Diatoms are being stubborn!

[Salty_Northerner]

I'm having issues with diatoms as the reboots is only 30 days old. I know everybody says new tanks get diatoms but in my case how is this growing on my sound bed?

First off I thought it was from high silicates in the water but we ordered a kit and tested yesterday and we have very very low silicates in the aquarium and our RODI is showing zero.

Our nutrients were about 15 nitrate and we're actually adding Neophos to keep the phosphates elevated above zero.

Now fast forward to today and our nitrate is sitting at 6.8 and phosphate at .023-.034

I siphoned off the top layer of the sand bed and it stayed pristine for 2 days and then it started to show signs of it coming back and I'm not sure what is fueling it.

Any ideas?

 

[Miami Reef]

but we ordered a kit and tested yesterday and we have very very low silicates in the aquarium and our RODI is showing zero.

What kit?

 

[Salty_Northerner]

What kit?

Seachem test kit.

 

[Miami Reef]

but in my case how is this growing on my sound bed?

Assuming they are diatoms, they can most certainly grow on the sandbed. They don’t cause any issues, and are beneficial for reef tanks.

Diatoms cannot grow without silica. If they are growing, they are getting silica. Some sands might leach it out, and the diatoms will grow until they deplete the source.

As long as your TDS on all input RO/DI water reads 0ppm, and you don’t add silica, they will eventually leave.

That being said, I personally dose silica in my tanks. They are food for copepods, snails, and possibly even corals when the glass gets scraped! Many sponges require silica, so I ensure it’s about 1-3ppm for them.

In addition, diatoms can outcompete nasties like dinoflagellates and cyano.

Your tank is new, so it’s totally normal to get diatoms. Especially if you just added new sand. Just ride the course; it will pass.

 

[Salty_Northerner]

Assuming they are diatoms, they can most certainly grow on the sandbed. They don’t cause any issues, and are beneficial for reef tanks.

That being said, diatoms cannot grow without silica. If they are growing, they are getting silica. Some sands might leach out, and the diatoms will grow until they deplete the source.

As long as your TDS on all input RO/DI water reads 0ppm, and you don’t add silica, they will eventually leave.

That being said, I personally dose silica in my tanks. They are food for copepods, snails, and possibly even corals when the glass gets scraped! Many sponges require silica, so I ensure it’s about 1-3ppm for them.

In addition, diatoms can outcompete nasties like dinoflagellates and cyano.

Your tank is new, so it’s totally normal to get diatoms. Especially if you just added new sand. Just ride the course. It will pass.

Okay thanks for that, I'm not sure if it was the pods or the probio working but I did notice around the one side of the rock escape the brown turned into a grayish color. And the sand I used was Caribsea special grade which is supposed to be live and it did a little bit of water in the bag when we put it in the tank. Also turns the lights down quite a bit.

 

[Salty_Northerner]

It actually looks like red slime but when I just turned the white light on it's clearly brown in color and starting to get air bubbles trapped I guess from it photosynthesizing?

 

[Salty_Northerner]

I picked up the BRS 4 stage RODI value plus system. I've already changed the sediment filter and carbon block.. the Di resin was not packed properly and even though it showed gold color halfway up, when I pulled it out the top was completely gold in color so I changed out the resin last week. And I'm not sure how that TDS meter works on that system. It shows an in and out, if I flip it on in and start the water moving it'll show 6 and then it jumps up around 200 and then starts dropping and settles out around 5. When I flip it to show the TDS coming out it's always reading 0

 

[Idech]

Be happy you have diatoms, as they go away on their own, as opposed to other nuisance. It took me 18 months to get rid of dinos, and they will come back if I’m not careful.

Don’t fight it, just let it be, or you risk creating real problems (diatoms aren’t problematic).

 

[Gill the 3rd]

It actually looks like red slime but when I just turned the white light on it's clearly brown in color and starting to get air bubbles trapped I guess from it photosynthesizing?

Do you have a picture? Diatoms are pretty normal on the rockwork and sand bed for a new tank and usually look like a brown dusting. Your description sounds like it may be something else.

 

[Salty_Northerner]

Be happy you have diatoms, as they go away on their own, as opposed to other nuisance. It took me 18 months to get rid of dinos, and they will come back if I’m not careful.

Don’t fight it, just let it be, or you risk creating real problems (diatoms aren’t problematic).

Oh believe me I know all about diatoms LOL, they were the reason why I had to reboot the system. Having zero nutrients wasn't a good thing and that's what spurred the outbreak.

So you say just leave them be and don't disturb the sand bed, what about gravel vac just to tumble the sand without removing the sand? What about gravel vac into a filter sock and just pour the water back into the tank? I do find when I do a water change they do seem to come back with a vengeance. I change probably 15% weekly.

 

[Salty_Northerner]

Do you have a picture? Diatoms are pretty normal on the rockwork and sand bed for a new tank and usually look like a brown dusting. Your description sounds like it may be something else.

No I don't have a picture, I'm on the road right now but even when I siphoned the top surface of the sand off to get it Snow White in color there is air bubbles working its way through the sand which I'm assuming is just nitrogen bubbles perhaps. That's why I turn the white lights on because it looked like red slime. Under white lights it looks like brown slime. And it's no longer Dusty, I need to pick up the frag plug and put it in front of the water jet just to blow the crap off.

 

[Idech]

So you say just leave them be and don't disturb the sand bed, what about gravel vac just to tumble the sand without removing the sand? What about gravel vac into a filter sock and just pour the water back into the tank? I do find when I do a water change they do seem to come back with a vengeance. I change probably 15% weekly.

I’ve never done anything to get rid of them, so I can’t really advise.

With dinos, they come back with a vengeance if you do a water change, so I stopped doing them for a long time. To compensate, I dose All for Reef. Maybe stop doing WC for a while and dose All for Reef for your corals ?

AFR will keep your alk, cal and magnesium stable, and also add other necessary elements. Do your research to know how to use it. It takes a little while to get the hang of it at first, but once it’s set, you’re good for a long time. I rarely test now as my parameters are very stable.

 

[Salty_Northerner]

I’ve never done anything to get rid of them, so I can’t really advise.

With dinos, they come back with a vengeance if you do a water change, so I stopped doing them for a long time. To compensate, I dose All for Reef. Maybe stop doing WC for a while and dose All for Reef for your corals ?

AFR will keep your alk, cal and magnesium stable, and also add other necessary elements. Do your research to know how to use it. It takes a little while to get the hang of it at first, but once it’s set, you’re good for a long time. I rarely test now as my parameters are very stable.

Thanks for the reply and yes I have AFR at home but really don't need to be using it at the moment. But I certainly do see them coming on a lot harder after a water change. I'm just trying to stay ahead of the next stage of the ugly cycle and get the nitrates down to around 3. But for sure I'll stop doing water changes for a while.

 

[Miami Reef]

Thanks for the reply and yes I have AFR at home but really don't need to be using it at the moment. But I certainly do see them coming on a lot harder after a water change. I'm just trying to stay ahead of the next stage of the ugly cycle and get the nitrates down to around 3. But for sure I'll stop doing water changes for a while.

In my experience, let the diatoms go wild. The faster they grow, the faster they’ll deplete their silica source.

 

[Salty_Northerner]

In my experience, let the diatoms go wild. The faster they grow, the faster they’ll deplete their silica source.

Sounds like a great plan! I've got New ecotec XR15 G6 blue showing up tomorrow :/

Was hoping the stuff with miraculously disappear so I can give the corals a light they require but I just need to refrain and let it starve itself out.

Actually I'll get my wife to take a photo and I'll upload it here see you guys can see exactly what's growing.

 

[Gill the 3rd]

In my experience, let the diatoms go wild. The faster they grow, the faster they’ll deplete their silica source.

^ Yup. I never do anything to remove them and they have always disappeared on their own.

 

[Salty_Northerner]

Well I'll be! I stirred the sand bed around Saturday around supper time and my wife just took a photo before the lights come on at noon. It seems like it's improving a lot! It was basically like a blanket covering the sand bed before I stirred it up.

Here's what it looks like now.

 

[Miami Reef]

Well I'll be! I stirred the sand bed around Saturday around supper time and my wife just took a photo before the lights come on at noon. It seems like it's improving a lot! It was basically like a blanket covering the sand bed before I stirred it up.

Here's what it looks like now.

Leave them! They’ll leave faster that way.

Tank looks great!

 

[Salty_Northerner]

Leave them! They’ll leave faster that way.

Tank looks great!

Thank you I appreciate it but it looks much better when the lights are on obviously LOL. I've been adding more Coral to the system just to bring in more biodiversity I guess into the system. I'll see if I have some pictures of the recent corals I've purchased. But yes it seems they don't like to be poked and moved around. The wife and myself are keeping all the parameters exactly where we want them everyday for stability. It just bothers me when I'm on the road for 3 days and I come home and see the tank looking all ugly. But just getting her to take a photo this morning I was actually shocked to see that they look like they're dwindling away. Maybe it's just a timing thing and a coincidence. I know you should only do one change at a time but besides stirring the sand bed up just to overturn it to try and smother those darn diatoms and also I dropped the light intensity down. I run very heavy Blues in the morning and after about 3 hours they drop down and the white green and red channels are running quite low. Green 10% red 5% and white 10%. So from 2:00 p.m. till 6:00 p.m. they basically start to drop intensity throughout the 4-Hour main photo period. So by 6:00 p.m. there's no red green or white running and then it goes into its heavy Blue State and ramps off at 8:00 p.m..

Red montipora, Sunny D's, constellations with some glow pops on the same frag. And melonberry plating montipora. Montipora come out of a system with 300 par and I know I'm nowhere even remotely close to that. That's why I turned around and bought an ecotech light and trying to get rid of these diatoms ASAP so I can start giving all the corals the light they need. But I am happy on seeing what I was sent today.

 

[exnisstech]

For me diatoms are inevitable anytime I use sand. I recently added sand to an established barebottom tank so I could add a haddoni and sure enough I now have diatoms
I just roll with it