RollTideReefer
Community Member
My RedSea 525XL has been up and running for three months now with relative success. It is 140 gallons with a skimmer, RedSea Reef 90 lights, and basic filter socks, nothing fancy. I have a medium sized Blue Hippo Tang, medium/small Purple Tang, medium/small Whitetail Bristletooth Tang, and four small clowns. All the fish have been in the tank for over 30 days and are doing great. The only real issue I have is diatoms. They constantly grow on my rocks and sand bed. I have the larger grain substrate Aragonite Special Grade. I have 10 turbos, a few Astrea Nails, 3 fighting Conchs, four shrimp, and a handful of hermits. I have heard conflicting information on the cause of diatoms. We always use RODI for water change and top off. I am very careful not to overfeed, my Nitrates almost never go over 5 and my Ammonia and Nitrite are 0. The company that services my tank loves big water changes but I only let them do a 20% change every two weeks. They are recommending sand sifting stars and some smaller snail species to combat the rocks. Will my tank eventually out grow this phase? Will more water changes make the diatoms better or worse? Any type of filtration I need to add?
I will attach a photo this evening of the diatoms. They coat individual grains of the substrate and are a brownish/greenish color in natural light. Under the blue lights they look darker and more dark brown. The algae is not hairy and is not in sheets. It will come off if rubbed hard enough but will not just blow off like dust either.
I will attach a photo this evening of the diatoms. They coat individual grains of the substrate and are a brownish/greenish color in natural light. Under the blue lights they look darker and more dark brown. The algae is not hairy and is not in sheets. It will come off if rubbed hard enough but will not just blow off like dust either.
