Quote:
Originally Posted by taricha
Dunno what ceramic bricks are, but if those or your rock or sand have silica, could be encouraging diatoms.
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Hey,
Just an update.
Ceramic Bricks I have are MarinePure and Xport Brick, they are essentially porous media designed to house nitrifying Bacteria that thrive in the absence of oxygen.
I have them in all my tanks but only have Diatoms in this tank, and I tested Silicate with a Seachem kit and came back negative on tap water, RO water, and tank water. But the kit was sketchy I'll admit. Instructions such as "dip dry stick into powder until it has a light coating then stir the water briefly with it"...
Tank update:
I've been blowing it all off the rocks and have tripled my tank flow. Gyre is at 100% intermittently now and added a 3rd powrhead. Sand is flying everywhere.
It's helping. Most of the Diatom growth is now restricted to "strings" about 1-2" long at most. I guess they can't hold together past that with the turbulent water. But it's still growing.
The Filter Socks are essentially growing Diatom Spaghetti that extends out into half the Skimmer chamber.
I am syphoning that into a bucket, running that bucket through my UV sterilizer, then back through a filter sock into my sump Skimmer chamber and letting the Skimmer run for 30 minutes before turning the system back on to the display tank.
Seems to be improving. I don't know if this is any better than just dumping the water and topping up with 5 Gal of fresh. But I'm trying to avoid "water changes" to prevent any possible silicate additions.
Seems kind of silly now that I write that down. But my nitrates have not increased as a result of this behaviour, yet.
I'll keep working to control it.
I'm also dosing 1 mL per 10 gallons of H2O2 to the sump while I'm cleaning it out with the UV procedure.
I can't let the tank be "ugly" for 2 reasons.
(1) Wife said No.
(2) It seems to kill/irritate my corals and mushrooms when it gets out of control in the display tank.
But knowing it's Diatoms for sure has been a great relief. Thank you.
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