do you guys scrape your aquarium for brown diatom every week?

[dragonfisher33]

so been reefing for almost a year now and my question to you experienced reefers is do you guys scrape your aquarium for diatom every week? or at least just the front of the aquarium? the reason why i'm asking is that my aquarium would have patches of brown diatoms almost every week. my maintenance routine for scraping is every monday/tuesday. as soon as i scrape these brown patches off, they will come back in a week. these patches are not an issue and they're not "thick" when you compare them to my initial cycling process but just annoying the fact that i have to do it every week. or is there something that i'm missing when it comes to fine-tuning my tank?

 

[mrvincent]

Yes, aquarium glasses must be scrubbed with a sponge every weeks to remove brown diatoms of it, or it will look "dirty tank".

In new setups, there's more diatoms, as the new silicon release sillicates in the water column. I had it for the first three month, same problem. Now I only clean my front glass, there's almost no diatoms growing.

Keep good water changes, weekly 50% can remove PO4 and sillicates that diatoms like.

 

[dragonfisher33]

i should add that i have more than 30x (almost 40x) turn over ratio with my three koralias. in addition i have a HOB with purigen just to have more flow. the skimmer is not the best (SeaClone 100) but it does the work for now. corals range from zoa to lps to a couple sps. two clowns, two bta, three/four shrimps, one royal gramma, one pearly jawfish, some cuc, and a tail spot blenny (which i got initially to control the diatom). all in a 29gal regular tank. feeding carefully sometimes twice a day or sometimes once every two days depending on the portion size and the type of food. but i should say that everything is eating within minutes.

 

[dragonfisher33]

Yes, aquarium glasses must be scrubbed with a sponge every weeks to remove brown diatoms of it, or it will look "dirty tank".

In new setups, there's more diatoms, as the new silicon release sillicates in the water column. I had it for the first three month, same problem. Now I only clean my front glass, there's almost no diatoms growing.

Keep good water changes, weekly 50% can remove PO4 and sillicates that diatoms like.

i don't use sponge. i use the blade of this product from Petco. i'm not sure if there's a difference when it comes to the result.
Petco Multi-Functional Tool for Glass Aquariums at PETCO

 

[mrvincent]

i don't use sponge. i use the blade of this product from Petco. i'm not sure if there's a difference when it comes to the result.
Petco Multi-Functional Tool for Glass Aquariums at PETCO

Ah I tough we were in freshwater section. Anyway, in reef tanks, new setups are always covered by diatoms, it should lower over time... Do you make your water changes with RODI water ?

 

[mrvincent]

Just use a sponge... This blade is for removing hard to scrub algae like coralline if you don't like it on the glass.. Good to remove green spots in fresh/saltwater tanks.

I use a dollarstore yellow sponge with a green scrubbing layer, it work well in my fresh and saltwater. Diatoms are easy-to-remove algaes.

 

[dragonfisher33]

Ah I tough we were in freshwater section. Anyway, in reef tanks, new setups are always covered by diatoms, it should lower over time... Do you make your water changes with RODI water ?

yes, i use ro/di water with 0tds and mix with kent reef crystal.

 

[mrvincent]

yes, i use ro/di water with 0tds and mix with kent reef crystal.

It should go away by itself. In my case, after 5-6 days diatoms show again after cleaning, my tank is 2 month old. I think it's because of sillicates, but my diatoms spike seems to lower over time. The firsts weeks it was horrible.

 

[mrvincent]

yes, i use ro/di water with 0tds and mix with kent reef crystal.

You must consider the new live rock curing process release a lot of nutrients for algae on the firsts weeks too. I had huge green hair algae problems too, now I can feed as I want and no more problems. Coralline starting to replace algae.

I added dead white rocks too, and they're covered by diatoms, I think this helped, as diatoms grow on the rocks instead the glass.

 

[dragonfisher33]

You must consider the new live rock curing process release a lot of nutrients for algae on the firsts weeks too. I had huge green hair algae problems too, now I can feed as I want and no more problems. Coralline starting to replace algae.

well except the fact that the tank has been running for almost a year now. i'm not sure where my routine could go wrong when it comes to keeping up with my tank. my light is a quad T5HO with ~9hrs of photoperiod.

 

[mrvincent]

well except the fact that the tank has been running for almost a year now. i'm not sure where my routine could go wrong when it comes to keeping up with my tank. my light is a quad T5HO with ~9hrs of photoperiod.

Woops, maybe there's an issue somewhere else... Do you overfeed ? Maybe the food you dose is full of PO4 ?

Do you want to try carbon dosing (vodka) for few weeks ? I only have 2 month experience in reef aquas, and a lot of researchs in mind. I tried vodka dosing for three weeks, then stopped, as my algae problems is solved and coraline start to take place... The problem with carbon dosing is that remove too much nutrients from the water colum, so it slow the coral growth...


Do you have a good NO3/PO4 test kit ? (I mean not API)
Do you have cleaning crew ?

 

[dragonfisher33]

Woops, maybe there's an issue somewhere else... Do you overfeed ? Maybe the food you dose is full of PO4 ?

Do you want to try carbon dosing (vodka) for few weeks ? I only have 2 month experience in reef aquas, and a lot of researchs in mind. I tried vodka dosing for three weeks, then stopped, as my algae problems is solved and coraline start to take place... The problem with carbon dosing is that remove too much nutrients from the water colum, so it slow the coral growth...

Do you have a good NO3/PO4 test kit ? (I mean not API)
Do you have cleaning crew ?

i believe i don't feed as most of the food is eaten within minutes. i don't dose because this should be a entry level tank where i keep the maintenance to a bare minimum. i do have a handful of clean up crews (snails and hermits), two pistol shrimps, and one cleaner shrimp (the shrimps are thieves let me tell you).

 

[mrvincent]

Vodka dosing require daily dosing without forgetting it one day, it require precise mesurement of each carbon doses and a journal that should be kept updated each day.

Require a good skimmer too...

 

[bribo12]

You don't need to vodka dose to stop diatoms. I get a light coating of algae on my glass every week and it has to be scrapped. IMO it's just part of the hobby

 

[dragonfisher33]

You don't need to vodka dose to stop diatoms. I get a light coating of algae on my glass every week and it has to be scrapped. IMO it's just part of the hobby

good to know. i just want to know that i'm not alone in this.