Do Diatoms consume Nitrates?

[Andre Duarte]

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.

 

[reefwiser]

How To Eliminate and Prevent Diatoms in a Reef Tank - ReefBum

Diatoms are a brown algae that typically appear in a reef tank that has just completed its cycle. How do you eliminate and prevent diatoms in a reef tank?

reefbum.com

 

[Andre Duarte]

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]

So...could you theoretically use diatoms as a method of nitrate export? ;Bookworm

 

[reefwiser]

Wouldn’t be a great way.
anoxic filtration would be better.