New light causing diatom outbreak

dcreasy9880 · Jan 23, 2023

I put a new smatfarm led light on my 36 gallon bow front reef tank last week on Tuesday . I had my channels set at only blue and purple 100% “ I made a post on a fb page asking soem settings and another guy told me to try those he used it on his 40 breeder and corals loved it”. I noticed Saturday I was getting a major diatom outbreak on my sand and glass. I cleaned my glass with my mag cleaners and had to turn white light on for jsut a second to realize I was having the outbreak, under the blue and purple lights I couldn’t tell if it was possible Cyano algae or not. My glass was covered more than I’ve ever noticed and my protien skimmer is a hob and the inlet tube is growing major brown algae inside of it as well now. I always top my tank off with RODI from my lfs. I noticed in the mornings when my light first comes on the outbreak doesn’t look as Intense, but when I wake up in the evenings to get ready for work my sand bed is covered and the algae looks thick, again with white lights for a second it confirms it’s just brown and not red algae. I noticed today as well I have brown little specs and some little brown stringy peace’s floating in my tank almsot like it’s floating algae. I am due for my weekly water change tom but may not get to it till Wednesday with my schedule. My parameters using a api master reef test stays constant phosphate- 0.25pp
Nitrate 20ppm
Calcium 380-420ppm
Kh- 7
And I keep my salinity at 1.025
I have a Hanna nitrite and phosphate tester on order in the mail to get more accurate measurements. I also run carbon and gfo in my job filter and my nitrates and phosphate never seems to change even after 10 gallon water changes it seems. I also turned my lights down Saturday to 75% and 65% today since I seen the floating algae looking peace’s

vetteguy53081 · Jan 23, 2023

dcreasy9880 said:
I put a new smatfarm led light on my 36 gallon bow front reef tank last week on Tuesday . I had my channels set at only blue and purple 100% “ I made a post on a fb page asking soem settings and another guy told me to try those he used it on his 40 breeder and corals loved it”. I noticed Saturday I was getting a major diatom outbreak on my sand and glass. I cleaned my glass with my mag cleaners and had to turn white light on for jsut a second to realize I was having the outbreak, under the blue and purple lights I couldn’t tell if it was possible Cyano algae or not. My glass was covered more than I’ve ever noticed and my protien skimmer is a hob and the inlet tube is growing major brown algae inside of it as well now. I always top my tank off with RODI from my lfs. I noticed in the mornings when my light first comes on the outbreak doesn’t look as Intense, but when I wake up in the evenings to get ready for work my sand bed is covered and the algae looks thick, again with white lights for a second it confirms it’s just brown and not red algae. I noticed today as well I have brown little specs and some little brown stringy peace’s floating in my tank almsot like it’s floating algae. I am due for my weekly water change tom but may not get to it till Wednesday with my schedule. My parameters using a api master reef test stays constant phosphate- 0.25pp
Nitrate 20ppm
Calcium 380-420ppm
Kh- 7
And I keep my salinity at 1.025
I have a Hanna nitrite and phosphate tester on order in the mail to get more accurate measurements. I also run carbon and gfo in my job filter and my nitrates and phosphate never seems to change even after 10 gallon water changes it seems. I also turned my lights down Saturday to 75% and 65% today since I seen the floating algae looking peace’s

Always start low and build up intensity as you will shock the coral

dcreasy9880 · Jan 24, 2023

So my nitrates off of an api test kit don’t look terrible and the diatoms seem to get very light after lights have been out at night so I’m assuming it has to be a light issue, I turned my lights down to 45% all blues before the sunrise started this morn I’ll post updated pics this evening after I wake up if the diatoms seem to get worse I also turned my filter power up higher throwing more flow through the tank in just trying to keep the flow from beating my Duncan coral all around