Diatoms and GHA Assistance

Derrick Picker · Jun 25, 2019

Hello,

I have a pretty well established tank (7+years). Recently I decided to get an ATS (about 3 months ago) and remove my skimmer. At the same time I made a mistake and used Vibrant (which I realized caused the Cyano outbreak). Since then I have noticed an abundance of things I never experienced in my tank. I had Cyano (used chemiclean, and it is gone now), then diatoms, and now some patches of GHA. My levels stay pretty consistent at .03ppm of phosphate and about 5ppm of nitrate. I have triple checked my RODI water and it has 0 TDS and I even checked it for phosphate and it had 0.

The ATS gets a lot of growth and seems to be able to export the nutrients quite well. I have a decent CUC (mostly hermits but also some smaller turbo snails, astra, trochus, and nassarius) and I even went ahead and got a Sea Hare (even though it it's really going near the GHA patches) . My main question is will the diatoms (growing on rocks, sand, etc daily)/GHA eventually go away with the ATS in place? Is there something I can do to remove them? I have had the diatoms for over a month now and the GHA doesn't appear to be going away.

Any additional suggestions would be very helpful. All my corals are doing wonderful. Just trying to clean up the tank and have it thrive.

P-Dub · Jun 25, 2019

Derrick Picker said:
Hello,

I have a pretty well established tank (7+years). Recently I decided to get an ATS (about 3 months ago) and remove my skimmer. At the same time I made a mistake and used Vibrant (which I realized caused the Cyano outbreak). Since then I have noticed an abundance of things I never experienced in my tank. I had Cyano (used chemiclean, and it is gone now), then diatoms, and now some patches of GHA. My levels stay pretty consistent at .03ppm of phosphate and about 5ppm of nitrate. I have triple checked my RODI water and it has 0 TDS and I even checked it for phosphate and it had 0.

The ATS gets a lot of growth and seems to be able to export the nutrients quite well. I have a decent CUC (mostly hermits but also some smaller turbo snails, astra, trochus, and nassarius) and I even went ahead and got a Sea Hare (even though it it's really going near the GHA patches) . My main question is will the diatoms (growing on rocks, sand, etc daily)/GHA eventually go away with the ATS in place? Is there something I can do to remove them? I have had the diatoms for over a month now and the GHA doesn't appear to be going away.

Any additional suggestions would be very helpful. All my corals are doing wonderful. Just trying to clean up the tank and have it thrive.

Reinstall the skimmer.

IslandLifeReef · Jun 25, 2019

P-Dub said:
Reinstall the skimmer.

I agree, reinstall the skimmer and wait. Diatoms like silicates. My guess is that the silicates came in on the new equipment. The diatoms will go away with time.

I would also recommend not chasing algae problems with chemicals. The only reason that cyano would show up after using Vibrant is that the Vibrant got rid of a competitor for the cyano.

I would manually remove as much of the GHA as possible, vacuum out as much detritus as you can, and add more turbo snails to eat the remaining GHA. Just because nutrient levels in the water column are low doesn't mean that there aren't organics for the GHA, or any other algae, to feed off of.

Check out the threads by @brandon429. I have found them helpful.

brandon429 · Jun 25, 2019

I have horrible news to deliver but it comes with awesome results

we should rip clean this whole tank at once. replace or rinse the bed/removing all the invasion feed, clean rocks, the physical work action not any action that is purchased or added to the water + wait. the opposite of what any reefing crowd would say to do is exactly the right move. Ive never seen cyano originate in a cloudless system not being dosed with carbon additives... meaning one where we could reach into the tank on cell vid, grab sand, drop it-and nothing clouds. that clean

or rocks that you can pick up midwater, swish around, and they cast off a cloud of invader feed (name your succession of hitchhikers that feed on it, they rotate in and out)

there is no additive or doser which removes that clouding other than physical removal

we could simply clean it and use skip cycle biology to kill nothing, re assemble a clean tank/cloudless. then lets see what pops up

Derrick Picker · Jun 25, 2019

I am sorry I did not mention that the skimmer is installed. I installed it right when I started using the chemiclean about 2 months ago.

Derrick Picker · Jun 25, 2019

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ah0hh3gv5w2vltd/IMG_4386.m4v?dl=0

Derrick Picker · Jun 25, 2019

IslandLifeReef said:
I agree, reinstall the skimmer and wait. Diatoms like silicates. My guess is that the silicates came in on the new equipment. The diatoms will go away with time.

I would also recommend not chasing algae problems with chemicals. The only reason that cyano would show up after using Vibrant is that the Vibrant got rid of a competitor for the cyano.

I would manually remove as much of the GHA as possible, vacuum out as much detritus as you can, and add more turbo snails to eat the remaining GHA. Just because nutrient levels in the water column are low doesn't mean that there aren't organics for the GHA, or any other algae, to feed off of.

Check out the threads by @brandon429. I have found them helpful.

I have been using rowophos in hopes it remove silicates from the water as I assumed the same thing. I tried to manually remove what I could but there is a good amount of it and it is difficult to get to. Not sure what else to do as my Sea hare, tomini tang, and lawnmower blenny do not touch it. I have a few turbo snails but nothing crazy. I could try a few more. Anyone had success with Chitons? I have a tuxedo urchin and it also doesn't go near it.

IslandLifeReef · Jun 25, 2019

Derrick Picker said:
I have been using rowophos in hopes it remove silicates from the water as I assumed the same thing. I tried to manually remove what I could but there is a good amount of it and it is difficult to get to. Not sure what else to do as my Sea hare, tomini tang, and lawnmower blenny do not touch it. I have a few turbo snails but nothing crazy. I could try a few more. Anyone had success with Chitons? I have a tuxedo urchin and it also doesn't go near it.

Take a look at @brandon429’s thread. I wasn’t able to follow his method exactly due to encrusted corals, but I did vacuum my sand and move every rock to vacuum under it. I would also vacuum my sand daily after that for about a week and just run the hose into a filter sock in the sump. I was battling dino’s and GHA. I also used a light dose of Vibrant once a week along with ROX carbon to remove any thing released from the dying algae. This took care of everything in less than 1 month. I also added turbo snails, pods, and phytoplankton to try to combat the algae/Dino’s naturally. Vibrant is just bacteria, so I consider it natural as well. I really think getting all of the detritus out of my sand and manual removing as much algae as I could won 90% of the battle for me.