Anyone ever try to grow diatoms intionally?

I went the low-tech route & ordered some Seachem Phosphorus liquid fert. In a perfect world, Id'a run to my LFS & bought some, but they're few & far between here, as everywhere.

I got the DE & added some to 2 tanks. Of course, the particulates are so fine they went all the way thru the Rena XP3 & the sump w/double foam on the big system, so the water's a tad milky, but it's clearing already.

It just seems so absurd that I'm going through all these gyrations to grow something that is impossible to avoid when you don't want it. Is it some aquaristic corollary to Murphy's Law?
 
I set up my 125 about a month ago. Got a ton of the lovely stuff growing in there right now. Had to go buy a MagFloat today so I could see my fish.

My BN pleco is putting on size and weight and starting to look good. The Danios I have in there are having romantic evenings. I might have to go pick up a half dozen Oto's tomorrow.

The god "Murphy" must of cursed you not to be able to grow the stuff.

In my experience 24 hour lighting + a full dose of plant fertilizer is a sure way to get diatom algae bloom (or any species of algae for that matter). For my QT tanks I've this method in the past for about a week before I bring home a new BN or Oto.
 
have you tried over feeding your fish and letting the light go a little bit longer than usual i have a tank that gets hit by the sun all day and the part that gets hit by the sun light is covered in that stuff and i love how it looks
 
I do feed my fish a varied diet, & had lite on 24/7, then ~18h/D, then down t0 12. Got some cyanobacteria, had green water a while.
no dietom
 
Silica is a limiting factor for diatoms the way calcium is for snails. If it isn't there they cannot grow since they build their cell wall from it. The odds of any other factor preventing their growth in a typical aquarium set up are slim indeed. I doubt that DE will do much good, because if it was readily soluble in water diatoms wouldn't be able to use it as a building material. Again consider a snail. The calcium carbonate that composes most of its shell has very limited solubility in water unless of course the pH is very low. You will need to find a form of silica which is readily soluble to have it help your efforts in producing diatoms.
 
I think you are correct Sub, in that silica is the limiting factor for diatom growth. I'm looking into sodium silicate, which is completely water soluble, but I'd like to find something that wont' kill the fish which I can add in sufficient quantities to boost diatom growth. The MSDS for JT Baker company's Na silicate says it is an extremely caustic alkali. As for toxicity, it says
"Sodium silicate: 96 Hr LC50 Lepomis macrochirus: 301-478 mg/L; 96 Hr LC50 Brachydanio rerio: 3185 mg/L [semi-static]; 96 Hr EC50 Daphnia magna: 216 mg/L.
Aquaculture grade should be fine; I’ve contacted some aquaculture suppliers, as they use a sodium silicate solution to encourage algal & diatom growth, but (no surprise, considering the time of year) I haven’t heard back from them. I’m hoping to be able to buy less than the 2 gallons I keep seeing….I could grow diatoms ‘til doomsday.
In the meantime, I got some cheap DE; I figure it’s not gonna hurt anybody. I put it in the filters/sumps so very little got into the water with the fish. Dunno if the abrasive quality of the DE would damage their gills, but figured better safe then sorry.

btw, your santa sig is pretty funny; I'd much rather get a lump of coal!
 
I have tried all sorts of dedicated diatom growing containers with rocks, from in the house with high light, low light, a couple places outside, with various fertilizers, etc etc ad nauseum. got green water in one tank on the porch (my rainbow fry were just ecstatic about that), a bumper crop of hair algae in another, some cyanobacteria, but very, very few diatoms. T'was ridiculous.
 
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