DIATOMS IN MY 10 month old tank

[JACKS REEF]

Currently I have a 29 gallon soon to be reef tank. Along the way I have battled against Cyanobacteria once and beat it with chemiclean and then 3 months later it appeared again and used chemiclean a 2nd time and I haven’t seen any Cyanobacteria since I dosed chemiclean for the 2nd time which was probably like 4 weeks ago. During that process I have been battling diatoms as well. They just don’t seem to ever go away. My diatom battle has been going for maybe 6 months now and it’s getting annoying. Filtration: aqua clear filter with carbon and biological media, hang on back protein skimmer, in tank UV sterilizer 50$. My lights are dual AI Prime 16hd’s. And I am toping off with distilled water from the grocery store. Currently I am dosing some MicrōBacter7 to help with the nitrates. Nitrates:35 ppm phosphates: 0.05 ppm. My thoughts: maybe the diatoms are happening because I am using a fake cheap rock from pet smart in my tank with no live rock, also maybe lack of filtration, high nitrates, maybe I need some chateo to help reduce the nitrates and out compete the diatoms. Also in the pictures there is not a lot of algae but trust me there is.

 

[JACKS REEF]

Currently I have a 29 gallon soon to be reef tank. Along the way I have battled against Cyanobacteria once and beat it with chemiclean and then 3 months later it appeared again and used chemiclean a 2nd time and I haven’t seen any Cyanobacteria since I dosed chemiclean for the 2nd time which was probably like 4 weeks ago. During that process I have been battling diatoms as well. They just don’t seem to ever go away. My diatom battle has been going for maybe 6 months now and it’s getting annoying. Filtration: aqua clear filter with carbon and biological media, hang on back protein skimmer, in tank UV sterilizer 50$. My lights are dual AI Prime 16hd’s. And I am toping off with distilled water from the grocery store. Currently I am dosing some MicrōBacter7 to help with the nitrates. Nitrates:35 ppm phosphates: 0.05 ppm. My thoughts: maybe the diatoms are happening because I am using a fake cheap rock from pet smart in my tank with no live rock, also maybe lack of filtration, high nitrates, maybe I need some chateo to help reduce the nitrates and out compete the diatoms. Also in the pictures there is not a lot of algae but trust me there is.

 

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Maybe get some trochus snails to help with the issue?

 

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I have a 6 month year old 40 Gallon and I still have some diatoms, my trochus snails have slowly started eating it away and there are less and less diatoms, Diatoms feed off silicates so maybe get a RO/DI unit?

 

[JACKS REEF]

I have a 6 month year old 40 Gallon and I still have some diatoms, my trochus snails have slowly started eating it away and there are less and less diatoms, Diatoms feed off silicates so maybe get a RO/DI unit?

Okay I think I might just get some RODI water from my local fish store and some snails.

 

[Flippers4pups]

If they are diatoms, they will go away on their own in time. On the rock you have, it's possible it has some silicates in it, may be. Could be fueling it.

 

[samnaz]

You don’t have live rock? What is the rock made of that you’re using?

Second I don’t really see diatoms as an emergency, they tend to go away on their own.