Diatoms

[this guy]

Ahhh. I have loacated some golden algea of some sort n most of my live rock. I presume they are diatoms.

What should I do?

Is this normal?

Oh and by the way will be returning my toadstool coral as it is not doing very well

 

[Navarre]

The tank is still very new and this is all part of the normal cycle. Diatoms feed upon silicates and these reside in new tanks. Once the diatoms have used these silicates up then it will dissapear. As long as you are using RO water than there should not be any moe silicates being added.

Sorry to hear bout the mushroom polyps. What are the water peramters? lighting might be an issue as well?

 

[this guy]

um i didnt use ro water- just simple tap water dechlorinated woops!

 

[Navarre]

eek!

Then i would run some rowaphos at the very least. The silicates will get used up from the tap water but if you use tap water again then you are likely to have a continual algea growth (depending on how good your tap water is)

 

[leon]

ive got algea in mine, was the green stuff all over the glass at first but the snails got rid of that, now its a brown stuff thats covering all the sand rock and even the snails, plus little bits of a redish/brown hair/stringy algea on some of the rock and some small areas of the glass. will these go eventually, or do i need to do something?

 

[leon]

ive got algea in mine, was the green stuff all over the glass at first but the snails got rid of that, now its a brown stuff thats covering all the sand rock and even the snails, plus little bits of a redish/brown hair/stringy algea on some of the rock and some small areas of the glass. will these go eventually, or do i need to do something?

 

[leon]

EH??? POSTED TWICE )

 

[Navarre]

The brown stuff is Diatoms and the red stuff is Cyano (its actually a bacteria and not an algae).

Both are feeding on nutirent rich water. This is usually normal in a new tank as the tank is trying to stabalise. Howver if you keep adding tap water then you may well be feeding the tank with more nutrients and thismeans getting rid of the algae will be very hard indeed.

You could try introducing some macro algae to outcompete the nusance algae. Start using Ro water as this will make an enourmous difference. Get some Rowaphos also, this will help remove phosphates and this is a major cause of algae outbreaks alongside high nitrates.

 

[leon]

ive only ever used R/O water!, have loads of culerpa in sump, is that micro algea?

 

[leon]

did these test last sunday, results are

S.G - 1.025
PH - 8.2
Ammonia - 0mg/l
Nitrite - 0mg/l
Nitrate - 0mg/l
KH - 90mg/l
Fe (non cheleted) - 0mg/l
Fe (cheleted) -betweem 0 - 0.25mg/l
PO4 - 460mg/l

i must admit that i dont know what some of these results mean! )

 

[Navarre]

Caulerpa is a form of Macro algae yes.

Do a phosphate test but this time, take the water sample from right next to the nusance algae. Many people tests for nitrates or phosphates in the tank and get a low reading. However if you check th water right next to the algae then you may well find the readings are much higher than that.

Of course you may not have this at all and then we should look at alternatives

 

[leon]

will do that tomorrow then, cheers!

 

[this guy]

I am using rowa phos thank god. How am I able to purchase something to get ro water and what is the price (usualy)

 

[J-Money]

i don't know where you are at, but i got a 110gpd R/O unit off e-bay for $100 after shipping. But be aware, lol, they apparently don't pump that well with just regular household pressure (Thanks Navarre) and mine only does about 3gph. Let me just say this, I've been filling my tank since 3:00pm Wednesday and it is now 7:30pm Friday Finally it's almost done though