silicate test results are in!! (diatoms)

[Gazingatstars12]

For anyone following my previous thread, I decided to start a new one instead of constantly bumping the old back up.

For those of you who weren't.... I've recently gone through several issues in my tank that resulted me changing out filters and such and the one problem left after a mini cycle and cloudy water is diatoms

Tap water tested 0 for phosphates so I bought a silicate test kit and got 2ppm in the tap. I looked at the box and noticed that it was expired so I got a refund and ordered a new one. It came today and after testing 3 times I got about 8ppm I think

I was doing a lot of water changes during the mini cycle and that's when the diatoms popped up. Is 8ppm sufficient for a sustained diatom bloom? Or will they die off eventually since I went back to wc every 5 days or so?

I'm going to test the tank later tonite when I get home from passover and see if that's any different

I do have some media that supposedly absorbs phosphates and silicates sitting in the Amazon box and am not sure whether or not to put it in the filter. I wanna get the opinions on that from you guys before I make any decisions

I have seachem purigen, seachem phosguard , and Boyd enterprises chemipure elite

 

[Supa Belle]

The diatoms will die off once all the silicate is gone.

 

[Gazingatstars12]

But every time I do a pwc I'm dumping about 2-3ppm overall back into the tank. Is 2-3ppm low enough to keep them from getting out of control?

 

[Supa Belle]

I'd invest in an RO unit I got one for about $80 at petsmart

 

[phin]

For continual removal of silicates I would use the chemi-pure elite. You can add phosguard in there, but I don't think it will work as long as chemi-pure elite will at removing silicates. It may, and adding both wouldn't hurt. Purigen is not going to remove silicates.

I don't know what you spent on those three products (you can get them for a good deal online) but if I were to buy those at local or chain stores in town, I could spend $60+tax. An RO unit might be a good investment. What size is your tank? perhaps just doing changes with RODI water would be more economical.

 

[Gazingatstars12]

It wasnt much. Maybe 30 bucks for everything on amazon. Within the next six months I'm moving into a different part of my house nd will be setting up a much larger tank so will probably end up getting an ro unit for that one. The 20 gallon I have now is a temporary thing

 

[phin]

Throw the Chemipure Elite in there and but try and use dilute your tap water with RO as often as you can when you do water changes.