Never ending diatoms?

  • Thread starter Thread starter RBarth
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You could try a 1 micron filter sock, vacuum them into that, sometimes water changes makes them come back straight away so if that is true in your case I would stop water changes for a while and if the 1 micron seems to reduce them keep it going for a couple of weeks…after the first day you will be able to judge if the sock is working.
 
Could you explain more how that would work? Example of micro fauna and how it would “clean that up”.
Pest type stuff like zero or grossly out of balance conditions.

I have not touched my sand in years, the critter population both seen and unseen do that work. They are the guys that keep rocks clean and sand white.

But their populations must overtake the pest stuff so that it just seems to disappear overnight.

When we feed these guys, I call them micro fauna, and we provide super stable water chemistry, this environment favours the good guys. They will develop but are slow to do so.

Again, sure looks like Cyano.
 
Lights out.
 

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Wouldn't that dose of CC kill the cyano if it was in fact cyano?

Maybe. There are many reasons it might not, including bad antibiotic, resistant strain, it ends up going elsewhere, etc.
 
I have but it's been years. I did use a silicate buster in my 5 stage as well.
It definitely looks more brown in those pictures, the first lot did look more red/cyano.

Maybe to rule out diatoms, you could use something like sera silicate remover, not sure how accurate silicate tests are, the remover is very cheap, you would have to stop water changes for a while, if the remover clears it then probably diatoms, tho you have said you have tried a silicate remover on your rodi so not sure how worthwhile it will be?

I do believe the sera also removes po4 so if your po4 is low you need to watch that, though it isn’t going to strip po4 in the same way rowaphos would.
 
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Gotta scope. So...those never ending diatoms are dinos?
 

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My reef is over 50 years old and I still get it. I think after 51 years it stops. It comes and goes, sometimes it comes really thick and sometimes just a coating. It does the same thing in the sea. What I find is the best thing to do is to go out to dinner, perhaps order a nice bottle of Pino Noir with some linguine and clams and forget about it. 😎

 
Probably gonna try that. Was hoping that no water changes would not introduce any more silicate.
in that old of a tank, if not already doing that...I would NOT stir up the sand bed. NO WAY...because that can do way more harm than good. Leave it alone, and ask on RMS sight
 
My reef is over 50 years old and I still get it. I think after 51 years it stops. It comes and goes, sometimes it comes really thick and sometimes just a coating. It does the same thing in the sea. What I find is the best thing to do is to go out to dinner, perhaps order a nice bottle of Pino Noir with some linguine and clams and forget about it. 😎

Man your a cracker. You should be the prescribed remedy for depression. Your humor is out of this world.😁
 
Gotta scope. So...those never ending diatoms are dinos?
As I was reading the thread I am thinking looks like cyano but then second thought was get a microscope.
And here we are, simple microscope ended all your guesswork. By the way when I dosed chemiclean I ended up with dinos too, it must have knocked the tanks balance that much for the dinos to take over. Never again chemiclean in the tank.
 
Gotta scope. So...those never ending diatoms are dinos?
As I was reading the thread I am thinking looks like cyano but then second thought was get a microscope.
And here we are, simple microscope ended all your guesswork. By the way when I dosed chemiclean I ended up with dinos too, it must have knocked the tanks balance that much for the dinos to take over. Never again chemiclean in the tank.
I think chemiclean was the start of my dino problem too.
 
Man your a cracker. You should be the prescribed remedy for depression. Your humor is out of this world
Well, it's true. No one really know why we get diatoms, I obviously don't and I don't like to make things up, unless I'm speaking to my wife who still thinks I'm a bodyguard for Angelina Jolie.

My tank gets all sorts of diatoms as well as other things so I just go with the flow rather than adding all sorts of chemicals that will just make it worse forcing me to go on the disease forum which will end with me getting out of the hobby and getting a job loading toilet bowls into mini vans for Home Depot and I don't want to do that at this point in my life when I should be relaxing in a hammock In Bora Bora While thinking about opening a POD collection business or selling insulated Bikini's to girls who want to keep warm while swimming in cold water. 🥶








Diatoms are as natural as hair algae which is also all over the sea like these that I took off a remote Hawaiian Island. 😎






Actually, I have no idea where I took that boxfish picture but it was in the sea somewhere.
 
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