clean up for diatoms

[bill109]

i have a 30 gal and my clean up crew has gone on vacation and arent doing much i have
2 blue leg hermits
2 snails
1 queen conch
what els should i do cus now its taking over my tank. earlier i was told to scrape it off and buy a vacume.. well i havent had the chance to get a ride to the lfs so how do i go about with the sand issue cus it looks horrible? also i would hope the sand is going turn back to the white color?
btw i am treating the tank with melafix will this cause anything unusual in my tank... my lfs said it was safe to put in without a QT so im doing the 7 day treatment

 

[sethw]

Well, yeah, melafish is ok, it is safe because it is all natural and wont harm a living thing at all, now about the daitons, i posted a thread about that about 2 days ago.... and well i learned alot, how long have you had the tank> I had what is apparenly called th new tank syndrome, my dianotns were all over the sand, it made the whole tank look crappy, but they went away, they will eventually go away by itself, now if you use R/O water, you wouldnt have a problem, do you use tap (i do)???

 

[tx_mermaid]

I hear you about that damn brown stuff
My tank is 4 weeks old and I have it too. I wish I knew to use RO water! I will from now on..
I havent vacumed but I have taken a turkey baster and "blown" some off

No idea ifs thats good or bad

 

[doglvr]

Diatoms are part of the "cycling" process and will go away as your tank completes cycling. I was told by my LFS person (trusted) to just leave it alone, other than scraping from the front glass. This was when I cycled my 1st tank. It took over everything for 4-5 days, then almost completely disappeared in 2 more. My water tested out "creature ready" after this. She also said NOT to mix it up the sand bed too. Messing with the sand bed just causes the "cycling" process over again, and you can also release harmful toxins in the water

 

[topfins-mj]

I too have this problem, and the tank is 4 months old. I have a siphon vacuum, should I just suck it out?
Sorry to hijack this thread but I figured we've got the same problem.

 

[farslayer]

You can eliminate diatoms by removing silicates from the water. Diatoms use silicates to build their exoskeletons, so no silicates means no diatoms. I don't know if you can every get ALL of the silicates out, but some products such as PhosGard (which I use) will help eliminate phosphates and silicates and will not release them back into the water. I started a new 125G using this stuff from the outset and did not have a diatom issue.

 

[andreyv]

Originally Posted by Farslayer
You can eliminate diatoms by removing silicates from the water. Diatoms use silicates to build their exoskeletons, so no silicates means no diatoms. I don't know if you can every get ALL of the silicates out, but some products such as PhosGard (which I use) will help eliminate phosphates and silicates and will not release them back into the water. I started a new 125G using this stuff from the outset and did not have a diatom issue.
How long do you run PhosGard before changing it?

 

[farslayer]

Three to four months; it starts to darken up after a while and that's when I change it out. It also depends on how high your levels are as it can get full more quickly if your tank is loaded with phosphates.