Sunlight’s tank journal

Nice job on the video and glad to see your fur pets occupying your time while you wait!! I also saw Reggie give a little wave with his pectoral fin. ?
 
Nice job on the video and glad to see your fur pets occupying your time while you wait!! I also saw Reggie give a little wave with his pectoral fin. ?
Thank you!! Yes Reggie loves saying hey to the camera <3 he has also learned that putting my phone up close to the glass means I want him to flare (I used to get tons of flaring pics) so he isn’t definitely not camera shy ;)
 
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A bit of a new issue with this tank: diatoms. Literally covering everything. Both the fine powder kind and the filamentous kind. Possibly due to the sudden nitrate amount in the water? I tested my nitrates after a 10% PWC yesterday and my plants converted 10 ppm of nitrates back to 0 in a week so I’m not too sure what is causing the sudden diatom outbreak (I dosed it back up to 10 after testing). Any thoughts, anyone? I dimmed my light yesterday with some electrical tape in case that might have something to do with it. My light seemed too bright beforehand anyways.

Something I haven’t considered though is that the non-filamentous kind might be dead cyano. Or at least part of it might be. But the filamentous kind is still there so I’m unsure how much would be dead cyano. Oh yeah, good news! My cyano is all gone in a matter of days since adding the nitrates!

I know diatoms usually fix themselves in a couple of weeks but i just thought I’d see what’s everyone thinks. It doesn’t seem to be hindering my plants at all.
 
Diatoms are normal in lower light settings. They are a great food for algae eating fish and snails. Yes you might have taped off a bit too much. Diatoms can be easily wiped off glass, if they are covering plants it is more a sign the plants haven't taken off yet. Remember algae are pioneers, they appear before the plants get time to take off, or if conditions aren't favorable.
 
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Diatoms are normal in lower light settings. They are a great food for algae eating fish and snails. Yes you might have taped off a bit too much. Diatoms can be easily wiped off glass, if they are covering plants it is more a sign the plants haven't taken off yet. Remember algae are pioneers, they appear before the plants get time to take off, or if conditions aren't favorable.

They appeared before I taped off light and after I added the nitrates for the first time. I dimmed the light to see if that might help get rid of them. Do you think they’ll just get rid of themselves after a few weeks or is there anything I can do to help the process?
 
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Have you tested the pH, KH and phosphates? Are they covering plants? You don't want the nitrate to go actually back to 0, keep it at at least 5 to 10 ppm throughout the week.
 
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Have you tested the pH, KH and phosphates? Are they covering plants? You don't want the nitrate to go actually back to 0, keep it at at least 5 to 10 ppm throughout the week.

pH is still 6.4, I haven’t ordered the KH and phosphate tests yet because I’m trying to save my money as best as I can until after this Coronavirus thing is gone and I can work again. As soon as that happens I’ll order it and will share the results on here :)

The diatoms are on old leaves of a few of the plants, mostly the bolbitis which isn’t shocker cause it’s such a slow grower. It’s not touching the water sprite which also isn’t a shocker cause it’s such a fast grower. It’s also not on any of the new leaves on any of the plants, so at least everything is still growing! Most of it is just on the back wall, wood, and stones, so that’s good and I enjoy the natural feel. I just don’t want it to hinder my plants.

And sounds good about keeping nitrates up, maybe that’s what is the issue: the plants run out of nutrients so they can’t grow as good. I’ll test every other day and keep it at 10 and see what happens.
 
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