I recently have a breakout of diatoms. It is a brown dusty algae over the rock and sand of my tank. My tank has been setup for about 4 months now. I recently start adding some more live rock and some more coral (approximately 2 weeks ago). I also started using a Microbe-Lift, which is a bateria that is used to break down organic waste and matter. It also helps with the reduction of nitrates. My ammonia also went to .25, which I am not sure if that is related to the Microbe-Lift. Can someone please advise if this is normal and/or what I can do to fix the problem.
Dusty Brown Algae (Diatoms)
- Thread starter brlaskowski
- Start date
Well if your adding living critters (live rock/corals) you will have more organic wastes, and since the addition of nitrifying bateria (microbe-lift) your ammonia goes down, but your nitrites and nitrates go up, which would more then likely result in a algea blume due to the additional plant food.
So yes it is normal, I have a few suggestions, first test your nitrate/nitrite and phosphate levels and if they are high then that is the cause of algea blume (which it should be as I haven't heard of any other reason).
So then your options are to do some big water changes to drop their levels down, and/or add some good macro algeas to your fuge or sump or even your main display (main display with caution as they can become plague levels of growth) and trim them on a regular basis (when they double in size for example) the macros/water changes will drop the amount of food that the diatoms can use, and therefore the diatioms will disapear slowly.
Another option in addition to the water changes is to add an algea scrubber, which is basicaly the same as adding macros but is a system designed purely for reducing disolved organics from the water by making algea growth more favourable in your sump then your main display, but again you have to remove large portions of the algea on a regular basis.
I hope this can help.
So yes it is normal, I have a few suggestions, first test your nitrate/nitrite and phosphate levels and if they are high then that is the cause of algea blume (which it should be as I haven't heard of any other reason).
So then your options are to do some big water changes to drop their levels down, and/or add some good macro algeas to your fuge or sump or even your main display (main display with caution as they can become plague levels of growth) and trim them on a regular basis (when they double in size for example) the macros/water changes will drop the amount of food that the diatoms can use, and therefore the diatioms will disapear slowly.
Another option in addition to the water changes is to add an algea scrubber, which is basicaly the same as adding macros but is a system designed purely for reducing disolved organics from the water by making algea growth more favourable in your sump then your main display, but again you have to remove large portions of the algea on a regular basis.
I hope this can help.
the outbreak is normal with the addition of live rock nothing to worry about however, hopefully you have enough snail's to eat it all and not have it grow out of control
mr.reef24
mr.reef24