theo4thorn
New member
I keep getting the brown diatom in the tank. How long does it take for this to cycle through? It has been about 4 or five days since it first started.
the brown stuff?
- Thread starter theo4thorn
- Start date
Travis L. Stevens
Active member
It could take a month or so at most. Give it time. It will be worth the patience.
theo4thorn
New member
What is it and why is it there? what purpose does it serve to the tank? Is there something I can do to hurry it along. Will it affect my fish?
Travis L. Stevens
Active member
What is it and why is it there? It could be a variety of things, and I couldn't tell you without a picture or a decent description. It most likely is either Cyanobacteria, Dinoflagellates, or Diatoms. All of which are unicellular algae.
What purpose does it serve to the tank? It helps the tank by taking up nutrients that the bacteria can't keep up with yet. In more established tanks, they are a tale tell sign that something either went wrong recently or has been slightly wrong for a while. Excess nutrients is usually that problem.
Is there something I can do to hurry it along. Honestly? No. You can quickly get rid of it now with water changes and other nutrient export, or if it is Cyanobacteria you can use products like ChemiClean to kill it. But any of those above methods gets rid of an aquariums way of getting rid of excess nutrients. If you get rid of it before all the nutrients are taken up, it will only come back later.
Will it affect my fish? That's a loaded question. Cyanobacteria, Dinoflagellates, and Diatoms are a broad family of unicellular algae. There are good and bad. In fact, a specific dinoflagellate is what helps Blue Ring Octopuses produce their Tetrodotoxin to make them so deadly, but I doubt that is what you have. In any case, it is common place to have these above algaes in your tank and 99.9% of the time, they are just harmless cycles of an establishing tank.
What purpose does it serve to the tank? It helps the tank by taking up nutrients that the bacteria can't keep up with yet. In more established tanks, they are a tale tell sign that something either went wrong recently or has been slightly wrong for a while. Excess nutrients is usually that problem.
Is there something I can do to hurry it along. Honestly? No. You can quickly get rid of it now with water changes and other nutrient export, or if it is Cyanobacteria you can use products like ChemiClean to kill it. But any of those above methods gets rid of an aquariums way of getting rid of excess nutrients. If you get rid of it before all the nutrients are taken up, it will only come back later.
Will it affect my fish? That's a loaded question. Cyanobacteria, Dinoflagellates, and Diatoms are a broad family of unicellular algae. There are good and bad. In fact, a specific dinoflagellate is what helps Blue Ring Octopuses produce their Tetrodotoxin to make them so deadly, but I doubt that is what you have. In any case, it is common place to have these above algaes in your tank and 99.9% of the time, they are just harmless cycles of an establishing tank.
ive had this for awhile as well
ive had this for awhile as well
Ive had this same issue for awhile in my 29 gallon biocube its a phase that essentially go away and come back, water changes gets rid of it for awhile but it comes back. It can be the most annoying thing in the world. Are you cleaning the sand well? most of the time the sand is forgotten about and then it starts to bloom faster and faster. I baught a blemmy guppy to clean the sand as well but no good. I encluded a pic of what it looks like in my tank.
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ive had this for awhile as well
Ive had this same issue for awhile in my 29 gallon biocube its a phase that essentially go away and come back, water changes gets rid of it for awhile but it comes back. It can be the most annoying thing in the world. Are you cleaning the sand well? most of the time the sand is forgotten about and then it starts to bloom faster and faster. I baught a blemmy guppy to clean the sand as well but no good. I encluded a pic of what it looks like in my tank.
Travis L. Stevens
Active member
Re: ive had this for awhile as well
Re: ive had this for awhile as well
If properly taken care of and with routine maintenance, it won't come back.
This is actually a bad idea. The more you mess with your sand, the more oxygen will get into the anaerobic places that the denitrifying bacteria live. Thus, less of these bacteria means more nitrates in the system. And more nitrates in the system will be taken up by algae, in this cause unicellular.
Re: ive had this for awhile as well
If properly taken care of and with routine maintenance, it won't come back.
This is actually a bad idea. The more you mess with your sand, the more oxygen will get into the anaerobic places that the denitrifying bacteria live. Thus, less of these bacteria means more nitrates in the system. And more nitrates in the system will be taken up by algae, in this cause unicellular.
Buying a fish solely on the purpose of "cleaning" the sand is a bad idea. In fact, these fish and even sand sifting invertebrates such as Sand Sifting Starfish actually it the good microfauna out of the sand bed. In too small of a tank, they will deplete the sandbed completely. Purchasing one of these animals really needs to be well thought out, and not just to "clean".
theo4thorn
New member
thanks for the info and i will have to be patient. Addictions have no patients. Tough for a neat nick.
