can't figure out what I'm doing wrong!!!

[buckeye88]

My tank has been established for almost a year now and when I do a test all of my levels for nirate, ite, amm, and phos are at 0 ppm. pH is 8.2, sal 1.025 ppm. I have two reef tank with the same problem, a 10 that's about 4 months old and the year old 16 gal.
The prob is that I have diatomes that are so terrible that it's emberassing to have anyone even see my tank. It's not only on the sand, it's on my rocks and makes them look rusty and gross and it even makes my water look like urine. On the 16 gal I'm using well water (I've ordered a deionizer, I'm wating for it to show up) and on the other tank I use distilled water from Wal*mart!! My corals in both tanks are also shrinking and look terrible. I recently bought zoos for both tanks and when I put them in both tanks they never opened up again. Does anyone have any idea what could be wrong and how I could fix it? I've had these problems for a long time. Is it even diatomes that I have or could it be something worse??
Please help

 

[buckeye88]

Researching a little bit I have info that might help. I have about half live sand and half play sand. could the playsand be where silicates are coming from. Keep in mind that I added the sand a year ago. Wouldn't any silicates be consumed by now?? Also I cured the LR myself. Could this have something to do with it? The rock that I cured is about 6 months old.
If it is from the sand and I need to dump it all and replace it all with live sand than I would be absolutley fine with that. anything to get rid of that ugly brown junk

 

[flricordia]

That's what I have always heard. Not to use playsand because of silicates. A friend of mine uses her well water for her tank and until she started using a large DI unit to filter she had tons of the same diatoms. Tests showed excess silicates. I imagine silicates are just a natural part of the earth and I am sure most playsand comes from inland areas since, at least in the US, beach sand collecting for comercial use is illegal. Her well is fed by water filtering through sand, which is what most of the ground is made up of around here.
But it could be, though you are reading no phosphates, that the diatoms are consuming it or it could also be a too high a temp problem, incorrect lighting, too frequent water changes keeping the tank from fully cycling. Best to test for silicates before dumping all your sand and disturbing the bacteria bed.

 

[buckeye88]

that makes sense. Do you think that I should dump the sand and get substrate sand or should I wait and see what the DO unit does. I recently purchases a small 5 lb bag of live sand that I want to add just to raise the sand level for my watchman goby that I haven't had time to put in yet. I wonder if I should hold off on adding it.

 

[uberlink]

How often do you feed, and how much? Overfeeding is a major contributor to these kinds of outbreaks. Cut back feeding to two or three times a week. Also consider dropping a couple hours off your lighting schedule.

 

[renogaw]

what clean up crew do you have?

 

[buckeye88]

I don't think light, feeding or clean up is the prob. I feed evry other day and often times with my buisy schedule it will be once evry three days. I have the lights on a timer so it only gets 8 hrs a day and I have tons of hermits (I'm not sure exactly how many), about 5 nassarius, and an emerald crab.

 

[perfectdark]

Im guessing you have silicates not diatoms. And they are binding so finding the cause is not going to be easy. How about your filtration chambers have you cleaned them out reciently, sucked out any sludge?
I would def consider removing the playsand IMO thats your issue.

 

[renogaw]

none of those eat diatoms though. you should grab a fighting conch and some mexican turbos.

 

[renogaw]

what type of playsand did you use? some of it is absolutely fine to use.

 

[bgrae001]

Hey I had the same problem with my FOWLR tank in Alabama. I used only play sand and the wal mart water. I had massive issues with algae and diatoms. I replaced all my sand with crushed coral over a period of a couple months and it didn't help much. I found the problem was the water from wal mart. Even though it's distilled they still add stuff for vitamins and taste. My suggestion is to leave the sand alone and buy a RO/DI unit. If you PM me I'll give you the web address of the one I bought that took care of my problem. Its a good price and I wish I would have bought this equipment first!

 

[buckeye88]

I have used the Walmart distilled water on both tanks and to be honest I believe that it made the problem worse by using it but I don't think that it was the only probelm because the diatomes were bad before putting it in. Like I said, I have a tap water deionizer coming in the mail which I have heard a lot of good things about so I will not be using walmart or strait tap water any more!!
I work at Toys R Us so the play sand that I got came from there. I work tonight so I am going to look at one of the bags and see if it says anything about silica content. I think I am simply going to remove the sand and put sand intended for a fish tank in. The only reason I used it is because I was very new to the hobby and I though that it seemed silly to pay $20.00 for 15 lbs of live sand when I could get 50 lbs of play sand for $5.00. I just didn't know then.
As far as cleaning my filters and everything goes, when I clean my tank, clear the sand, rocks, and glass of diatomes, clean the filter and skimmer until they look like new and in two days my tank will look terrible all over again.

 

[buckeye88]

could the silicates and/or diatomes be why my corals are suffering? It does seem like the diatomes like to cling to the corals. Do they cut off its light or suck out their nutrients or something?

 

[sigmachris]

Originally Posted by Buckeye88
could the silicates and/or diatomes be why my corals are suffering? It does seem like the diatomes like to cling to the corals. Do they cut off its light or suck out their nutrients or something?
Bump - I would like to hear an answer on this question. I have a GSP dying / suffering and it had diatoms growing on the mat too.

 

[perfectdark]

Originally Posted by SigmaChris
Bump - I would like to hear an answer on this question. I have a GSP dying / suffering and it had diatoms growing on the mat too.
Dont confuse diatoms with cyano bacteria, yes cyano can be brown too. It can also be blue and green along with the traditional red we are all used to seeing.
Just make sure its diatoms or silicates and not cyano, thats all I am saying.

 

[m0nk]

Originally Posted by PerfectDark
Dont confuse diatoms with cyano bacteria, yes cyano can be brown too. It can also be blue and green along with the traditional red we are all used to seeing.
Just make sure its diatoms or silicates and not cyano, thats all I am saying.
This is true, if it lays like a blanket that you could "peel" away it's cyano. If it's powdery and blows around like dust, then it's diatoms. If it really is cyano, that's a whole different ballpark...

 

[buckster71]

What kind of filtration are you using?
Also are you feeding with any liquid prytoplakton food?
Also I am reading about these typse of blooms as I am suffering the same ill effects. The tank is clean until about 1:00 after I turn on the lights.
Microscopic observations of Lugol-preserved samples collected near a subsurface drogue during the spring bloom of 1981 in the central North Sea suggested that the phytoplankton crop consisted mainly of diatoms. However, the relative abundance of alloxanthin among the carotenoids measured by reversed-phase, high-performance liquid chromatography indicated that in most samples Cryptophyceae were at least as abundant. On the basis of a multiple regression analysis of pigment concentrations to obtain pigment ratios, the contribution of Cryptophycean chlorophyll to total chlorophyll was calculated. The Cryptophyceae:diatom ratio appeared to be variable during the period of observations, ranging between 0 at the beginning to 1.0 ten days later. It is recommended that the classical method of counting phytoplankton for crop estimates be supplemented by chemotaxonomical studies with modern quantitative chromatographic methods such as HPLC for the measurement of algal pigments.

 

[salty blues]

Originally Posted by buckster71
What kind of filtration are you using?
Also are you feeding with any liquid prytoplakton food?
Also I am reading about these typse of blooms as I am suffering the same ill effects. The tank is clean until about 1:00 after I turn on the lights.
Microscopic observations of Lugol-preserved samples collected near a subsurface drogue during the spring bloom of 1981 in the central North Sea suggested that the phytoplankton crop consisted mainly of diatoms. However, the relative abundance of alloxanthin among the carotenoids measured by reversed-phase, high-performance liquid chromatography indicated that in most samples Cryptophyceae were at least as abundant. On the basis of a multiple regression analysis of pigment concentrations to obtain pigment ratios, the contribution of Cryptophycean chlorophyll to total chlorophyll was calculated. The Cryptophyceae:diatom ratio appeared to be variable during the period of observations, ranging between 0 at the beginning to 1.0 ten days later. It is recommended that the classical method of counting phytoplankton for crop estimates be supplemented by chemotaxonomical studies with modern quantitative chromatographic methods such as HPLC for the measurement of algal pigments.
Say what?

 

[mcbdz]

Originally Posted by Buckeye88
could the silicates and/or diatomes be why my corals are suffering? It does seem like the diatomes like to cling to the corals. Do they cut off its light or suck out their nutrients or something?
Yes. The algea in the water and on the coral will screen it from the light. Usually this happens when they stay closed and they get covered with algea and eventually die. If something is affecting clarity of water it will not allow the light to penatrate.

 

[derekc]

tru getting some phosguard and place it in a media bag and place it in ure filter..i did this and my sil/phos are reading 0.2 from 1.0 -3 days ago...thats where my diatoms came from...