Silicates and diatoms

R

RadReef

New member
I've been trying to address diatom forming on my glass. Every week right before I do a water change I have a thin layer on my glass. I do not have diatom on my rock, sand, or background. I did read the following article: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/1/aafeature1. What are your thoughts on using sponges and algaes to reduce silicates? Which sponges, which algaes? I know I have had a hard time keeping sponges alive in the past and placement is a concern.

Thanks!
 
What's your current setup, and how are you currently dealing with nitrates / phosphates? How old is the tank? It seems a lot of factor drive diatom and algae growth, so learning a bit more about your. Tank would be useful.

Having recently weathered an outbreak myself, I can say I've successfully eliminated my problems by adding a refugium, a dedicated GFO reactor, and upgrading my CUC. Everyone's tank is different however, and so it would be nice to learn more about yours to help diagnose the problem (and not just the symptom - diatoms).
 
The tank is about a year old. I have an octopus skimmer, sterilization turbo twist, geo-pellets in a reactor, and brightwell gfo in my filter socks. I do 10% water changes weekly with ro/di water with reef crystals. I'm unsure where the silicates are coming from, my filters in the ro/di unit are about 6 months old. I guess from the sand? I have heard that can be a source
 
Normally silicates and diatoms disappear after the tank becomes mature. I would do a water test for phosphates/nitrates in your tank, and also test the rodi water too.
 
The tank used to be connected to a much larger sump with a ton of LR, maybe 70 lbs. The tank is 135 G and now has about a 25 G sump for about 5 months. I feed spectrum pellets, which I thought were supposed to be better than meaty foods as far as po4 and nitrates. I want to buy a hach silicate test kit and see where its at.
 
How much LR do you have now? Additionally, how old is your GFO? If it solidifies it's less useful, and if its too old it does more damage than good. Macro algae is a great way to help as well, if you have space, and like the look, in your display tank, but is more common in a refugium. Do you have a tds meter for your ro/di? Filters and DI medium can be used up quickly if you have particularly bad water.... Don't give up! Once you pin down the source or come up with enough ways to combat the problem, your diatoms should disappear.
 
I know this might be crazy!! Have you thought about removing the filter socks? Also have you tested?

But to be honest!! I think we all get that brown diatom on our glass..
 
So you have tested silicates and they are high? I tested silicates for a while for same reason you are. I find if nitrates and phosphates are very low, silicates and not the issue. Get those both un measureable and I bet they go away. Sand or rock is usual source for these getting in out systems
 
Definitely look at your nitrates and phosphates first, and then re-examine your tanks means of removing or managing them. As Dre said, a certain amount of build up is normal - hence magfloats, and glass cleaning razors, etc.... If you have blooms to deal with, then look into it a little deeper.
 
I have a minimalist landscape (Amano type), so I probably have around 100 to 120 lbs of rock. Not nearly enough live rock, but that's why I went the mechanical route with reactors, skimmers, and sterilization. I don't have a lot of fish, two chromis, one anthia, and one tang. The Brightwell X-Port PO4 GFO is new and been in the tank for around 2 weeks. But, I continually ran Phosban GFO before that, so it was just a switch. I've been using TLF bio-pellets for about 2 months. I need to check my source RODI water and do a thorough water test on my display. I do not own a silicate test kit. Based on the article I posted, it sounds like diatom actually take up nitrates and help with the nitrifying cycle. They use silicate to build their structure and it's the silicates that cause a bloom. Any thoughts?
 
Lil BamBam said:
Have you tested your NO3 & phosphate? Please don't use API :D
Click to expand...

+1 - look into the diatoms food supply before looking into their growth requirements. To make an analogy, nitrates / phosphates are similar to light for coral - eg food... Silicates are similar to bicarbonate - eg building blocks. If a coral isn't growing, lighting is the primary concern, followed by proper water chem. Both are important, but light is the first part of the process. For diatoms, it starts with nitrates and phosphates, then goes onto silicates. When trouble shooting, follow the problem from the start linearly - lets look at nitrates and phosphates before worrying about silicates. If your nitrates and phosphates checkout, then we go on to examine silicates.

To add on to my original post... In response to the article, your situation actually sounds like what is described early in the article - that essentially by limiting silica, you create an environment where diatoms that grow with low levels of silica prevail, leading to particular type of ugly blooms. The article is acutally making a case for dosing silica... Not reducing it.
 
Lil BamBam said:
TKH,

I'm starting to think your a SW Chemist and not a noob like u said you were :thumbup::thumbup:
Click to expand...

Hahaha! If only, no... no..., Even worse than your standard noob, I'm a noob that reads too much! I know just enough to do serious damage, and not enough to realize I really don't know what I'm doing.... lol!
 
Alright, so tested NO3 and it was 0.0 ppm, tested PO4 and it also was 0.0 ppm. I dunno?? And my glass has a layer of diatom. I'm wanting to increase my number of fish but I do not want a dirty tank. Frustrating
 
The other frustrating part about testing is that you may be at close to zero phosphates because the diatoms are consuming them all....

In any case, do you have tds meter for your ro/di, to be absolutely certain it is filtering fully? Additionally, are your filter socks clean? They're similar to any other filtering medium in that they can become too much of a buildup of nasty stuff we want out of the tank. How recently did you do all the changes incidentally (smaller sump, less rock, new gfo)? Perhaps it was too much all at once, so you are just rebounding until it steadies again?

If everything is checking out, you may want to consider adding an actual gfo reactor or a hob-refugium, or something along those lines? Just trying to brain-storm with you!
 
I do not own a tds meter for rodi. I did clean my filter socks about two weeks ago. I did run gfo in a reactor with a slight tumble for about 6 months and I changed media every two months, but still diatom. I've had three other tanks over almost 9 years and never had diatom issues. My current sump setup has been connected for about 6 months.
 
Personally, I'd look into getting a cheap tds meter, just to rest easy knowing its not your water?
 
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