Diatoms

KurtG wrote on 5/15/2007 8:07 AM:

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?



It's a valuable part of the food chain.





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


Then you need to think of your tank as being 6
months old, and it takes 1 year to reach prime. The
more you move things around, the more it has to
readjust, depending on the nature of the move.

And yes, an increase in the stering up of the
substrate will cause an increase of nutrient laden
muck to fertilize the tank. Don't let the idea worry
you, but this change will cause other changes.

For every action, there is a reaction.

Wayne Sallee
Wayne's Pets