Diatom problem in new tank

[aitf311]

I have only had my tank for about a little over a month now and I am beginning to see diatoms on the front of the tank. I found the review of diatoms that told me that I could have gotten them from tap water and LR. I did use tap and I recently put in 4 LB of LR.
Does anyone know how to get rid of these? Does scrubbing do the job?

 

[oceana]

get a magfloat for your glass and otehr then that agood clean up crew should take care of the rest rather fast.
gl to ya. diatoms is very normal occurance for a new tank and the sign of a finished cycle alot of time

 

[joker_ca]

yeah just scrub them off, and give it time after awhile your diatoms will be gone

 

[aitf311]

alright, thanks guys, i went to the LPS and got a mag float

 

[mudplayerx]

I got 5 mexican turbo snails for a 55 gallon tank and they cleaned the entire tank (glass, rocks, sandbed) of diatoms within 3 days.
Just don't do water topoffs with tap water and they shouldn't come back once you get rid of them.
ps- I don't recommend that you scrub off diatoms if you have an acrylic tank. Diatoms are very jagged and sharp under a microscope and acrylic scratches easily.

 

[aitf311]

I already scrubbed it, doh! My main source of info is my LPS owner, and he told me that I shouldnt put anything else live in my tank since I already have a trigger and a puffer, not even a snail! I actually went up there to get a snail and he gave me the mag-float instead....
I'm in the research stage of getting something larger for the trigger and making the 12gallon he is currently in a reef tank. I didn't do enough research before hand and the ***** people told me the 12gallon would be fine for a trigger but everything I am now reading says it is not good enough for him.

 

[swnewb]

Originally posted by aitf311
***** people told me the 12gallon would be fine for a trigger but everything I am now reading says it is not good enough for him.
You can say that again. Triggers get large and can be aggressive. They will eat basicly anything they can fit in thier mouth, and if it doesn't fit, they will rip it apart until it is in small enough pieces to. What kind of trigger is it?

 

[fishieness]

i have tons of diatoms too. Wel, i did, but i think all of their food is out of my tank now because i havent seen any build up on my new piece of live rock. Yeah, the cycling thing would make sence because mine jsut finished and im getting it now. Well, i jsut have a lot, all the live rock i have except 3 pieces of the new stuff i have is entirely brown on the top. Turbo snails you say? ill have to try that... Once the diatoms are gone, would they be ok? Would they need any algae in my tank to feed on? or d they get along good with extra piece of food? I did get a magfloat and am obsessed with makeing sure the sides of the tank are clean. Its realy fun! haha. Simple minds-simple pleasures.
I was actualy considering snails anyways because the 2 hermit crabs i have now, literaly never move from where they are,they will stay on one piece of live rock in basicaly the same spot forever, but they are still alive, go figure.
But i definaly agree about not scrubbing them off with an acrilic tank, Last year during bio class we had a whole section on diatoms and saw some live ones, and they are pretty sharp. Actualy, to prove my point, the whitening "crystals" in whitening tooth paste is actualy just diatom skeletons thats wear away your teeth to polish them.

 

[aitf311]

Originally posted by SWNewb
You can say that again. Triggers get large and can be aggressive. They will eat basicly anything they can fit in thier mouth, and if it doesn't fit, they will rip it apart until it is in small enough pieces to. What kind of trigger is it?

Its a bursa trigger. He has been thrusting his body against my LR. Has anyone seen this? It makes me kind of worried but he seems to be fine and has been doing it for about 2 weeks now...

 

[ssg_mm]

Is it thrusting like it's grazing on the rock or like it's scratching against the rock?
I've read that fish will appear to "scratch" against stuff if they are sick/infected (ich, fungus, etc.)
I'm no expert and could be wrong but keep an eye on your fish, look for signs of stress or ich, and be prepared to take action.
Not to worry you or anything

 

[aitf311]

Well its not like he is just running his body down the rock, which I would call scratching, but he is rather "flipping" his body against it pretty forcefully. I read that the bursa likes to rearrange his environment, and I wonder if this is what he's trying to do?