Diatoms

Add Homonym wrote:
rtk wrote:
I've developed a nasty case of brownies. I think it's just a
coincidence that I opened a new bag of salt, same company. No new
anything in the tank. I tried an inch of fine sand on top of the old,
but that didn't stop anything. I change 6 gallons of water per week
from the 55 gallon tank. Here's a pic with a few details:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/...l****erID.html

I'd appreciate any suggestions. It is seriously ugly.

rtk

Just add a small conch or two and stop worrying as to the why.

The conch will make short work of diatoms on sand. Problem solved.

If I had to guess as to what is going on... there must be SOME new
source of nutrients that the diatoms are blooming from - you may want to
test your phospate levels, or just try some phosban or other iron
hydroxide based filter media as see if it helps. Could be organic
matter? Is your skimmer clean? What do you have for cleanup crew for the
sand? (I don't see ANYTHING in the way of sand cleaners on the link you
gave) I am thinking that you simply have to much organic matter trapped
in your sand bed. Which is not bad in and of itself...


Normally Diatom blooms come from Silca. And your water source is
normally the main source of diatoms. Are you using RO/DI water? If not
I would be willing to bet that you have silca in your water source and
that is causing the diatom bloom.

Also adding that inch of fine sand could have released some silca into
the tank also, if it was added before the bloom I would say it was the
source, but with it being added after the bloom it could not have caused
the initial bloom.

Kim