# Diatoms Forever..



## pantherspawn (Dec 21, 2011)

It's most likely diatoms, if it were cyanobacteria, it would generally be blue green, not red, red is usually in a saltwater environment, not fresh. Also cyanobacteria will smell something fierce. You would smell it In the tank and on your hands after cleaning. Is your tank getting direct sunlight? Heavily planted? Usually diatoms will continue to grow if they tank is getting too much light and nitrates with not enough stem plants to "clean up the water column" also, if you have a high water flow or bubbler in the tank, diatoms usually stay around or come back quicker. Best bet would be to add snails, Oto or Amano shrimp to help keep your tank clean.


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## kimboden (Feb 22, 2013)

Nerite snails and some floating plants like silvinia to suck up some of the nitrates. Or stem plants as suggested. 

Kim


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## Michael M (Sep 20, 2012)

pantherspawn said:


> It's most likely diatoms, if it were cyanobacteria, it would generally be blue green, not red, red is usually in a saltwater environment, not fresh. Also cyanobacteria will smell something fierce. You would smell it In the tank and on your hands after cleaning.


I once had an very mild outbreak of cyanobacteria (blue green slime) on my water sprite. I just removed the infected plant and increased the flow of my tank and it never came back. So yeah I know that stuff stinks and I remember it well. Smelled like an intense wet grass smell to me.



> Is your tank getting direct sunlight? Heavily planted?


No direct sunlight, it's not near a window and I have those really heavy insulating curtains so zero light gets through them. The tank is heavily planted with jungle vals, bacopa monerii, water sprite, java fern, anubias, xmas moss, and some floating duckweed.



> Usually diatoms will continue to grow if they tank is getting too much light and nitrates with not enough stem plants to "clean up the water column" also, if you have a high water flow or bubbler in the tank, diatoms usually stay around or come back quicker. Best bet would be to add snails, Oto or Amano shrimp to help keep your tank clean.


I'd say my flow is adequate, I have an Eheim 2217 with a spray bar. There's no light besides what I've mentioned hitting this tank. I have a lot of stem plants (water sprite and bacopa) and my nitrates usually read 5ppm or 10ppm.

I wish I could add otos, amano shrimp, or even a nerite snails but african clawed frogs would literally eat all of the above. I once added mollies (I was raising them as feeders anyways) since I know they like to graze on diatoms and all six were eaten in one night lol..

The diatoms/algae seems to have cropped up rather quickly on the new driftwood I added.


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## pantherspawn (Dec 21, 2011)

Sounds like you have the same issues I have in one of my tanks.. My puffer tank constantly has diatoms.. Can't add anything to alleviate it cause the puffer will munch on it, just got used to cleaning it when I do water changes.

As you can see.. I haven't done my water change yet this week.. Tank looks like hell cause of diatoms


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## Nightspell (May 22, 2013)

I was plagued by Staghorn and a brown algae, assume it was diatoms. Started dosing ~150% Excel, as I heard it was known to kill Staghorn. Killed all my staghorn and looks like it's killing off the diatoms as well, but I did add some more plants as well... Not sure if it would be safe with your frogs, though...


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## Michael M (Sep 20, 2012)

Nightspell said:


> I was plagued by Staghorn and a brown algae, assume it was diatoms. Started dosing ~150% Excel, as I heard it was known to kill Staghorn. Killed all my staghorn and looks like it's killing off the diatoms as well, but I did add some more plants as well... Not sure if it would be safe with your frogs, though...


Yeah if I poisoned my poor frogs to make the tank a little prettier I'd feel rather terrible. I was hoping for a non-chemical resolution.


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## Michael M (Sep 20, 2012)

I used to have a 36" Ray2 but I am using it on another tank now (half the fixture blew out so I put it on a 20G High). I figured since the Ray2 gave me algae issues (diatoms) I bought the Current Satellite LED+ but when I put it on my 40B I was worried it may not be enough light for my tank.

Maybe I am wrong and I need lower light than the 24" Ray2+Current Satellite LED+ are giving me?

Clean out the tank and use only the Current Satellite LED+ maybe? Would ~28 PAR @ 18" be enough?


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## pantherspawn (Dec 21, 2011)

Just a theory, but i believe led lights are more susceptible to diatoms than t5ho. Could be wrong, but i know for some reason, my led tanks are the only ones with major diatoms...


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## Michael M (Sep 20, 2012)

pantherspawn said:


> Just a theory, but i believe led lights are more susceptible to diatoms than t5ho. Could be wrong, but i know for some reason, my led tanks are the only ones with major diatoms...


I run LEDs on my other tank but it has zero diatoms, it does have a hair algae issue though lol..


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## norbot (Jan 5, 2013)

Certainly don't want to steer you in the wrong direction and I'll be the first to admit I have no idea, but I can say that I had diatoms in my 20g bad. So bad I nearly gave up, it smothered everything

After 4 months of reading "oh it'll just go away", I happened to read this, where it says low light can cause diatoms. It could have been a million other things but it seemed that as soon as I added t5ho, the diatoms finally left.

I've reasoned that general lack of photosynthetic activity from plants _maybe_ could allow diatoms a foothold, but if you've run out of other options, it's something to consider


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## Michael M (Sep 20, 2012)

norbot said:


> Certainly don't want to steer you in the wrong direction and I'll be the first to admit I have no idea, but I can say that I had diatoms in my 20g bad. So bad I nearly gave up, it smothered everything
> 
> After 4 months of reading "oh it'll just go away", I happened to read this, where it says low light can cause diatoms. It could have been a million other things but it seemed that as soon as I added t5ho, the diatoms finally left.
> 
> I've reasoned that general lack of photosynthetic activity from plants _maybe_ could allow diatoms a foothold, but if you've run out of other options, it's something to consider


Yeah I've read that low light can cause diatoms but I don't think I have low light though. My plant growth is actually pretty good though, my tank contains all easy to grow plants like water sprite and valisineria and I just took out a ton of plants a month or so ago because the tank becomes a jungle after 6 months.

Going off the PAR values I've found the 36" Current Satellite LED+ is about 28 PAR @ 18" (with sand I'd figure 15 inches from light to substrate) lighting the front of my tank (less plant density) and the Finnex Ray2 24" is 39 PAR @ 18".

If I had to guess the total PAR of my tank is 35-40 @ 18" if you combine both lights? I believe that is medium light?

I think I may have excess silicates in my water but I am not sure what the source is, yet. It could be the tap but if it's only affecting one tank, probably not.

My substrate is caribsea moonlight white sand, has anyone ever used this sand and had diatom issues? Possibly this substrate leeches silicates. I have two other tanks and neither have diatoms and this is my only tank with caribsea moonlight.

I do have a 10g tank with no substrate which I am using to 'grow out' a small african clawed frog so he can be placed in my 40B once he's not large enough to be cannibalized (ugh). I bring this up because I notice this tank appears to be showing some diatom growth.

It's a new tank though so that may be the issue, but it made me think maybe the food I feed my frogs may contain something that causes diatoms. I feed earthworms and reptomin mostly (also wet/frozen foods but I feed these to my fish tanks as well so I rule these out).

Here's my weird theory on earthworms though, they're cultured in humus, the frogs eat the earthworms, their guts contain humus and they poop it out into the tank. So basically the humus goes through the digestive tract of the frogs and then gets into the water column of my tank, creating a possible excess silicate source (assuming humus contains silicates I haven't confirmed this).

Again that is perhaps a crazy theory. I guess a good question is, has anyone here fed earthworms to large predatory fish and gotten diatom blooms?


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## pantherspawn (Dec 21, 2011)

I don't know about hummus and earthworms, but i do use carb sea moonlight and tahitian moon sand.. Don't have a problem with the moonlight but the tahitian moon is what's in my puffer tank with the led. No led on the moonlight. So who know. Haha


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## mnemenoi (May 28, 2012)

We had a Tanganyikan tank with that sand and was plagued by diatoms (very low light), but added a micron filter, dosed Excel, and were eventually able to eliminate the issue. Good luck!!!


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## Flear (Jul 10, 2013)

i'm skipping ahead, ... blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) is a type of bacteria, it is not absolute that it's going to have a distinct color and may very well range the colors of the rainbow


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## Michael M (Sep 20, 2012)

Flear said:


> i'm skipping ahead, ... blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) is a type of bacteria, it is not absolute that it's going to have a distinct color and may very well range the colors of the rainbow


I've only had obvious cyanobacteria in this tank once. It was when I used to turn my spray bar against the glass to reduce flow in my tank because clawed frogs prefer stagnant water. I learned my lesson on this because I started to get BBA and I noticed some BGA (the blue-green type) growing on a piece of driftwood and on the roots of one of my floating water sprite plants.

I removed the driftwood and I removed the infected plants and reoriented my spray bar to provide flow to my tank again, did a 50% water change (I do 25% weekly normally) both never came back after that.

I'm not ruling out cyanobacteria here, the only thing that makes me doubt it is cyano is the consistency of it, it's not really a slime. When I try to remove it, it tends to go into the water column and stick back to the glass again. I thought cyano was more of a slimy smelly film?


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## Flear (Jul 10, 2013)

for my tank, to ensure water is not stagnant i use a bubble want at one end of the tank, there's just enough gentle water flow to prevent the water from becoming stagnant

it's sticking to the glass ?, i assume your saying it comes off the glass easily, ... green dust algae, not truely an algae, but another bacteria, ... i've heard (& had personal experience that agrees with) removing this algae is best done by ignoring it, ... let it grow on the glass, it grows it gets thicker, it gets ugly, it falls off and is no more,

it was described as a means of sounding like if left alone for long enough it takes care of itself.

as you've said it looks like you've been dealing with this issue for a year, ... i could only guess somewhere in there you've left it to sit out of frustration or to give it a try and it still persists.

sure it's a guess on my part, a suggestion if you haven't, ... after that i am totally out of ideas


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## MarkM (Sep 16, 2012)

*My Experience*

I had a heck of a time getting my lighting correct over a several year period. I was attempting to get plants to grow. There is so much conflicting information and I followed too much of it. I started with 2xT8s in my 50. Upgraded to 2xT5HO. Removed 1 T5HO bulb. Finally bought a par meter. Replaced the T5HO bulb with 2 x T5NO bulbs. Finally found that 1 x T5NO bulb gave me a par reading in the middle of the low light range. 

A week after I made the last change I had diatom algae everywhere, plants, glass, rocks, wood, looked bad and took a lot to clean. Added 4 x Otos and was amazed as they cleaned it up in less than a week.

Have a 120 starting now. I have a LED fixture with a dimmer. I currently have it adjusted to net 75% of low light range. Too soon to tell but I am hoping that I can fine tune the light to reduce diatoms and algae. But, I will add a few Otos along with other stock when the tank is cycled. Don't know what to do with your frog wanting to eat the Otos.


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## Flear (Jul 10, 2013)

never thought of that, ... your right, never forget the simple stuff for the simple 'algaes', algae eaters


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## Michael M (Sep 20, 2012)

Flear said:


> never thought of that, ... your right, never forget the simple stuff for the simple 'algaes', algae eaters


I would gladly add otos to my tank if I could but the second they hit the water my clawed frogs would be all over them and eaten within 5 minutes tops. They consider anything placed in the tank food lol..

I took an algae brush to my tank this weekend and did a 50% water change. I scrubbed off or removed any diatom laced rocks I found. The back wall of my tank was really thick in diatoms and I wonder if it was 'breeding' more diatoms?

Either way, the tank is looking good now, I haven't noticed any diatoms growing back yet. The back wall of diatoms was literally untouched for 8 months or more so maybe I just needed to man up and manually remove it.


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