Diatoms

[Holm_Tanks.]

I have some diatoms in my tank and I've learned they will most likely go away by themselves within a few months of setup. I talked to my lfs and she said to increase my fertilizer dosing and decrease my lighting period down to 6 hours a day. Will this help? It sounds like it would make it worse? I've also heard about getting a powerhead and increasing flow.

 

[Utar]

I have a lot to still learn about diatoms, black beard algae , etc myself. I have had to deal with this just recently. One of the things that I have found might be helping me is UV sterilization. Since I have had a really nice canister filter with a built in UV light that I run two hours a day I have seen improvement with algae, diatoms, etc.

You can check amazon for UV lights are maybe someone here can give you a better idea. But as you mentioned it might take care of itself in time as your setup ages.

For now though you need to remove as much of it has physically possible. Take ornaments out and scrub them clean, vacuum the substrate, and clean it off plants if possible. But do not clean your bio-media and sponges in tap water, switch them around in a bucket of aquarium water to help clean these. I have heard some say that using hydrogen peroxide by spraying it on the infected areas, but I don't know anything about that because I have never tried it.

I am helping you the best I can and hopefully some others will come along with better advice.

 

[Wills]

It does seem to be a waiting game with these. They are caused by high silicates which get released by new sand and even the glass rubber and plastic in your equipment. Just keep on top of it lots of big water changes each week and try turning your filter off when scrubbing and doing water changes to limit the spores getting spread around the tank in the flow. Eventually it will get better though

 

[Holm_Tanks.]

Yeah, thanks for the advice! I've been doing a 30-50% water change once a week and removing it manually at the same time. I would like to hear more about the hydrogen peroxide idea. I would also like to clarify on what my lfs said do you think that is gonna help? (Personally I think that increasing fert's and decresing lighting would make it worse.) But im kinda a noob so.

 

[Utar]

If you are absolutely sure it is diatoms and not algae. Cutting back on the lights doesn't effect diatoms, like it does algae. Like Wills was saying that diatoms are silicate based and will probably start going away as the tank matures. But treating it like algae just in case doesn't hurt. In my case I believe my aquarium started out with diatoms which later the real problem was black beard algae. If you cut back on the lights, then cut back on the ferts, that is what I would think be the right way to go.

What kind of fertilizer do you use?

I still think that you might have good luck with a UV light like this one on amazon...Aquariums in Tank UV Submersible Filter Machine

 

[Holm_Tanks.]

So I should cut back on both the light and ferts? And I am quite sure it is diatoms. It is spreading like diatoms, it looks like diatoms, it is rough when I feel it. And I trust the lady at the Lfs she's been in the hobby a long time. I use seachem flourish. For a few weeks, I have either been increasing or decreasing my light schedule to experiment and measure the growth and like you said the light doesn't seem to affect it. And If it is diatoms I could possibly turn up my light schedule and let my plants grow like crazy?

 

[Utar]

I can only tell you from my experience in dealing with diatoms and black beard algae what I did to stop it in my tanks. You have diatoms so really that for me cleared up on its own but my old tank was also hit by black beard algae simultaneously.
Here's what my previous tank looked like after I gave up and let it go, believe me I fought this stuff and could never get rid of it.

I ended up throwing everything out plants and all then started a new tank. Well BBA showed up in my new tank and I attacked it at the beginning by cutting and trimming plants leaves that it was covering. Started using the UV light in my canister filter but more important I stopped using API Leaf Zone and switched to Thrive C for liquid fertilizer. When you look at the image of my new 55g tank you can see the BBA starting on the tops of my Money Wart plants on the right side. Today there is not a trace of BBA in my tank, thank God...lol

 

[Holm_Tanks.]

Hey, I'm sorry You had to start over that's never what I want to hear out of a fellow hobbyist. I hope it's going better for you now and I'm hoping I'll see the diatoms dissapear soon!

 

[Utar]

Hey, I'm sorry You had to start over that's never what I want to hear out of a fellow hobbyist. I hope it's going better for you now and I'm hoping I'll see the diatoms dissapear soon!

That's what we are here for is to learn from each others experiences. I forgot on the previous post to mention that I also changed out the lighting. My old tank I used florescent lighting and in my new tank I used LED lighting. So just in case you do get a bad case of something like BBA, what I did to help me may give you a place to start toward getting rid of it. In my new tank I never had diatoms at all, but I used pea pebbles instead of sand like the old tank.

 

[Holm_Tanks.]

I have a LED light as well. I've never had problems with diatoms in aquariums I've kept over the 4 years I've been in the hobby. But this is my first planted tank, I think the diatoms were on a plant when I bought them and then spread throughout the tank. I didn't notice this until about a month later when I went back to the fish store and saw the exact same diatoms on the same type of plant that I have in my tank. I am using sand so that is probably making it worse. But all that I have heard is that the diatoms will die off by themselves over time.

 

[Holm_Tanks.]

I was also thinking of getting a powerhead to create some more flow and move the water around to eliminate any possible dead spots. Do you know of any that would work well for my 30 gallon planted tank. It is a community tank so I don't want to make the fish unhappy.

 

[Utar]

On my 29 gallon tank ,I have the AquaClear Powerhead 20 and it will works great, I have been using mine for two years now with no problems. You can also get the filter attachment for it that will help catch debris before it goes up into the power head. When mine filter gets dirty, I just refill it with clean ploy-fil it is not hard to do, I have been reusing the same power head filter attachment for two years since I have been using the Power Head. You need to also clean the power head or it will get clogged up.

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[Holm_Tanks.]

Great Thanks!