Diatom bloom crazy in new tank, Live rock......

[kendall]

It's been about 11 days and now all of a sudden I have brown stuff everywhere in 46 bow gallon. It's on my 8 lbs of live rock, all over my sand. The damsels are pounding it off the rock. There are tiny bubbles coming up everywhere from the sand....
Is this normal for the cycle process? Should I leave it? When can I get cleanup crew?
I have biggest eheim canister pro series they make...I plan on adding protein skimmer after cycle...
My temps are 82, no ammonia, nitrites are .25....Salinity is 1.025...
Should I be fired up to see these Diatoms? Everything seemed to accelerate when I upgraded 7 days in with 2X96 coralife light....I run the lights 12-14hours a day...Too much? Also should I want more live rock. Is it better to add now?
Thanks

 

[drew2005]

You aint kiddin. I got a 46 gallon bow also and ive got brown crap everywhere. Hairy in some spots. If you only have 8 lbs of live rock i would definitely get more. I have 70lbs. Now is the time to add it and cure it before you start adding more livestock. I would put at least 50lbs in there. From what ive read it is normal to see if you initially used tap water to fill the tank. I also did see it accelerate when i started running my lights 8 hours a day. You could cut the lighting back to 8-10 hours a day for now. That will help control some of that algae. You could get a cleanup crew when your nitrites are at 0. What are your nitrates?

 

[who dey]

don't worry, it'll go away

 

[mudplayerx]

The diatoms will go away as soon as all of the silicates in the water are used up. It is completely normal to have brown slime growth all over a new tank
As far as he hair algae.... that is normal as well in a new tank. As soon as your ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate go down to zero and you add snails/hermit crabs, it will go away as well.
Don't get me wrong though. I have to clean my glass almost daily, and this is normal.

 

[kendall]

Drew- Where did you get your rock? My LFS charges $10 a pound for the Fiji, it's legit with already some possible little corals growing, but that's some serious loot...Especially if I put in 50 lbs or something...What are the dangers with handling it, ect.? If I got it off the site for $5 do I risk contaminating my tank?...Or are there no worries? I'll spend the money, the stuff just better grow some cool stuff...Maybe I should just be safe and get at LFS...
I haven't seen Nitrates yet, going to do a test in a little while...Yeah I probably should cut down on light, those 14hour days are probably way too much...!
Mud and who- Okay, I'll tell my girl...She's all freaked out about the brown stuff. She wants clean white sand!!
This fish tank stuff is way too addictive...

 

[drew2005]

Originally Posted by kendall
Drew- Where did you get your rock? My LFS charges $10 a pound for the Fiji, it's legit with already some possible little corals growing, but that's some serious loot...Especially if I put in 50 lbs or something...What are the dangers with handling it, ect.? If I got it off the site for $5 do I risk contaminating my tank?...Or are there no worries? I'll spend the money, the stuff just better grow some cool stuff...Maybe I should just be safe and get at LFS...
I haven't seen Nitrates yet, going to do a test in a little while...Yeah I probably should cut down on light, those 14hour days are probably way too much...!
Mud and who- Okay, I'll tell my girl...She's all freaked out about the brown stuff. She wants clean white sand!!
This fish tank stuff is way too addictive...
I got it from a LFS. They're running a special for $3.99 a lb for Tonga. A few people have ordered from here and are very happy. $10 a lb for Fiji is alot. MOst expensive ive seen is $7.99. I would shop around different LFS and compare pricing. Advantage of getting rock at a LFS is you can handpick it yourself so you know what your getting. As for handling it, if you plan on keeping the damsels in the tank i would cure the rock in a seperate container. Alot of people here stress not keeping the damsels. Im curing my rock in my tank for the initial setup. I will tell you adding that much will cause a huge spike and will take a while to fully cure. Its taking me close to 5 weeks to cure and cycle my tank with the 70lbs i got so be patient. Patience is the key in this hobby.

Good luck.
Oh yea and tell the girl to chill. Itll go away eventually.

 

[kendall]

Well I added the 8lbs and lost 1 damsel but he seemed to be hurting beforehand...Maybe I'll add the preccured stuff from this site as $5-6 is amazing compared to what I'm getting at LFS. I really have no other LFS's to go to and want to trust this site for some reason... I also have no place to put the damsels so they have to deal with the new rock...Hopefully their happiness from having more hiding spots will overtake their stress from the ammonia spike!!! I wouldn't have got them, but that was the guidance I was getting before I found this community..
This Diatom breakout is completely taking over my tank. In the last 3 hours it's now managed to make it's way on the glass and cover all the sand...The girl is going to go nutty when she see's this mess!!!...THe fish are bouncing off the glass and there are bubbles everywhere. The tank looks like it's boiling...Crazy!!!

 

[drew2005]

Originally Posted by kendall
Well I added the 8lbs and lost 1 damsel but he seemed to be hurting beforehand...Maybe I'll add the preccured stuff from this site as $5-6 is amazing compared to what I'm getting at LFS. I really have no other LFS's to go to and want to trust this site for some reason... I also have no place to put the damsels so they have to deal with the new rock...Hopefully their happiness from having more hiding spots will overtake their stress from the ammonia spike!!! I wouldn't have got them, but that was the guidance I was getting before I found this community..
This Diatom breakout is completely taking over my tank. In the last 3 hours it's now managed to make it's way on the glass and cover all the sand...The girl is going to go nutty when she see's this mess!!!...THe fish are bouncing off the glass and there are bubbles everywhere. The tank looks like it's boiling...Crazy!!!
Its always good to still cure the rock after gettin it. Some die off will occur in shipping. I here you on the breakout. Ive got on the rocks, sand, overflow, powerhead, spraybar, protein skimmer return pipe Its everywhere. http://photos.yahoo.com/drew101576 .....its alot worse than those pics show.

 

[mudplayerx]

A good FAQ on buying live rock, curing it, etc..
https://www.saltwaterfish.com/vb/show...hreadid=157354

 

[kendall]

Nice pics Drew...
Hey this Diatom freak show is getting crazy. I mean is this really suppose to happen? The brown stuff is now spreading all over the glass. It's almost covered everything in the tank...There are rising bubbles everywhere. Tons of bubbles just sitting on the floor of the tank. There are bubbles attaching to the live rock and dead coral I have...There are bubbles rising from the bottom with pieces of brown stuff. When the brown stuff gets to the surface in the big bubbles, it then falls back down. There is also like little brown specs on the surface film along with tons of tiny bubbles.
Still sound like Diatoms? What's weird is when I turned lights on this morning there were no bubbles. I run the light for a couple hours and there is bubbles everywhere

 

[who dey]

are you one of those "tap water" people? :notsure:

 

[bigarn]

It's all part of the process... the bubbles are gasses being released from the sandbed. Be sure to have good surface movement to allow for the gas, oxygen exchange to take place. Fun..isn't it?
As stated above... DON'T use tapwater.

 

[drew2005]

Originally Posted by bigarn
It's all part of the process... the bubbles are gasses being released from the sandbed. Be sure to have good surface movement to allow for the gas, oxygen exchange to take place. Fun..isn't it?
As stated above... DON'T use tapwater.
Too late!

I used tap water only because buying and lugging 46 gallons of RO water from Walmart would have been a headache. Besides that they didnt even have that many gallons left. I have been doing top offs with RO and ill be changing water with RO. Unfortunately money is a little tight right now to get a RO unit but eventually i will. Check it out new pics of diatom outbreak added. http://photos.yahoo.com/drew101576

 

[kendall]

I'm using tap water. If I have to lug water around this new found hobby will be ending real fast. After the tank is cycled and I get a protein skimmer and I only have to do 10% water changes I don't see how tap water would be such a problem. There seems like there are many other things to get in check before blaming it all on tap water...
Anyways, I dumped 22 more pounds of fiji rock in (glad I bought in person, got some really good looking rock $7.50lb, I must have sifted through 200lbs of the stuff). When I did, I changed about 10% of the water and scrubbed the existing rock free of the brown stuff with a toothbrush. I also cleaned the glass and the sand but did leave a few spot of Diatoms in there...
Hopefully there are less of the siciliates(whatever they're called) in the water now and the Diatom bloom will be less this time around...
Tank looked great this morning...Hopefully by the time the Diatoms come back I will have the tank almost cycled and can add cleanup crew...
Lots of life in the tank currently...Couple crazy worms popping out off the rock, some green cool looking stuff(hopefully not the start of a bad algae), and the damsels are happier than ever. Their rapid breathing is gone although one still has a red spots on him...
We want to add a protein skimmer now. Any reason not too besides slowing the cycling process down a bit? The surface film is still kinda dirty...

 

[darth tang]

I'm using tap water. If I have to lug water around this new found hobby will be ending real fast. After the tank is cycled and I get a protein skimmer and I only have to do 10% water changes I don't see how tap water would be such a problem. There seems like there are many other things to get in check before blaming it all on tap water...
QUOTE]
If you plan on continuing to use tap water, be prepared to deal with algae problems. It may not happen but a lot of tap water has phosphates, chlorine, and silcates in it that aren't ideal for a saltwater tank. Have your water tested and you might be fine. However be prepared to hear you have decent levels of all I have listed in your tap water. Tap water is probably the number one cause of algae outbreaks in Saltwater tanks...........

 

[evilbob22]

I have heard that tap water in Baltimore is ok to use, but even there I'd be skeptical. The big problem is that tap water isn't clean... it has silicates and other things you don't want in your aquarium (often including copper). You will never be free from the diatoms as long as you use tap. Lugging water from WalMart or wherever is a solution that some people use. An easier, expensive in the short term, cheaper in the long term, way to go is to get an RO/DI unit. Then you can "make" good water out of your tap water.
As far as the skimmer goes, go ahead and add it, it doesn't slow down the cycle. It can remove trace elements but water changes fix that. IMO the only reason not to run one is while medicating the tank (although normally you'd medicate in the QT instead) or feeding filter feeders.

 

[kendall]

My LFS said my town's water was okay, but who knows...I went to another LFS last night and they told me they run tap water in all their tanks and they looked great...
Money really isn't an object with me, but comfortability is. If I continue to have algae problems and I need to get cleaner water I will invest in RO/DI unit before I lug water...How much are they anyhow? Are they easy to use?
As far as silcates go...If that's what the Diatoms feed on, shouldn't you be able to clean the Diatoms out of the tank once they've bloomed? Then when things settles, maybe they don't come back as bad because the level of sicates is less in the tank?
Will the skimmer clean the surface film?...Do they help with water flow? I have biggest eheim canister they make in a 46 gallon, but obviously it's not getting the job done with the live rock ect. in there...

 

[mudplayerx]

No offence, but using tap water past the initial cycle is a horrible idea. I guarantee you that you will have so much algae in your tank eventually that you will quit the hobby. It isn't that bad buying 7 gallons of water per week really. If you have the money, you can buy an RO machine and make your own tank water at home.

 

[fishmamma]

Just sharing my experience with tap water- I used tap (from our well) to do initial tank fill only. Used RO for top offs and water changes ever since. I can not keep snails alive. Some metal is in my water and kills them off. This was going to be an invert tank as well and now I am having to filter the water and hope someday I can actually keep many of the things I want in the tank alive. Hard lesson to learn. Lugged many gallons of RO water when I set up my new tank recently, and snails are alive and well!

 

[chaosfyre]

I started up my 1st saltwater 90 gal tank on Jan 1st. It is now the 19th, and a tentative diatom bloom has started. Its been a few days and it seems fairly stable though, only slight growth. Looks like a bit of browning on the crushed coral/sand substrate at the bottom of my tank. It has spread to the non-live rock, but mostly seems to have left the live rock alone.. though maybe that's just because the live rock is already orange-ish so I can't tell.
I was going to black out the room and keep the lights off for a few days, thinking it was red algae. But after reading that they are diatoms and that its normal and can even be beneficial or used as a food source to start up my cleaner crew, I think I will pick up some more critters to eat it. But first another water test, just to make sure that I'm doing everything right.
I have used all tap water from day one, but I also did some inoculations of live bacteria and treated the water with conditioner (including enough treatment to cover the extra 10 gallons in the sump). My salinity has always been kind of high, around 1.028. Every week or so I add 5-10 gallons of conditioned fresh water to lower the salinity. Then it gets to about 1.025 before slowly climbing as the water evaporates. I read that corals and fish see no affect all the way up to 1.03 salinity, but that ich is kept in control by keeping levels low, down to around 1.024 or 1.022.
So far none of the invertebrates (hermits, emerald crab, snail) seem affected, and the fish are wonderfully happy, though maybe the diatom bloom is a bit hindered by the higher salinity judging by the crazy reports other people are giving!
I did start feeding less immediately after I saw the bloom begin. Was feeding marine flakes twice a day, 3 pinches each time, and the fish improved their color very quickly over the few days after I got them ( I don't think they had been getting enough to eat before then). After the bloom started, I decreased to 1 feeding of a couple pinches a day, or every other day. Feeding dried bloodworms that float and do not sink no matter what seemed to help keep the tank cleaner. The food did not get lost in the sand/rocks, and the fish ate it all off the surface. I also added another injection of live bacteria when I saw the bloom start, so that could be a factor.