# Diatoms will not go away!



## Crystalview (Aug 10, 2007)

Aren't diatoms a pain. I had mine for 4 months and then I changed the light and back they came. 
New tank syndrome shows up about 2-6 months after set up for most of us. It is all the adjusting the brings the problem on. I got nerite snails and Oto's and gave my tank time. I wiped what I could, kept the filter rinsed out (not clean), and did 50% water changes. I use EI on my tank and did not change that. I don't have CO2 but I have read a higher rate could help. When I had the problem I read all I could. Time is the hardest thing to wait on. It looked so bad. I would remove my plants and wiped them off. One of the plants l thought would never come back it look all brown and gross. I wiped of what I could and it did die but all the rest of my plants came back. I did vac the substrate very well for mulm build up and possible left over food, that seemed to help also. I wish you patients. :bounce: It will go away.


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## roccov12345 (Apr 9, 2009)

cruelfeline said:


> Hey all,
> 
> So I've had my tank running for a couple of months. It's a 10 gallon tank, DIY CO2 fed into an Elite Mini, three 27watt CF bulbs in those dome-shaped clamp fixtures you can get at a hardware store. Substrate is Schultz Aquasoil. Fertilization is EI dosing.
> 
> ...



What dosing regiment are you using for ferts? Are you dosing phosphorus? We're both in NY, I'm quite a whiles from you but my tap is loaded with phosphates. I stopped dosing phosphates on the EI method and I've been all good ever since. I went through the same issues as you. I still notice an outbreak once in a while on my 5.5 when I A) do a major rescape, combined with consistent fert dosing. I noticed if I layoff the heavy fertilization until the plants become stabilized after a few weeks it avoids the brown plague. Just some ideas..... good luck!


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## bigstick120 (May 23, 2005)

Get yourself some otto cats


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## thief (Jan 12, 2008)

All is good advice. But I Really think running a Elite Mini on a 10 gallon tank is the problem! Filtration and circulation place a key factor in plants growth as it distributes the nutrients evenly around the tank. I suggest upgrade to a larger filter!


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## Rob in Puyallup (Jul 2, 2009)

I'm guessing that 'diatoms' is that brownish algae on the glass and plants leaves of my newly set up 29 gallon... they really showed up when I increased the CO2 in my tank for some reason...


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## PDX-PLT (Feb 14, 2007)

Get a BN Pleco (just one). They love that stuff.


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## SvenBoogie (Jul 3, 2009)

Three 27 watts on a 10g?


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## Crystalview (Aug 10, 2007)

It is all about balance. 

I did not notice your elite mini filter. I had it on a 10g and did not like it's performance. Not enough circulation for me or a big enough bio load for what I had in the tank.


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## cruelfeline (Mar 19, 2008)

Oh! I only use the Elite Mini for CO2 injection. For filtration I have a Whisper 10. For flow, I use a Rio powerhead. There's plenty of flow; if something's not firmly in the substrate, it blows around easy :bounce:.

LMAO; nope, not just a little Elite Mini for filtration .

Dosing-wise, yes, I do dose phosphorus. You think maybe that's the problem? I'm over in Ithaca, by Cayuga lake. Can't seem to find water quality reports for around here regarding the phosphorus, but is that a strong possibility? If so, I'll stop dosing that.

The reason I have 3 27watts is because they're CF bulbs; my understanding was that they have a lot of restrike and are not very efficient. Therefore, I use three of them. That, and I thought the watts per gallon rule doesn't work too well on smaller tanks, and that you ahve to use more wattage on them to achieve good results. That's why. It actually worked a bit: when I had just two bulbs, my plants were okay and I kept failing to grow HC. Now, even though everything is covered in brown muck, my HC is finally taking and everything pearls!

BTW, even when I had less light, I still had this problem. That leads me to believe I'm dosing something wrong. I know it's about balance; I just don't really know how to easily figure out what's out of balance :icon_conf. 

The only thing I don't think it is is CO2; my DC is totally yellow, and the fish often have a hard time without an airstone. Even with one, they are sometimes sluggish and gasping in the mornings. CO2 is one thing I've always been paranoid about (because of the BBA horror stories), so I've really tried to step up my yeast recipe and my diffusion to make it work. According to my DC and my fish, it does.

Thanks for all the suggestions, guys! I'm really trying to fix this; it has been such a problem for sooooo long now! I'm almost wishing for BBA, or hair algae, or something other than this brown sludge that covers everything and makes it impossible to see my tank. A change of scenery, at least!

CF


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## jart (Jan 17, 2003)

There was a post a while back by Homer Simpson regarding diatom eradication that I found really helpful. It shouldn't be too hard to find.
I tried adding oto cats along with three nerite snails (72 gallon)... they helped swing the balance against the diatoms and they never came back. Oh, and a BNP 

Edit: http://www.plantedtank.net/forums/algae/77159-diataoms-3-month-old-tank.html


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## captain_bu (Oct 20, 2007)

PDX-PLT said:


> Get a BN Pleco (just one). They love that stuff.


Not mine.


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## roccov12345 (Apr 9, 2009)

cruelfeline said:


> Oh! I only use the Elite Mini for CO2 injection. For filtration I have a Whisper 10. For flow, I use a Rio powerhead. There's plenty of flow; if something's not firmly in the substrate, it blows around easy :bounce:.
> 
> LMAO; nope, not just a little Elite Mini for filtration .
> 
> ...


Phosphorus could possibly be your answer. I know for myself anyway, I was consistently having issues with diatoms, I don't think as bad as you are, but enough that I wasn't getting the results that I wanted. It didn't make a difference if the tank was 2 weeks old or 7 months old. It would consistently resurface after large water changes. I was dosing the EI method with phosphates. I couldn't figure it out for the life of me until someone else on another forum mentioned to try it. What do you know. I stop dosing phos. all together and I've yet to have another major outbreak. I bought a phos. test kit just out of curiosity and my tap water was loaded. The readings were highest on the seachem test label. Always a possibility.......

I say, kill your phos dosing for a bit, clean up as much of the nasty brown stuff that you can, and monitor what happens......

I had read somewhere that the diatoms feed off nitrates, phos and are actuated by high silicate levels. Your tap may be super high with silicate contents but for some reason eliminating as much phos from the water column as possible battled back my issue...


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## talontsiawd (Oct 19, 2008)

I still think 27 watts x3 is overkill. I have 20 watts over my 10 right now but had 40 before that and I could grow pretty light demanding plants. Even if your lights are putting out half of what they should, I would still go down to two. Or, set one up for a noon burst. I have alot of light on my 29 and I didnt' have a proper timer at first for a noon burst. In 2 days, my algae was pretty bad. As soon as I put my 3rd light on a timer, I have been good (until this week, have a thread lol).

The main thing is just experimenting. Obviously people before you have been successful and take what they learned seriously. On the flip side, find out what works for you too. There are so many variables and every tank will be different. Once you sort it out, you have a senerio that works for you (until you mess up lol) and know what your tank likes.


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## cruelfeline (Mar 19, 2008)

I tried 2x20watt CFL, then 2x27watt CFL. HC just wouldn't grow for me.

Added an extra bulb, and while the tank is by no means gorgeous, the HC is actually putting out new leaves! It's the first time I've seen it do that :thumbsup:.

So I'm going to stick with three, at least until the HC has a foothold. Either way, I don't think it is causing the diatoms; I've always had that problem, even with lower lighting.

I'll definitely stop dosing phos. after my next WC!

Thanks, 
CF


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## manifresh006 (May 8, 2007)

I stopped adding Tap water bought a R/O system and it helped a lot they still haven't came back they can be expensive so now i just get Water from the watermill LOL

Seems silly but heck it WORKS i do around 10-15g change every other week instead of every week


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## Dmaaaaax (Feb 3, 2009)

Yeah phosphates and silicates in the tap water can be your problem. I stopped dosing phosphates because in the summer time the city water seems to have more phospates. I was getting almost 1ppm reading....and dosing is around 0.1ppm.

I am considering an RO setup to completely get rid of this and silicates.


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