Diatom removal strategy.

[Lohoyan]

My 66G has tons of reddish brown algae that forms on the glass and plants. It cleans of the glass easily but it would take days to clean it off all the plant leaves. I did a huge clean today of all the glass and ornaments and driftwood and will do WC tommorow but how cam I clean the plants. I'm thinking of removing all the plants and swishing them in chlorinated tap water for a while and then replanting them. My theory being that the chlorine will kill the diatoms but won't hurt the plants. They look really bad all covered in brown stuff and after the leaf is covered for a while of course it dies. I read that diatoms like silica and that my Eco complete is probably the source of it.

I had big plans for this tank and so far its been complete rubbish! The only thing that's left is wisteria and hygro. My big bulldozer goldfish are outside now in the pond and i got some dry ferts the other day so I'm hoping I can turn this tank around sometime soon.

 

[Homer8]

IME nerites eat diatoms and do a really good job of cleaning it up. Do you have sand?

 

[Zevyn]

Get some Otto's. You can supplement their diet after it's all gone with blanched zucchini.

 

[aqua_chem]

Just remove it with your hands or a toothbrush. It's not as time consuming as you think. I wouldn't recommend getting any livestock to fix an extremely temporary problem like diatoms.

 

[Lohoyan]

Thanks for the help everyone. I've never seen Ottos in my lfs but they could bring them in for me. But would they clean the diatoms off the leaves? Somehow I doubt it. Concerning nerites, I've got some now in my 10G that snuck in on some plants but so far they don't look like the big nice looking type. I think they are more like the small annoying ones that try to take over your whole tank. Never had any before so not sure. Don't really want to add them into another tank just yet.

Well I continued the clean out of the 66G and soaked the plants in tap water like was planning. They look a little better, replanted the whole tank. I'm hoping that I'll have set back the diatoms and somehow broken their cycle. Continuing to dose KNO3 a little bit each day. Really have no idea what I'm doing on that front, lol.

 

[Zevyn]

Mine are on the plant leaves quite a bit, but I don't have visible algae on them. They seem to enjoy cleaning them though regardless.

 

[Borderlesscott]

Wouldn't worry to much about diatoms they eventually go on their own after a while, I used to spend ages cleaning them just for them to return a few days later, I don't bother anymore in new tanks until a few weeks after they appear and then I clean everything and that's usually the end of them. I can confirm that putting otto,s in would be a waste of time as I've found they eat everything else before them and you would have to put more time in substituting them food like courgettes, though they are valuable little fish for the planted tank, I love mine.

 

[Lohoyan]

It's good to know it'll go away eventually, I hope it's soon. The tanks about six months old and has eco-complete. Is that about when these things would be a problem? The Ottos seem interesting, I'll have to look for some.

 

[Lohoyan]

The diatoms are showing no sign of returning since I did he big clean out. Wow, I guess they really do go away on there own!