Losing the battle against Diatoms...HELP!!!

[Magnus]

So I have a small 10 gallon tank set up, and it's been up and running for about 6 months now. About 2 months ago, I started getting this verdant green algae growing. I didn't think much of it, until it really started to spread.

A short time later, this purple algae also started to grow and spread. Both resemble thin layers of slime, and both seem to have gasses that bubble forth from them, causing it to slightly lift in some spots.

What can I do to get rid of this stuff? I'm definately not overfeeding the tank...but I've already tried to manually remove it once and it was very hard.

 

[Mrc8858]

That's a really bad case of cyano. How much flow do you have in your tank and do you use Ro/Di water?

 

[Keithhjs]

Use ro/di water, cut down feeding, get a good cuc, and run gfo in a reactor.

 

[Magnus]

R/O is all I use...flow is just the little pump that came with the 10 gal. Keith, what is cuc, and gfo?

 

[spoonman]

You need more flow. CUC is clean up crew (snail, crabs....etc) and granular ferric oxide.

 

[Magnus]

Ah, gotcha. My clean up crew is as follows...2 turbo snails, one gorrila crab, 6 hermit crabs, and a really cool bunch of what I think are mysis shrimp.

I'll see about attaching a new pump, or even a small power head.

The "gfc" I can get from my saltwater pet store?

 

[Keithhjs]

You should be able to get gfo there. It's best run in a reactor but some people use it in a Canister or sump or hob too. It works best when there is good flow for it.

 

[Magnus]

Thanks a lot guys. I appreciate your help!!!

 

[MikeYQM]

Siphon out what's in there first. Take out your rocks & scrub them in a bucket of salt water if you need to

 

[Magnus]

3 of the rocks are partially buried in the gravel...should I just try and leave them in and scrub them as best I can? What I did before was use a vacuum to suck up the cyano...worked fairly well.