Brown diatom algae.. help!!

[tdot]

I have been struggling with this for 3 months+ now. My tank is outta controll I have a vertex RO/DI. My water before the RO unit tests at 50ppm.

RO water tests:
Phosphates = 0.03 ppm (hanna)
silicates = 0.05mg or less
TDS= 0.00ppm (handheld meter and built in meter on RO unit)

Display water:
Phosphates = 0.06ppm (hanna)

Anybody have any idea what to do? I blow off my rocks and within 3 days i can't see the rock anymore because of this. I also got all new t5 bulbs in the summer.

I am upgrading to 110 gal in the future and im trying to solve this issue before i start the build. My tank is a year and a half old, haven't had much of a issue with algae untill last summer.

 

[Alunai]

Diatoms are usually known to go away on their own, just a normal part of a tank cycle. However seeing that your tank is a year and a half old, I can't really offer any insight as to why it's blooming now.

 

[dzfish17]

Have you had any fish that have been unaccounted for. Sometimes a dead fish can raise nutrient levels and cause a bloom. Just a thought. Is there a chance that you might be overfeeding or overstocked?

Dave

 

[Everyones Hero]

I'm not sure if RO/DIs are supposed to remove all phosphates from the water or not, but you might want to consider running a phosphate removal media on your topoff water container & your SW mixing container to absorb & prevent phosphates from entering your tank. Or if you have a big RO storage container run 1 unit on that before you put it into your mixing & top off containers.

 

[The_Codfather]

Diatoms feed off silicates and light you could try two things..1..hold back on the WC's and starve.. most salt mix's have silicates in them and when doing WC's you are in fact just feeding them.. 2 Cut back on the lights maybe do a 3 day light out.. Good luck

 

[Palting]

Diatoms in a 1 1/2 y.o. tank is unusual. If there is a problem with water quality, algae can outcompete diatoms, so it's usually an algae and not a diatom problem. Of course, I may not know what I'm talking about. You sure it's diatoms?

 

[greech]

Are you positive you're dealing with diatoms and not something like dinos?

FWIW, I battled diatoms on my sandbed for over a year before they finally died off. The only think that seemed to help move the process along was the addition of more flow across the sand. Still had them but it slowly got better and now gone.

I never had them covering rock though, just the sand which I why I am wondering if you have something else in there. Not sure if the 0.05mg of silicates is enough to sustain the population but I am thinking yes. Do you have a silicate buster cartridge on your RO/DI unit? Also Rowaphos removes both silicates and phosphates. May give that a try.

 

[Alysiak00]

i noticed that when my girlfriend would clean my house, i could always tell because my diatoms would go ape ****. I think some of the fresheners she used have silicates in them which make them take off

 

[tdot]

My tank is a 55gal with 20sump, 5gal fuge. Running phosban and carbon, remora pro skimmer, and uv steralizer. My tank had a temp spike in the summer and 3 shrimp died, some sps frags died, and 2 small fish, and a month later my clam (5 inch) kicked the bucket.

I did some more water tests today

ammonia = 0.50
high range ph = 8.2
nitrite = 0
nitrate = 0

the algae is brown, and by the end of the day it traps tiny air bubbles in it, it's also stringy a little.

 

[greech]

The stringy nature sounds like dinos. Not to be gross but does it look like bubbly, stringy snot?

That's a pretty high ammonia concentration. Is there any life in the tank currently?

 

[tdot]

yeah, it does look like that.. so i guess it is dinos. I have a clownfish, a damsel, and 2 chromis, along with some lps and sps. all corals seem healthy and polyps expanded. They have been slowly recovering since the summer.

 

[greech]

I would do some searching to make sure. Compare pics from others etc. They can be a real beast to deal with even under ideal conditions. I would definitely address that ammonia to start with. Good luck!

 

[Alysiak00]

yup i second dinos. sorry bro

 

[bazineta]

When did you last change the DI resin in your filter?