Diatoms

[Hanneman24]

Need some help. Having a problem with diatoms along with scummy algae. The tank is 4 months old and just hit a spike with salinity and working on recovery. Sitting at 1.032. Trying to get rid of the diatom issue along with the algae. Any suggestions? Need to get salinity lowered to add turbo snails since all died on the stupid mistake on adding salt water after evaporation loss.

Thanks.

 

[HankstankXXXL750]

Need some help. Having a problem with diatoms along with scummy algae. The tank is 4 months old and just hit a spike with salinity and working on recovery. Sitting at 1.032. Trying to get rid of the diatom issue along with the algae. Any suggestions? Need to get salinity lowered to add turbo snails since all died on the stupid mistake on adding salt water after evaporation loss.

Thanks.

You can bring salinity down fast. Raising fast will harm critters but lowering is safer. I would strive to get it down over two or three days at the longest.
Did you have an ugly stage previously?
If not the increase in salinity May have affected some bacteria allowing the diatoms and algae to out compete it. Aside from the salinity try to be patient and don’t change a lot of things quickly.

 

[Hanneman24]

You can bring salinity down fast. Raising fast will harm critters but lowering is safer. I would strive to get it down over two or three days at the longest.
Did you have an ugly stage previously?
If not the increase in salinity May have affected some bacteria allowing the diatoms and algae to out compete it. Aside from the salinity try to be patient and don’t change a lot of things quickly.

Yeah I did have an ugly stage. New to the salt water world and had an open top for a while. And as it evaporated I was adding more salt water into the tank. Not thinking how the water evaporates but the salt doesn't I was adding more salt water in. After realizing my snails were dying fast did I know my salinity was high.

 

[Rmckoy]

adding salt water as top off is something that happens regularly when just starting
Moving forward as mentioned above you can lower salinity rapidly over a few days and I would do it with removing a bucket or so depending on tank size and replace with rodi water .

for diatoms the best way is to manually remove some if you can but to let it run it’s course . It will go away as it consumes silicates .
Next piece of advice : this is the first of many ugly stages and algae’s you will encounter with a reef . As the system matures you will appreciate letting it go through these natural changes early .