Diatom? Bloom

[mimiheart]

In what used to be my grow-out for my baby mollies, I now have a brown algae that I'm pretty sure is a diatom outbreak. When the mollies were babies, this was never a problem in that tank. It now homes serpaes and tiger barbs and an ivory snail. The snail goes on the glass at night and managed to move a decorative plant from one side of the tank to the other, but has made no noticeable difference on the brown stuff. I've done regular cleanings on the glass and my water changes, it just keeps coming back. Yesterday I put a live plant that was covered and the barbs had unplanted into my big tank and the mollies and rainbow shark descended on it right away. It was immediately clear.

I'm wondering if I could put the rainbow shark in the smaller tank for a few days to help with the diatoms. It's not really a tank size I would keep him in long-term. I also have cories and a raphael cat, but they seemed less interested in the algae. I'd consider putting a couple of my smaller mollies in there, but I don't trust the barbs, they're jerks.

 

[megi-lin]

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I'm planning on getting ghost shrimp for my diatom issue. No matter how much I change water or scrub down the glass, it just returns and all over the place! I'm embarrassed to take pictures because it's so awful.

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[mimiheart]

Well I'm going to put my rainbow shark in the tank. I'll keep an eye on him for the next few days. He's got hiding places in there. The water changes just aren't doing it.

 

[mimiheart]

Change of plans, cannot catch Bruce. Did find out that someone has had fry in my 40 gallon and they have been very good at hiding, since I had no idea that anyone had dropped fry at all in the past week, but cannot catch Bruce. Grabbed two of my more aggressive and faster males mollies from a third tank. They don't have any fancy fins and may be able to hold their own against the barbs. We'll see.