lights and diatom

xsdbs

xsdbs

AC Members
Oct 16, 2006
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can lights cause a brown diatom layer on my sand and glass as the lights get older? my lights are only about 6 months old and I usually change them out @ about 8 months. Is this to long of an expectancy for my lights. oh yeah, they are HO 60 inch flourscents rated @ 110 watts. Thanks in advance for any information
 
xsdbs said:
can lights cause a brown diatom layer on my sand and glass as the lights get older? my lights are only about 6 months old and I usually change them out @ about 8 months. Is this to long of an expectancy for my lights. oh yeah, they are HO 60 inch flourscents rated @ 110 watts. Thanks in advance for any information
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Lighting isn't usually to blame. Extra silicates and phosphates are. I'd check the TDS and silicate/phosphate concentration in your source water/tank.
 
I am using city water and a little over a month ago the city sent out water test reports and the phos was way lower than the minimal accepted by the city. I am also using a coral life RO unit so I would think my water would be of decent quality. I will need to pick up a new test kit for phos and maybe add one of those phos pads to the sump. Thanks
 
Also, do yourself a favor and buy a good TDS meter, which measures the Total Dissolved Solids of the product water (in other words, a fairly direct measure of purity). They aren't too expensive, either.
 
Umm, I noticed in my post about sand, that you use white kiln dried sand from home depot...Silicates are the reason I dont use that stuff...it is 100% silica sand (should even say it on the bag, or ask for an MSDS), and is prone to leaching silicates..(i truethfully dont see how it CAN'T leach silicates)..
Im not the most expierienced in the hobby by far, but I'm guessing it may be the root of your problem?
 
Well, it should leach them for a while, then it should taper off pretty sharply as the grains are coated with a biofilm. There may be enough solubility to be a problem though--not entirely sure.
 
the tank has been up for well over 1.5 yrs and this problem is one that just pops up once in a while. I had read other threads about this product and originally tried playsand but that made such a mess in the tank, had to run heavy on the filters for about a week even after I rinsed the stuff before putting it in the tank.
 
xsdbs said:
I am using city water and a little over a month ago the city sent out water test reports and the phos was way lower than the minimal accepted by the city.
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That really doesn't mean anything. We can take pretty high concentrations pretty easily. But for our tanks, it should be pretty much AT 0. My guess is even if it is way below the accepted rate for human drinking, it is still way to high for your tank.
And the silica sand would also DEFINITELY help. It is possible that the random spurts are from something stirring up your sandbed. As the bacteria which is deep in the sand is exposed to oxygen in the water, it dies a would then have to be coated again.
 
Definitely. I forgot what our city standard was (I think around 1 ppm), but it is well above what is recommended for aquaria.
 
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