Brown Diatoms

RothChyld

RothChyld

AC Members
Feb 16, 2003
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Tampa, FL
www.cboss.com
I have a 90 g reef tank and its been established about 6 years now. All of the sudden my nitrates spiked to around 10-15 ppm. Trites and Ammonia, and all other parms are perfect. I was running my overflow with a durso standpipe as a refugium to try it out. There was detritus at the bottom of it (live rock in there too) and I also had detritus build up in the wet/dry. I decided to siphon all of that out of the overflow as well as the wet dry. I am now in the process of doing water changes and noticed the nitrates are now around 5 ppm and continuing to go down. Having said all of that my brown diatoms are not disappearing off of the sand. I am going to do another water change tomorrow and siphon it off of the sand.

Is this the right action to take? Also can my lights be getting old? My actinics are about a year and a half and the day MH bulbs are about 7 mos old. Would older lights cause brown diatoms? I know that doesn't cause high nitrates. I almost want to leave the diatoms there so I can rid their food source thus they should disappear.

Thanks in advance.

Mike
 
Im still looking for help here.

I also was wondering 3 more things:
1. Would siphoning the sand / wet-dry cause nitrate eating bacteria to go away thus causing me to add a cycling product?
2. Does Halmedia consume nitrates? If so can it re-release them if it turns white and dies off?
3. Do any of the long timer reef aquarists that have had success ever need to "clean" their liverock of detritus by taking them out every 6 mos - year and hitting them with a powerhead or anything?

Dave, I hope you can offer advice here. I want to take care of this problem before it really turns into something ugly thus killing off my tank. I noticed this nitrate spike after I added Halmedia and a couple of SPS. The SPSs have since died off (potentially because of the nitrates) but the remaining corals still are okay.

:help:
 
It sounds to me that, with a little excess buildup of detritus in the refugium and the wet/dry, you may have gotten a little touch of "old tank Syndrome". Diatoms respond to phosphates, nitrates and silicates and other organics (ie. the detritus). I believe you are on the right track with your water change regimen. If you are not beating up the sand too much as you siphon, your bacteria should be fine - adding a little Seachem Stability wont hurt though. IMO, I would say your actinics are a little beyond their shelf life and the MH is getting close - lighting definately can have an affect on the growth of nuisance algaes. One way to "clean" live rock is to use a turkey baster to direct a blast of water to loosen up the detritus that has collected - do this just before a water change. You can also use a "polishing filter" like a HOT magnum for a few hours or overnight to pull out the matter you have stirred up. While Halmedia will pull out some nitrates, it also needs a lot of calcium. Any dying plant matter will add to the organic compounds in your tank, affecting nitrates. Making sure your circulation is good, without any dead spots, will also keep the build up of detritus down. Keep at it! Looks like you are close to getting back on top of your nitrate problem!
 
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