- Joined
- Aug 24, 2016
- Messages
- 122
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So I have recently been battling what I believe is diatoms. Didn't take long for me realise that one of my problems was that I had zero nitrate and phosphate.
I sorted that out by dosing both however, my diatoms didn't go away as expected.
I then proceed to test my tank water for silicate (Salifert Silicate test). Test came back zero. (no surprise there considering the diatoms!)
I then decided to test my RO/DI water and guess what 0.25ppm silicate...
So did my usual reef2reef reading and most suggestions were to either a) Add a silicate buster cartridge to your RO/DI system b) Add a second DI stage to your RO/DI system.
Had a look around locally for silicate buster but this is not available locally.
I then decided to try out Plan B and buy a second housing and cartridge to try the second DI stage option. At the same time I swapped out my sediment filter for good measure two.
Ran it for some time to settle in and again tested for silicate (direct from output - not from RO/DI container), guess what 0.25ppm :mad:
So why am I posting this you might ask, I already have the most documented solutions? Well I guess I am interested to hear from other people on:
I sorted that out by dosing both however, my diatoms didn't go away as expected.
I then proceed to test my tank water for silicate (Salifert Silicate test). Test came back zero. (no surprise there considering the diatoms!)
I then decided to test my RO/DI water and guess what 0.25ppm silicate...
So did my usual reef2reef reading and most suggestions were to either a) Add a silicate buster cartridge to your RO/DI system b) Add a second DI stage to your RO/DI system.
Had a look around locally for silicate buster but this is not available locally.
I then decided to try out Plan B and buy a second housing and cartridge to try the second DI stage option. At the same time I swapped out my sediment filter for good measure two.
Ran it for some time to settle in and again tested for silicate (direct from output - not from RO/DI container), guess what 0.25ppm :mad:
So why am I posting this you might ask, I already have the most documented solutions? Well I guess I am interested to hear from other people on:
- Is 0.25ppm silicate really a problem or am I looking in the wrong place and my diatom problem is actually for a different reason?
- Is 0 ppm silicate a must have? I read somewhere that Randy actually doses silicate from time to time for his sponges...
- If 0 ppm silicate is a must have, is SilicateBuster the only way forward without putting GFO in the tank which would also deplete phosphate (which in my case is already very low)?