STILL fighting diatoms!!

[DC_40gallon]

I swear it's frustrating as hell dealing with this.

Always rodi water and now my own unit to ensure zero tds.

Tanks been up and running 4 months now

50lbs live rock in a 40 breeder tank.

Eshopps skimmer - clean it out every three days

argonite live sand

10% and now 25% water change weekly to try to rid my tank of this brown powder yuck.

A koralia 2 and a k3

wave point t5s brand new as of last Friday.

330gph tetra advanced powerfilter and I change the media every 3-4 weeks.

 

[DC_40gallon]

Oh and Ive been siphoning the top layer of my sand to get this stuff out quicker in mass quantities with each water change.

I've also noticed that the sand and water I siphon out smells like phytoplankton. Strange I know but it really does have that nasty smell of phytofeast phytoplankton.

 

[XtremeFromHell]

im with ya there.. ive been going through the same thing.. i bought myself a skimmer, i siphoned all the sand and i blew the rocks and scrubed the glass and did like a 20% water change and still have some diatoms.. so today i bought myself 2 turbo snails.. lets see if they help :\

 

[jenglish]

Have you looked at local water quality? Sometimes water can have so many silicates it requires a specialized Hi-S membrane. It is unlikely but worth investigating.

 

[DC_40gallon]

Our local water quality is great. 114 tds and only a trace of chlorine.

 

[pIankton]

If it is diatoms - leave them alone, they go away on their own. The more you mess with things - especially the sand bed - the more they come back. At 4 months, your tank is still burping weird things and still trying to establish itself.

Turbos won't eat them BTW.

 

[DC_40gallon]

I've heard turbos keep it stirred up. Mine do.

A lot of people say leave it alone and all that's done to my tank is make them thicker and darker.

 

[pIankton]

It will get thicker and darker - to the point where it will drive you insane. Then it's gone.

 

[DC_40gallon]

Does siphoning them out do any good? I'm taking them out in bulk with each water change.

 

[DC_40gallon]

Bump

 

[NirvanaFan]

I'd leave it be. It can take tanks up to a year to mature and become stable.

 

[stingythingy45]

Yup,stop driving yourself crazy over it and let them die off on their won.
Diatoms need silicates.Silicates get used up..........no more diatoms.
Just make sure you are not introducing silicates in with top off water.
Silicates are are one of the first to make it by a used up di resin.

 

[smirkis]

i jus recently finished my cycle, had diatoms for almost 2 months then hair algae for another month.

i LEFT IT ALONE... no water change, no syphoning n messing around. leave it lol. it'll clear up, hair algae will come then go. then do a water change and get ready to have fun

 

[syrinx]

Doing waterchanges to control diatoms is like using gasoline to put out a fire.

 

[mws12075]

I agree with leaving it be...the less your hands/arms are in there...the better it will be

 

[jenglish]

THe limiting factor on diatoms is typically silicate. Siphoning them out limits the silicate in the system. Generally when you get hordes of pineapple sponges or other sponge growth on your liverock it outcompetes the diatoms for silicate. If you have silicates in your top off or w/c water it would be futile to siphon them out, but if your water is silicate free, siphoning can help.

 

[stingythingy45]

Doing waterchanges to control diatoms is like using gasoline to put out a fire.

This is true.
It's best just to wait it out and let it die off on it's own.

 

[tawolcott]

What kind of CUC you have? My hermits ,trochus, nerites and astrea did quick work on mine when I had it. The nerites took care of the sand and everyone else handled the rock and glass if I remember right

 

[jenglish]

Doing waterchanges to control diatoms is like using gasoline to put out a fire.

Can you explain the logic behind this statement? Are you sure you are not thinking of dinoflagelletes?

 

[der_wille_zur_macht]

Can you explain the logic behind this statement?

I'd like to know, too - unless your source water is garbage, water changes will generally help with any of these sorts of pests. If someone sees the opposite (i.e. blooms after a WC) then it's likely that one of two things is happening:

1) Their source water is not pure enough,
2) They are disturbing some "settled" source of nutrients in their tank during the water change procedure (i.e. detritus that had settled on the live rock is getting blown off, but not siphoned out.)

When done correctly, water changes are almost never the cause of problems, and can often be a significant cure for problems - though, IMHO, the most important factor in any of these pest battles is to determine the root cause and deal with it. Bad source water for WCs and topoff? Too much food? Too much dead organic matter on new live rock? Not eoungh skimming or other nutrient export? etc.