Wayne Sallee wrote:
But really, you should not have a problem with diatoms other than the
fact that it will grow on your front glass, and your front glass has to
be cleaned off.

Whenever diatoms kick up, my ritteri seems to become very unhappy
shortly after that. Perhaps it has more to do with something rotting in
the aquarium, but usually when I see diatoms, I hit the panic button and
start searching for the cause.

In the past, I've ignored the diatoms only to find a gelatinous filter
sponge in my pump or similar.


I've even deliberately added potassium silicate to my
reef tanks, to encourage diatoms, and never had any problems with
diatoms. Things usually balance out soon.

Okay, I give up. Why do you encourage diatoms?


I'd say that there's something else wrong besides silicates. Getting a
good RO might help.

Yeah, the municipal water here really sucks and comes from a well. I've
been thinking about running a pre-filter RO just to take a first pass at
removing the crud. My TDS is still 0.


How long have you had your tank? Any recent moves or major changes?

9 months, but only 6 months of that had decent lighting. No recent
changes other then to change the phosphate reactor media which knocked
out the diatoms for about a week. I did start doing a weekly 5 gallon
water change instead of the monthly 30.

Oh, and I did move some rocks around a week ago and again this morning.
My blenny has been tunneling underneath, so some of my rock
formations have become unstable. Maybe that's it.

--Kurt