sesbalders
Active Member
Hey all
Been a while since my last post.
so since then, I had a horrific breakout of diatoms, and I mean horrific!!! Even a turbo snail was covered!!!
Anyway, went to my lfs. And picked the guys brains, he suggested that it was probably a build up of silicates from water, bit odd I thought, as I have only ever used RO water from another lfs, however I took him at his word but decided to wait a couple of weeks. The issue got worse and worse, (at this point I will add that I had introduced my first fish 2 weeks prior). In the back of my mind I’m thinking bio load imbalance, however the tank had been set up for ages and cycled for a couple of months.
Again anyway, at this point I’m still struggling after blackouts limiting feeding etc etc. so I decided to take the guys word of a silicate build up and added a pack of seachem phosguard as it’s advertised as taking out phosphates and silicates in one go. Good I thought!!!! Well it killed both my shrimps ( cleaner and peppermint) inside 5 days from bad moults. (Lack of phosphates……. Yes I know now!!!!!!)
so fast forward 2 weeks, the diatoms had gone. Awesome! Problem is now they have made way for the dreaded dinos and they were bad. Real real bad!! To the point the entire tank was brown. At one point I simply couldn’t see through the glass.
I searched on here and I found a weird thread that was kind of related to dinos etc, someone mentioned a point that rang in my ears, they had heard that most of the time dinos, diatoms etc rarely go away without the addition of something.
so last month in desperation, I went to another lfs, to see if I could find some bacteria to dose the tank with. There were some odd non specific marine/freshwater products which is common here in the uk. I wasn’t particularly sold. Then I stumbled across a product called aqua pure reef balance. It’s a weird pack of jelly balls, the instructions said it was a mixture of bacteria and enzymes, and in normal conditions to dose 2 balls per 50ltrs, well my tank looked like the bottom of a oil tanker so I doubled it. Then for a two week period added 2 balls every time I fed the livestock.
now bare in mind, id had an algae problem that had been worsening and worsening for 3 weeks, to a point I thought it was game over.
It all cleared in 3 days. It’s still clear 2 weeks later. I’ve doubled my feeding regiment and it’s still clear.
I’m not promoting the product so much as the theory that this stuff only goes away with the addition of another factor.
just my 10 cents worth
Been a while since my last post.
so since then, I had a horrific breakout of diatoms, and I mean horrific!!! Even a turbo snail was covered!!!
Anyway, went to my lfs. And picked the guys brains, he suggested that it was probably a build up of silicates from water, bit odd I thought, as I have only ever used RO water from another lfs, however I took him at his word but decided to wait a couple of weeks. The issue got worse and worse, (at this point I will add that I had introduced my first fish 2 weeks prior). In the back of my mind I’m thinking bio load imbalance, however the tank had been set up for ages and cycled for a couple of months.
Again anyway, at this point I’m still struggling after blackouts limiting feeding etc etc. so I decided to take the guys word of a silicate build up and added a pack of seachem phosguard as it’s advertised as taking out phosphates and silicates in one go. Good I thought!!!! Well it killed both my shrimps ( cleaner and peppermint) inside 5 days from bad moults. (Lack of phosphates……. Yes I know now!!!!!!)
so fast forward 2 weeks, the diatoms had gone. Awesome! Problem is now they have made way for the dreaded dinos and they were bad. Real real bad!! To the point the entire tank was brown. At one point I simply couldn’t see through the glass.
I searched on here and I found a weird thread that was kind of related to dinos etc, someone mentioned a point that rang in my ears, they had heard that most of the time dinos, diatoms etc rarely go away without the addition of something.
so last month in desperation, I went to another lfs, to see if I could find some bacteria to dose the tank with. There were some odd non specific marine/freshwater products which is common here in the uk. I wasn’t particularly sold. Then I stumbled across a product called aqua pure reef balance. It’s a weird pack of jelly balls, the instructions said it was a mixture of bacteria and enzymes, and in normal conditions to dose 2 balls per 50ltrs, well my tank looked like the bottom of a oil tanker so I doubled it. Then for a two week period added 2 balls every time I fed the livestock.
now bare in mind, id had an algae problem that had been worsening and worsening for 3 weeks, to a point I thought it was game over.
It all cleared in 3 days. It’s still clear 2 weeks later. I’ve doubled my feeding regiment and it’s still clear.
I’m not promoting the product so much as the theory that this stuff only goes away with the addition of another factor.
just my 10 cents worth
