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Dreaded Diatom Bloom


Tony2163

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Hi All

Have a question concerning my diatom bloom, a bloom that I was told to expect.

 

I am running an Evo 13.5

Ammonia: 0

Nitrites: 0

Nitrates: 5

Phosphate: 0

PH: 8.1

Alk: 7

Temp: 78.4

Salinity: 1.025

 

I have the Intank media basket in the first chamber with filter floss, Chemi-Pure elite, just added Phosguard, and Marine Pure bio Media.

 

In the second Chamber I have Marine Pure bio media.

 

Third chamber has the pump, heater and the ATO.

 

Also have the Jebao SW-2 NANO Wavemaker

 

Tank has been running now for 5 weeks

 

Inhabitants are two clown fish, two hermit crabs, 1 Turbo snail  two astrea snails three Zoas and 1 Xenia.

 

I am now feeding once a day, down from two, a variety of frozen and dry food.  Frozen food is rinsed before feeding and all food is soaked in Selcon and sometimes garlic. Care is taken to feed them slowly as not to overfeed and put extra waste in the tank.

 

Water changes are done once a week, two gallons, although over the last few days I have done two to try and lower the Nitrates to see if that helps with the bloom.

 

I'm running the stock light for approximately 10 hours and the bloom started about 3-4 days ago.  Some say to wait it out although I have vacuumed the sand in order to removed some of the bloom and have been brushing some of the rock to try and put the diatoms into the water column to have it picked up by the filter floss which I change every two days.

 

The main question I have is there more than just diatoms in this bloom?  I was told that there is also bubbles that can form during the photosynthesis which appears to be the case.  When I turn the lights on in the morning no bubbles are present, as the day goes on more and more bubbles are formed, but they appear to be attached to some form of string algae.  I have included two pictures to show the bloom and bubbles

 

Any insight, ID or tips from those of you who have already "enjoyed" this phase of the hobby would be greatly appreciated. 

 

Thanks

Tony

Algae bloom .jpg

Algae bubble.jpg

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Diatoms are normal. They feed off silicates which will exhaust and the diatoms will die off.

 

Your nitrates are 5. I would not lower them, that's beneficial nutrients. Same goes with phosphate.

 

Having low to none existant nutrients is not beneficial, if anything it's the perfect environment for dinoflagellates.

 

Sometimes micro bubbles attach to algae and especially to knew rock and sand.

 

 

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47 minutes ago, 05XRunner said:

looks more like Dinos than diatoms to me

Sometimes when micro bubbles land on algae it can look like dino. 

It's hard to say, it could be 2 things.

 

A positive I'd would be needed under microscope

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