Diatoms.. over night?

[Ducati 911]

My new 20G nano has been up and running for exactly one month now and all I have in the tank is (2) cerith snails and (5) blue leg hermits..

pH - 8.0
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite- 0
Nitrate - <10

Practically over night my sandbed got this thin brown film-like algea.. Is this Diatoms? I was wondering if this is diatoms, how long is a normal diatom cycle if im using ro/di and keeping up with 10 percent weekly water changes?

Should I use a small peice of airline tubing so suck some of it out or just let it thrive untill it clears up on its own and let the CUC feast for awhile?

 

[pmgaudio]

I would ALSO love to know the answer, as I too have gotten a brownish hew to a lot of my base rock and glass. I believe it has something to do with the fact that I have for the last two weeks run my lights for at least 8 hours, as opposed to barely at all before I got a few frags for my FOWLR tank.

 

[Ducati 911]

Cyno?

 

[pmgaudio]

not sure, I think so cause I had a dead spot in the sand where there was a HUGE patch of is, redirected power head and it's gone. Now though I see little tiny green hair like algea on the glass.

 

[jaharr01]

diatoms are normal part of the cycle

 

[jaharr01]

could be bacterial bloom

 

[Josh_Canada]

it happens in new tanks, i swear every time, i feed the first of the fish, diatom overnight.

 

[pmgaudio]

when I keep the light off for 24 hrs it appears to go away.
The green hairy stuff is new...