night time for algae

[dudeinvb]

ive been having problems with brown diatom outbreak lately, i have some liverock zoa's shrooms 1 tomato clown and 1 coral beauty, 29 gallon tank, 2 x 65 watt 1 actinic 1 10,000k bulbs, i was wondering if leaving the 10,000k bulb off for a day or 2 and just using my actinic for maybe 8 hours so the corals get something would help, im also starting to use distilled water instead of tap for obvious reasons. any othe rsuggestions or maybe i should not do the actinic bulb only for a day or 2.... ideas?/ help??

 

[nanoluvr]

do you have any sort of a CUC (clean up crew)? Theses would be snails, crabs, shrimp, etc... They will get rid of the diatoms. How long has your tank been up and running?

 

[catmel]

Might want to take a look at my thread ( I've been having problems with green algae, but also diatoms)

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f11/still-having-algae-problems-light-qs-112442.html

It gives some things Ive bene doing to help, as well as some other people's suggestions.

Hope it helps!

 

[bawel]

If your tank is new, it's normal to have diatoms outbreak and looking at what u list, you don't seem to have any clean up crews. You should get yourself some Nassarius snails (for your sandbed) and AStrea or Turbo Snails for your glass and rock. And as for lighting you don't leave lights on for a day or two, both lights should be on at the most 7-8hours per day...

 

[Ziggy953]

And as for lighting you don't leave lights on for a day or two, both lights should be on at the most 7-8hours per day...

I think he meant off for a day or two.

Daitoms are something you will see in a new tank and then once in a while after the tank has matured. Adding the clean up crew as suggested is a very good idea specially since you have fish in the tank. Personally I would forgo the turbos for margaritas but that is just a personal preference on my part. Nassarius snails are great and I would add at least 5 large ones and then 5 more down the road. I have about 40 Nassarius in my tank.

What kind of food are you feeding your fish? How often are you doing water changes?

 

[dudeinvb]

i have about 9 red legged hermit crabs, and yes i meant turning my lights off, but leaving the actinic on, recently for the past few days i have started turning down my light cycle from 12 hours to 9 hours, 8-5, i had a large turbo snail in ther and all he did was knock my stuff over and poop extremely large amounts all over my tank, i feed the fish twice daily once a day in the morning some flake food not too much, and about 1/4 to 1/2 a frozen cube of mysis shrimp at night, i had a 10 gallon nano and upgraded to my 29 gallon about 2 months ago. i think that covers all ?'s asked

 

[dudeinvb]

also forgot to add that the brown diatoms have stopped growing on my live rock as much, just the glass for the most part, and anyone think my corals will be ok with just actinic for 8 hours a day for a few days to get rid of the brown diatoms or will they still thrive under this light w/o the 10,000k bulb

 

[Ziggy953]

I would cut the lighting back to 8 hours. Having diatoms on the glass is not uncommon. I have to clean my glass off daily because I can't stand to see anything on it. As long as your water parameters are in check then I would say you are doing just fine and they will burn themselves out. I would get rid of the flake food and switch to pellet.

 

[melosu58]

Supposedly diatoms feed off of silicates. Most tap water has silicates in it.

 

[Ziggy953]

Supposedly diatoms feed off of silicates. Most tap water has silicates in it.

Good point.

 

[austinsdad]

Consider flake food adds to the phosphate level. Also, but I admit I haven't tested it myself, but I've been told frozen mysis or brine is full of phosphates. I rinse all my cubed food in FW. So, just not using tap will not totally prevent the phosphates from entering the tank.