More concentrated silicate solution than brightwell?

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

What are some organisms that consume diatoms as a food source?

Some corals do. Sea urchins and anything else that scrapes surfaces.

 

[Miami Reef]

@Randy Holmes-Farley

I have 2 questions for you.

1. Will sodium silicate burn through my plastic syringe? What materials am I supposed to use to measure ml of the SIO2 solution?

2. when I dosed silicate to my DT I got the precipitation and a clownfish always tries to eat the percipient. Will this burn it’s mouth? I don’t see any I’ll effects to the fish, but is dosing when fish are sleeping better?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

@Randy Holmes-Farley

I have 2 questions for you.

1. Will sodium silicate burn through my plastic syringe? What materials am I supposed to use to measure ml of the SIO2 solution?

2. when I dosed silicate to my DT I got the precipitation and a clownfish always tries to eat the percipient. Will this burn it’s mouth? I don’t see any I’ll effects to the fish, but is dosing when fish are sleeping better?

Many syringes are polypropylene or other materials that are inert to high or low pH.

The precipitate is magnesium hydroxide. I'd dose it so he doesn't eat it. maybe into an overflow.

 

[taricha]

Curious, why wouldn’t you raise the dose slightly? Maybe you’ll start seeing some sponges and slight diatoms which will increase copepods and biodiversity?

At some point, when Si is plentiful - it is no longer the Silica that controls the diatom population, but other limiting resources (N,P, Fe etc) Adding more Si beyond that point won't spur any additional growth. I personally saw the same amount of diatoms at 2ppm that I did at 0.2ppm SiO2.
If your diatom growth slows due to another resource becoming depleted, and you assume it's just Si, then you might be adding a lot and need a kit to check it.

Hanna Low Range Si is great. I love it. Hach chemistry is also very reliable - I think it's what Randy used.

It's wild to me that we're adding silicates to aquariums. For so many years there was such vocal opposition to having any at all for fear of a diatom bloom.

True. I think the bad name that diatoms had previously was almost entirely due to people confusing diatoms and dinoflagellates. Now that we distinguish them with microscopes, we can see that harmful blooms are pretty much never diatoms, but dinos.

What are some organisms that consume diatoms as a food source?

filter feeders, copepods, snails etc.

I don’t see any I’ll effects to the fish, but is dosing when fish are sleeping better?

I squirted mine into a powerhead to dissipate the precipitate immediately.

 

[Miami Reef]

I personally saw the same amount of diatoms at 2ppm that I did at 0.2ppm SiO2.

Very interesting. Do you do water changes? I would assume that replacing water will not allow other elements to become undetectable.

I have such a hard time believing that .2ppm has the same effect as 2ppm. I’m pretty confident that I’ve been dosing over .2 with barely any diatom cells.

When my DI reaches 70 TDS (don’t try this at home) I get an abundance of diatoms on sand.

I’m personally just going to shoot for 2ppm dosage. I will back down when Dino’s leave because my tank is really infested with them and nothing is working yet. But I do realize it will take time.

The sponge excel made me realize that .2ppm isn’t going to cut it for me.

I did see the hannah silicate tester, but it has an accuracy of +/- 2ppm.

I don’t know how useful it will be for my needs.

I will not going higher than 2ppm dosage. I can see from my microscope that diatoms are slowly increasing. But nowhere near the proportion of Dino’s.

 

[Miami Reef]

As long as I keep nutrients up Dino’s will eventually go away. It took a month before I could notice this problem, so it is fine to assume it will take just as long for them to go away.

 

[Miami Reef]

@Randy Holmes-Farley

Do this statement sound correct to you?

I personally saw the same amount of diatoms at 2ppm that I did at 0.2ppm SiO2.

To me, it’s like saying we will have the same algae growth at PO4 2ppm than at .02ppm.

Or it’s like saying: we have the same coral growth at 2dkh than at 12dkh?

(I am not educated in this subject). But I’ve been dosing 1ppm silica for a few weeks with no diatom growth at all. Will ramping my SI higher really have no benefit? I cannot believe this. Especially since I’m dosing cheato gro which contains all the cation trace elements which I’m lacking.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

@Randy Holmes-Farley

Do this statement sound correct to you?


To me, it’s like saying we will have the same algae growth at PO4 2ppm than at .02ppm.

Or it’s like saying: we have the same coral growth at 2dkh than at 12dkh?

(I am not educated in this subject). But I’ve been dosing 1ppm silica for a few weeks with no diatom growth at all. Will ramping my SI higher really have no benefit? I cannot believe this. Especially since I’m dosing cheato gro which contains all the cation trace elements which I’m lacking.

The quoted statement sounds very reasonable and may be often true, because 0.2 ppm SiO2 may be enough that the diatoms are no longer limited in growth by silicate availability, but rather by something else (availability of N, P, light, space, herbivores, trace elements such as iron, etc.).

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

IMO, the statement is not about the amount dosed (or shouldn't be) but about the concentration remaining in the water.

Maybe diatoms are taking it up and you just do not see them.

Here's my experience, where 50 ug/L was detected by ICP.:

Silicon (Si). I dose silicate (as sodium silicate solution) to my aquarium. I boost the concentration to about 200 µg/L of silicon equivalent once a week or so. This water sample was drawn one week after the last dose of silicate. I know from previous studies that silicate is rapidly depleted in my tank, presumably by sponges (the reason I dose it), by diatoms, and possibly by the GFO that I use to bind phosphate.

 

[Miami Reef]

1st: I only dosed about 1ppm weekly. And I was not so consistent with it because I didn’t know my concentration level.

I see very very small amount of diatoms in the microscope.

I am going to be consistent with it and will report back.

I dose a supplement which contains iron and my phosphates are around .10ppm.

I think it’s due to the cyano that prevented the diatoms from growing in numbers.

 

[Miami Reef]

But I added Chemiclean yesterday. I’m hoping the diatoms will grow soon. I’ll definitely bump this thread. Thank you for educating me.

 

[taricha]

Very interesting. Do you do water changes? I would assume that replacing water will not allow other elements to become undetectable.

I have such a hard time believing that .2ppm has the same effect as 2ppm. I’m pretty confident that I’ve been dosing over .2 with barely any diatom cells.

When my DI reaches 70 TDS (don’t try this at home) I get an abundance of diatoms on sand.

I’m personally just going to shoot for 2ppm dosage. I will back down when Dino’s leave because my tank is really infested with them and nothing is working yet. But I do realize it will take time.

The sponge excel made me realize that .2ppm isn’t going to cut it for me.

I did see the hannah silicate tester, but it has an accuracy of +/- 2ppm.

I don’t know how useful it will be for my needs.

My system runs undetectable N unless I dose. Additionally, my system can deplete Fe also - especially if N and Si are being provided. Diatoms can grow quite quickly, so if Si is provided, then something will be depleted and the diatoms will plateau.
For me, N and Fe were being depleted during the time I was adding Si.
at zero SiO2, I saw no detectable diatoms, and upping it to daily doses so I was detecting 0.2ppm SiO2, I saw the clear growth of diatoms on glass/sand.

Larger Si doses didn't make (noticeably) more diatoms because some diatoms could get what they needed with daily doses and a 0.2ppm SiO2 level. Adding more didn't generate a bunch more because they could already get Si, and they were running out of other things (N and Fe most likely).

The hanna Low Range Si meter measures up to a max of 2.00ppm SiO2 and works quite well.

 

[Miami Reef]

Deleted

 

[Miami Reef]

Question: does the same apply to phosphates?

Would .5ppm vs .1ppm of phosphates have the same effect on algae growth?

 

[elysics]

Question: does the same apply to phosphates?

Would .5ppm vs .1ppm of phosphates have the same effect on algae growth?

Life will explode in numbers until some nutrient/factor is limiting. If phosphate was limiting and everything else is in abundance, algae will explode with the jump to .5ppm. If the amount of algae you have at .1ppm already completely uses up something else like nitrogen (or puts it below some limiting concentration) then raising phosphate won't really increase your algae growth except maybe make something flourish that doesn't mind that low amount of the "something else" (like for example cyano that likes conditions where other things can't grow)

It just depends on what necessity to algal life runs out first

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Question: does the same apply to phosphates?

Would .5ppm vs .1ppm of phosphates have the same effect on algae growth?

Yes, the same applies to everything an organism needs. Exactly what the values are depends on the species, and to some extent on what all the other needed item levels are.

This interesting article tests whether N or P is limiting macroalgae growth in a bay in hawaii, and adding phosphate alone helped only 1 grow faster. Most were N limited.

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