Do Diatoms consume Nitrates?

Andre Duarte

Community Member
View Badges
Joined
Mar 20, 2018
Messages
42
Reaction score
15
Location
Portugal
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Hello all. I am cycling my 60gallon tank and I am on Stage 4: Diatoms, according to the Reef2Reef Cycling progress.

However today I have noticed something strange. After doing my daily tests I have noticed that the usual 2ppm of Nitrates went down to 0ppm, even without any water change.

I am assuming that, since the Diatoms are single cell algae, they have consumed all the Nitrates. Can anyone confirm this? If they have consumed all the Nitrates are they going to starve and start to go away in order to jump to Stage 5?
I have tested the Silicate that resulted on 0ppm, and Phospate raised to 0.175ppm.
I will do a small water change today.

I am posting all progress of my tank here on Reef2Reef forum.

Best regards.
 
OP
OP
A

Andre Duarte

Community Member
View Badges
Joined
Mar 20, 2018
Messages
42
Reaction score
15
Location
Portugal
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Thank you very much for that fine article. Apparently I was right, they do consume Nitrates so that’s explains why Nitrates sudently droped from 2 to 0ppm.
I am looking forward to see them go away.
Thank you.
 

Daniel@R2R

Living the Reef Life
View Badges
Joined
Nov 18, 2012
Messages
37,364
Reaction score
63,255
Location
Fontana, California
Rating - 100%
1   0   0
So...could you theoretically use diatoms as a method of nitrate export? ;Bookworm
 
Back
Top