Diatoms not going away.
- Thread starter chris124
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Brew12
Electrical Gru
Silicates tend to be one of the harder materials for a RODI unit to remove. Your utility should be able to provide you with their test results so you can find out exactly how much silicate is in the water they are sending.
Also keep in mind that reverse osmosis filters work better at higher pressures. If you don't run a booster pump and have low pressure you may get an improvement if you can raise pressure.
Also keep in mind that reverse osmosis filters work better at higher pressures. If you don't run a booster pump and have low pressure you may get an improvement if you can raise pressure.
Brew12
Electrical Gru
That pressure is pretty nice. What brand RODI unit are you using?
check out an alt source for silicate in our sand rinse thread, not from top water Chris ~ the sand/ we like to rinse that cloud permanently gone first go.
Brew12
Electrical Gru
If you have GFO you can run a pretty easy test. Before your next water change, treat your new water with the GFO since it will absorb silicates as well as phosphates. If you get a diatom bloom the problem is most likely your sand. If you don't get a bloom, the problem is most likely the water.
If you don't have GFO, the test kit should let you know which direction to look.
laxman05
Community Member
After reading this I was pleased to see the outcome may be silicates. I set up my tank fighting diatoms - well no big deal and clearing up. Thinking I can speed up the process I decided to used Nopox - well with a bit of over dosing I started to see a type of golden algae spike. After stopping, I noticed that the "algae/ diatoms or whatever it was" was not getting any better.
Over a year ago I had a crashed tank, Algae "golden brown" would NOT go away even with 2 X a week water changes and running GFO. I tried to maintain it until I could build the new tank.
Early last year 2016 I decided to put together a new tank/ Bare bottom using seaboard. Finally up and running, took a long time for diatoms to go away ( months). I was thinking like really... sump/ chateo /mangroves, Crushed coral in fuge, running GFO with Carbon, and plenty of rock and I still have algae/ Diatoms. ( after 7 months)
Prior to this issue, guess what I never did. Change my Ro/DI system! 4 years and zero TDS. So to keep this short I have this coating over my rocks and the bb. This coating looked very much like diatoms light brown/brown, bubbles just like red slime. I could literally shave this stuff with a razor to come out in once piece on the BB floor of the tank. In the hand it felt very much like a dense slime, very much like the consistency of a jelly fish. After much reading I decided to look into the possibility of silicates.
RO/DI with my water returning with Zero TDS, why should I change the canisters/di right ? I just figured that my system has not reached capacity so that is why I did not change it for years nor did I give it much thought. Without changing any parameters in my DT I changed out everything in the RODI system.
I did my normal water changes and guess what the diatom/brown slime /silicate algae was toast after a few weeks.
So the recommendation in previous posts to this tread about SILICATE is IMO a good avenue to look at to fix this matter.
Over a year ago I had a crashed tank, Algae "golden brown" would NOT go away even with 2 X a week water changes and running GFO. I tried to maintain it until I could build the new tank.
Early last year 2016 I decided to put together a new tank/ Bare bottom using seaboard. Finally up and running, took a long time for diatoms to go away ( months). I was thinking like really... sump/ chateo /mangroves, Crushed coral in fuge, running GFO with Carbon, and plenty of rock and I still have algae/ Diatoms. ( after 7 months)
Prior to this issue, guess what I never did. Change my Ro/DI system! 4 years and zero TDS. So to keep this short I have this coating over my rocks and the bb. This coating looked very much like diatoms light brown/brown, bubbles just like red slime. I could literally shave this stuff with a razor to come out in once piece on the BB floor of the tank. In the hand it felt very much like a dense slime, very much like the consistency of a jelly fish. After much reading I decided to look into the possibility of silicates.
RO/DI with my water returning with Zero TDS, why should I change the canisters/di right ? I just figured that my system has not reached capacity so that is why I did not change it for years nor did I give it much thought. Without changing any parameters in my DT I changed out everything in the RODI system.
I did my normal water changes and guess what the diatom/brown slime /silicate algae was toast after a few weeks.
So the recommendation in previous posts to this tread about SILICATE is IMO a good avenue to look at to fix this matter.
Tofty85
Community Member
I'm having the same issue, I've been battling diatoms for around the 1 year mark, it started out as Dino's which a 72 hour complete blackout and sand bed change sorted out, then few weeks later I started to see diatoms just on my sand. Which I thought was because of my new sand so I left it to burn itself out as it normally would with a little help from GFO, My rocks are clear of anything just few patches of coraline, 1 year on I still have the diatoms on my sand, they re- appear a couple hours after a water change, I completely changed out all the filters on my RO/DI system, I also added 3rd prefilter for chlorine removal to help out the membrane, and fitted a DI bypass to get rid of the initial high TDS going I to the DI which was hammering the resin, that did not work, TDS has always read 0 even before the filter changes! I've tried algae scrubber and bio pellets within this year, they did not clear it, I then tried to reduce DOCs thinking they where the cause, so cranked my skimmer up, tried carbon, purigen, Dr Tim's waste away, my skimmer went crazy pulling out all sorts, but the diatoms stayed! just a few weeks ago I decided to do another 72 hour black out, and I reduced the intensity of my kessil a160s down to 25% from 60% I see improvement but i have a patch on my sand in the centre, which no doubt will spread as soon as my light intensity goes back up! Im running out of ideas! One thing jumped out at me reading through this thread, that is, my tank has never got to the green algae stage, so I guess that has to be my next approach unless anyone has any other suggestions?
I've been battling what I thought were Diatoms for 2 plus years. Have tried everything!!
Tofty85
Community Member
What makes you doubt that it's diatoms?I've been battling what I thought were Diatoms for 2 plus years. Have tried everything!!
Because ive started to doubt myself about mine being diatoms, but I've dealt with cyano in previous tanks and with Dino's in this tank so I know the difference in appearance but without microscope I cannot be 100% sure.
I've thrown so much money at trying to rid this problem, i don't want to risk using antibiotics in the form of red slime remover (just incase it is a form of cyano) I had a bad experience with it in the past
Sharvey103
ReefAddicted
What are your silica levels?
ReeferDave01
Active Member
Before moving to my 250g tank I had this problem in my 60g tank for about 9 months. Tried everything. All levels were fine, used chemicals etc. The fix for me was 2 fold. 1. I used kitchen 4 stage rodi water. Turns out it had reading of 19. I switched to new 6 stage rodi with reading of 0. And secondly I increased water flow considerably. Since then I haven't had any algae blooms of any sort.
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