View Full Version : High Silica / Diatoms
Antman
03/28/2017, 09:08 AM
Hello all I am having isues keeping Silicas down
Its ranges from 0.500 to 0.900
I am using a RO/DI unit and change my DI Carbon and sedimin every 6 months
I also am running GFO in my tabk and change it out every 3 weeks or so
My Pho and Nitrate are 0 and I am starting to get diatoms in my sand
The tank is about 2 years old
Where is the silica coming from and how do I lower it ?
Thanks
Vdubin00
03/28/2017, 09:10 AM
Any new introduction of live stock ? New fish or coral in the last 2 month ?
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Antman
03/28/2017, 09:12 AM
I did add a few frags
But silica was high before that
Diana A
03/28/2017, 09:51 AM
Many foods and additives contain silicon in some form. Tests that have typically been used on foods, like ICP, cannot distinguish dissolved silica from tiny particulates. In some of these tests, typical aquarium foods ranged from 20-540 ppm silicon. 32 5-gram spoonful of food that contained 540 ppm Si would actually only contain 2.7 mg of Si. If all of that were a soluble form, then putting it into a 100-gallon reef tank would raise the dissolved silica concentration by 0.25 mM (0.015 ppm SiO2). That value is small, but not insignificant. Still, without knowing whether it is soluble silica or not, one cannot tell whether it is a usable form.
Another potential source of silica is the artificial salt mix used to prepare the tank water. Despite the marketing hype in which many mixes claim to have no silica, most do have some (a few mM), and these levels are not unlike natural seawater.30 Nevertheless, that silica likely depletes in a few days in a real reef tank.
Other sources may include any of the various supplements added to reef tanks. While there are far too many additives to consider, some that could be significant sources would include those that are added in the largest amounts to reef tanks: calcium and alkalinity supplements. Analyses by Craig Bingman33 and Greg Hiller34 of silica in calcium carbonate intended for CaCO3/CO2 reactors would suggest that little soluble silica is delivered in this fashion.
bertoni
03/28/2017, 12:49 PM
You could try testing some freshly-mixed saltwater. That might be the source. Most test kits will work in fresh water, so you might try the output of your RO/DI. Silicate is hard to remove because it is weakly charged. There are special DI cartridges for high-silicate input water for that reason.
nhlives
03/28/2017, 03:16 PM
I use the SpectraPure SilicaBuster just to be sure after a recent diatom bloom. Probably overkill since I could not measure silica with a test kit.
Antman
03/28/2017, 03:31 PM
I use the SpectraPure SilicaBuster just to be sure after a recent diatom bloom. Probably overkill since I could not measure silica with a test kit.
Humm I wonder how that differs from BRS color changing DI resin
bertoni
03/28/2017, 04:30 PM
I don't know the specifics of how the silicate DI resins work, but they should be more effective where there's a fair amount of dissolved silica.
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