Diatoms in 1 year+ old tank

[jimmypencil]

Hey everyone,

I have a tank that I set up December 2022. It is a mixed reef and corals are doing very well. I dealt with diatoms in the first 6 or so months a good bit but they would come and go. Since then, the sand has always been Snow White and never gets dirty which always suprised me. I keep nitrate at 20 and phosphate at .1. Recently in the past couple months or so I am getting an INSANE Diatom bloom. I haven’t changed anything so I’m not sure what would introduce silicates. I sent out another icp test last week but that has never been the issue. RODI has always shown 0 silicates - but I guess we will see this time. I have been agitating the sand with a turkey baster before a water change but they always come back. Then I started siphoning the diatoms out of the sand during my weekly water change and they still come back. Usually my diatom bloom lasts 2-3 weeks MAX so I’m getting aggravated. I hear that phosgaurd works for most people, maybe I will try that and just does neophos to keep phosphates stable??

Any and all help is appreciated. Here is a picture.

 

[jimmypencil]

Another side note, these are only on the sand and literally nowhere else.

 

[jimmypencil]

bump

 

[Keko21]

did you pop any under a microscope to confirm diatoms? I mean it looks like it, but with phosphate at .1 and NO3 at 20 thats a bit of an imbalance my guess would be cyanobacteria. If you never bottomed out nutrients I doubt is dinos, although not unheard of for them to pop up without a bottom out, albeit rare. But best thing to do would be pop a sample under the scope to see what you are dealing with.

 

[jimmypencil]

did you pop any under a microscope to confirm diatoms? I mean it looks like it, but with phosphate at .1 and NO3 at 20 thats a bit of an imbalance my guess would be cyanobacteria. If you never bottomed out nutrients I doubt is dinos, although not unheard of for them to pop up without a bottom out, albeit rare. But best thing to do would be pop a sample under the scope to see what you are dealing with.

i will make sure to observe a sample under a microscope. If it is cyano, what would you reccomend to resolve? i have chemi clean on hand. The algae does go away at night and come back during the day.

 

[Cthulukelele]

I'd actually bet those are some sort of Dino and your nutrients are bottoming out/consistently very low now as your tank has aged. If you get a photo you should post it to the Dino identification thread as there are many different types with different approaches to combating. My serious guess though is that your nutrients are very low with all those softies growing fast and that feeding a bit more they'll all disappear naturally.

Apparently my reading comprehension is bad and your nutrients are fine, but I'd still guess a type of sand dwelling dino

 

[Not_Erick]

Following along, we are identical in nitrates and phosphate lol I just added some tigger pods and phosguard hoping to see change

 

[jimmypencil]

Following along, we are identical in nitrates and phosphate lol I just added some tigger pods and phosguard hoping to see change

Interesting because I thought this was the perfect nutrient ratio based on tanks I admire and other people’s experience - but it looks like it’s giving us both issues lol.

I would love to know how the pods and phosguard work for you, keep me updated!

 

[GARRIGA]

Do they leave the sand bed at night? Adding silica might help along with UV or 5 micron sediment filtration.

 

[jimmypencil]

Do they leave the sand bed at night? Adding silica might help along with UV or 5 micron sediment filtration.

Yeah they are always gone by morning. I’m using intank filter floss. Wouldn’t silica make it worse?

 

[Not_Erick]

Interesting because I thought this was the perfect nutrient ratio based on tanks I admire and other people’s experience - but it looks like it’s giving us both issues lol.

I would love to know how the pods and phosguard work for you, keep me updated!

I’ll keep you updated! I know my clown was grubbing on the pods last night smh

 

[Troylee]

Yeah they are always gone by morning. I’m using intank filter floss. Wouldn’t silica make it worse?

If it’s truly diatoms then yes… I’d guess you got Dino’s and a microscope is needed to solve that.

 

[Not_Erick]

Yeah they are always gone by morning. I’m using intank filter floss. Wouldn’t silica make it worse?

Same with mine, they’ll be gone in the morning and gone back by night time, hoping pods help out

 

[GARRIGA]

Yeah they are always gone by morning. I’m using intank filter floss. Wouldn’t silica make it worse?

Silica solved it for me my best guess. Lots of info on that including the Facebook group dedicated to dinos.

Not sure floss removes it although I did try with SeaChem Clarity which clumps items to allow mechanical filtration with coarser floss. Thinking of using calcium carbonate next time.

5 micron might help. 1 micron will remove it. If you’re familiar with DE filters they are an option ran at night. I’d use this as last resort. MarineLand Magnum Polishing would be the easiest in that regard.

I solved my issue with combination of silica, MB7 and CharyoGrow to promote GHA, Pom Pom Macroalgae and bacteria along with silica to out compete both Dino and cyano. Almost quit it was that bad. Couldn’t say what exactly solved it but I know I’ll be taking the same route should it show again. Only variation being calcium carbonate bs Clarity and seeing if I can find some 5 micron or 1 micron sediment filters. The 1 micron might be hard to get going from what others have reported.

 

[Not_Erick]

Interesting because I thought this was the perfect nutrient ratio based on tanks I admire and other people’s experience - but it looks like it’s giving us both issues lol.

I would love to know how the pods and phosguard work for you, keep me updated!

I have a update, I read that turning up the heater to 82f would help out and low and behold after about a 4 days my sanders looking good as new so I’m not sure if it was the phosguard, pods or temp increase lol

 

[jimmypencil]

I have a update, I read that turning up the heater to 82f would help out and low and behold after about a 4 days my sanders looking good as new so I’m not sure if it was the phosguard, pods or temp increase lol

Just added 4 jars of pods lol if that doesnt work then i will follow the other steps you took.

 

[jimmypencil]

I have a update, I read that turning up the heater to 82f would help out and low and behold after about a 4 days my sanders looking good as new so I’m not sure if it was the phosguard, pods or temp increase lol

So i added 4 jars of ecopods from algae barn and did a 2 day black out after adding them to tank. I also kept off skimmer and UV. i have also started dosing 30ml phyto daily. it has been a couple weeks and the diatoms have not come back since adding the pods!

i turned skimmer back on after the 2 day black out but i have yet to turn back on my UV because im scared it will affect the pod population, once i turn back on the UV - that will be the real test to see if this is a permanent fix.

 

[GARRIGA]

Been adding H2O2 as a means of killing off nuisance algae and have noticed a side benefit. It seems to be keeping my dino/cyano at bay. Stopped dosing and it started showing up. Water now the clearest I've had it without carbon. Might work on diatoms. Don't know. Worth trying.

It's a test tank that I started topping off evaporation with tap since that has silicates and couldn't get that on it's own quick enough. No diatoms have popped up. I'm dosing equivalent hydrogen peroxide to obtain 3ppm. Test every morning and it's always zero. Seems it's fully decomposing and not experimenting with higher dosages. Only life is Pom Pom, GHA, Damsels and nassarius. All doing just fine except for GHA that has been turning white and in some areas absent. No WC. No siphoning. No scrubbing. Just letting nature assisted by hydrogen peroxide to solve this problem.