Is this a diatom bloom ?

[prox2332]

I have this stuff on my cabbage coral and on the sandbed, rocks back of tank..it looks awful, is this a diatom bloom ? will it eventually go away on its own. I was thinking it was part of the tank maturing process since it is a fairly new setup back in January, I have a good size cleanup crew who wont touch this stuff much and just lost my mythrax today . Is there any test kits out there to test for phosphates ? I was thinking of installing my own RO/DI unit it will save on $ and I dont trust the place I get my water from. Thanks for any input.

[prox2332]

Its even on my cabbage

[AReeferIsExpensive]

is it red or brown?

[prox2332]

it's brown.

[mattie]

they do make a test kit for phosphates

brown.... it leaves one to believe that it's just diatom's but it thick in some places and covering corals which more like cyno algae... which can be caused by phosphates or from overfeeding the tank and sometimes from not enough flow. siphon the gunk out of your tank regardless of what the algae really is. this is a warning sigh that the nutrients in the water are too high.

 

if it is only diatoms they will burn out in a week since they need silicates to survive which are usually only added in tap water and can be checked w/ test kit:)

[SilverSpurs]

looks just like what I had last week. Mattie is right about it "burning out" in a week - it left "dust" all over the place that clouds up the water. Syphon it out now while you have the chance. My water was bad too - they said that they just changed the filters... but they lied.