Bars
Well-Known Member
Thread 9824512 about this topic!
Out of nowhere either dinos or diatoms entered my tank about 3 months ago. Now that I think about it, this stuff started taking over at the same time the few spots of cyano on my live rock suddenly disappeared. Started out as a light dusting on the sand bed and has developed into nasty slimy looking patches on the sand bed. If I blow the stuff off with a turkey baster my sand is covered again within mere minutes. It doesn't disappear at night. Unfortunately some of the stuff that's blown off attaches to my gorgonians and starts growing there. So I'm now at the point that I want it gone before it starts choking out corals.
My nutrients are - as they've always been - high. Phosphates are surprisingly high at 0.5 and nitrates are a steady 25ish. I'm unsure if my phosphate reading is correct. I usually use a seachem phosphates kit, which gives me almost the same number my icp tests do. I ran out though and picked up a salifert test kit. I did a 3 day blackout 2 weeks ago in hopes that would solve things, but it hasn't made a dent at all. When the lights came back on the stuff was still on my sand bed.
Questions:
- Does the disappearing of cyano have anything to do with this stuff taking over?
- Assuming my phosphates have actually increased in the last few months, could that suddenly cause a bloom? My phosphates have never been below 0.1. Assuming my phosphates have actually always been this high, what could've caused the sudden bloom in that case?
- Am I correct in thinking these are diatoms, since I'm dealing with high nutrients here and the stuff not going in the water column at night? Do diatoms grow to be slimy and cover corals?
- As I'm writing this I'm thinking it might have something do with my rodi water perhaps? I've got a simple aqua medic easy line with added silicate filter, which has been running since May last year. My water pressure isn't very high and I'm not using a booster pump. Any chance my filters are due for replacement?
Edit: this is what it looks like in the morning. I feel like it gets worse in the afternoon when the t5 bulbs turn on. Bulbs are 4 months old.
Edit2: on the gorgs:
Out of nowhere either dinos or diatoms entered my tank about 3 months ago. Now that I think about it, this stuff started taking over at the same time the few spots of cyano on my live rock suddenly disappeared. Started out as a light dusting on the sand bed and has developed into nasty slimy looking patches on the sand bed. If I blow the stuff off with a turkey baster my sand is covered again within mere minutes. It doesn't disappear at night. Unfortunately some of the stuff that's blown off attaches to my gorgonians and starts growing there. So I'm now at the point that I want it gone before it starts choking out corals.
My nutrients are - as they've always been - high. Phosphates are surprisingly high at 0.5 and nitrates are a steady 25ish. I'm unsure if my phosphate reading is correct. I usually use a seachem phosphates kit, which gives me almost the same number my icp tests do. I ran out though and picked up a salifert test kit. I did a 3 day blackout 2 weeks ago in hopes that would solve things, but it hasn't made a dent at all. When the lights came back on the stuff was still on my sand bed.
Questions:
- Does the disappearing of cyano have anything to do with this stuff taking over?
- Assuming my phosphates have actually increased in the last few months, could that suddenly cause a bloom? My phosphates have never been below 0.1. Assuming my phosphates have actually always been this high, what could've caused the sudden bloom in that case?
- Am I correct in thinking these are diatoms, since I'm dealing with high nutrients here and the stuff not going in the water column at night? Do diatoms grow to be slimy and cover corals?
- As I'm writing this I'm thinking it might have something do with my rodi water perhaps? I've got a simple aqua medic easy line with added silicate filter, which has been running since May last year. My water pressure isn't very high and I'm not using a booster pump. Any chance my filters are due for replacement?
Edit: this is what it looks like in the morning. I feel like it gets worse in the afternoon when the t5 bulbs turn on. Bulbs are 4 months old.
Edit2: on the gorgs:
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