going to get nuked will get nuked. It’s been running 24/7 for around 16 days. As expected water is clearer, glass stays cleaner and any smell the tank produced is gone. Parasite reduction? I can concur no. The symptoms have continued to get progressively worse.

Now that being said, I can’t be sure which stage of severity I started all this in, it may be just too bad to battle with these two means at this point. Had they been running from the beginning, they might be a fantastic preventative and not allow things to get way out of control by keeping numbers down or at least low enough for fish to tolerate.

I’m currently doing experiment number 3, both at the same time while watching for declining health in corals to be sure I’m not stripping too much “good.”

I’m wondering for you folks who have claimed to have success using DE filtering, how long did you run it for? It’s quite a bit of maintenance but I’d like to know because right now I’m trying to buy myself time until I can get a properly sized QT setup for the amount of fish I have.

Dan
 

zed102

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Tough crowd in here. :)


As further clarification, I am not using the filter to remove parasites. I am only using it to keep the tank clean to prevent Uronema from overwhelming the fish with a degraded immune system during copper treatment. Uronema is not something I am concerned with in my DT. The hardest part for me has been getting a “Uronema susceptible” fish through QT to make it to the DT. I am currently treating the QT tank with copper to kill all of the other parasites.

For this purpose this filter has been performing exceptionally. I assume any good canister filter could do the job as well assuming it contains a fine filter. The sponges in my HOB filter have been useless for anything but taking care of the ammonia. BTW, I travel often and perform 0 water changes during my QT. Therefore water filtration has been very important.
 

DanielJameS

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This is totally unrelated but I now understand why @Humblefish got so fed up with “management” I’m so annoyed with seeing one fish scratch, then another, then turn pale, lose one here or there, have weeks and months go by fine then see it again except 10x worse, I’m about to rip this whole tank apart...AGAIN and this time I’m going to give it one more go-around, an overly OCD one, and if one more of these evil little anxiety inducers makes it into my tank, me and reefing are taking a break for a while...hell I might even quarantine the quarantine tank [emoji35]

Rant over...
 
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Humblefish

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This is totally unrelated but I now understand why @Humblefish got so fed up with “management” I’m so annoyed with seeing one fish scratch, then another, then turn pale, lose one here or there, have weeks and months go by fine then see it again except 10x worse, I’m about to rip this whole tank apart...AGAIN and this time I’m going to give it one more go-around, an overly OCD one, and if one more of these evil little anxiety inducers makes it into my tank, me and reefing are taking a break for a while...hell I might even quarantine the quarantine tank [emoji35]

Rant over...

I feel your frustration. At first I just tried to ignore the scratching, white spots, etc. Then I tried garlic, a UV, proper nutrition, whatever junk the LFS was pushing as a "reef safe cure". The tank was supposed to be relaxing, but the never-ending disease problems were just stressing me out. Why am I even doing this?

I think the turning point for me was when I realized I didn't even understand what I was fighting. The little details about ich, velvet, flukes, etc. Could these diseases even be beat? So, I got on Google Scholar and starting reading, reading, reading. I would read all night until I had to go to work the next morning. But then I finally understood my enemy, the science I never knew, and decided it was time to whoop it's butt. ;)
 

DanielJameS

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I feel your frustration. At first I just tried to ignore the scratching, white spots, etc. Then I tried garlic, a UV, proper nutrition, whatever junk the LFS was pushing as a "reef safe cure". The tank was supposed to be relaxing, but the never-ending disease problems were just stressing me out. Why am I even doing this?

I think the turning point for me was when I realized I didn't even understand what I was fighting. The little details about ich, velvet, flukes, etc. Could these diseases even be beat? So, I got on Google Scholar and starting reading, reading, reading. I would read all night until I had to go to work the next morning. But then I finally understood my enemy, the science I never knew, and decided it was time to whoop it's ***. ;)

Well thanks to folks like you, and the many others around here, I feel like I have a good grip on the understanding part. I guess the frustrating part for me is when you attempt to do everything right (within your means of course) and you get slapped in the face with failure after the mountain of effort. I’m a person who doesn’t settle for failure or give up easily, so it’s costing me a lot of money [emoji23]

I also get amazed at the amount of people who are just buying fish on a whim, tossing them in and all is well when I got multiple tanks setup, medications out the wazoo, etc I think a lot of people get dealt a good amount of luck (or just don’t report their failures.) I’m starting to wonder if I inherited some evil unknown hybrid pathogen with this tank I acquired because I’ve never experienced this much on-going parasitic chaos.

I’m currently vacillating between “tired of this tear it apart, yank everything” and shaking my head saying “wait it out and save the strong ones/start over”

Monumentally frustrating.
 

zed102

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This is totally unrelated but I now understand why @Humblefish got so fed up with “management” I’m so annoyed with seeing one fish scratch, then another, then turn pale, lose one here or there, have weeks and months go by fine then see it again except 10x worse, I’m about to rip this whole tank apart...AGAIN and this time I’m going to give it one more go-around, an overly OCD one, and if one more of these evil little anxiety inducers makes it into my tank, me and reefing are taking a break for a while...hell I might even quarantine the quarantine tank [emoji35]

Rant over...

It will be totally worth it if you do. Just make sure that you go all in. I have watched much hard work be undone by folks not qt’ing everything wet.
 
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