# Hatin' them Brown Diatoms



## AElliott (Feb 14, 2010)

I know that the occurance of brown diatoms is common in new tanks but was wondering if there is anything I may be doing wrong. My tank is just over a month old but the diatoms dont seem to be letting up quite yet. I wonder if the lace rock could be leeching silicates into the water column as I know that brown diatoms feed off silicates? It wouldnt bother me so much but I pride myself on a spotless tank and the diatoms can give a relatively sparkling clean tank a dirty appearance. Should I just wait for the green algae to take over or are there any other action that may help?

78*, PH 8.1, NH3-0, NH4-0, NO3-5, 10 hour light cycles and 40%WC 2X a week


----------



## kmuda (Nov 27, 2009)

A non-planted tank on a 10 hour light cycle is likely to have algae problems of some nature. Currently, it's brown aglae (diatoms). But it will eventually be green algae. Try cutting back your lighting schedule.

On my non-planted tanks, I rarely keep the lights on more than 8 hours per day, generally closer to 6.


----------



## ladybugzcrunch (Jul 26, 2009)

BN plecos seem to like to eat it as do nerite snails.


----------



## KaiserSousay (Nov 2, 2008)

That brown gunk may never go green by it`s self.
That LED lighting for your tank looks great, but might not give the needed Ã¢â‚¬Å"spectrumÃ¢â‚¬Â


----------



## AElliott (Feb 14, 2010)

Thanks for the replies. I am going to turn on my UV to see if that will make any change (im expecting very little). I was also thinking of putting in a few plants to see if that would help if the UV doesnt make any difference. My nitrates are kept in check pretty well so I would be surprised if that would help but I am willing to try almost anything to get over this hump. Thanks again for the suggestions all.


----------



## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Keep in mind that diatoms are not the same as algae (more related to silicates than nitrates) and will go away on their own after *several *months. Silica is more likely to leach from tank components that contain silica like glass and substrate. Meanwhile they are easy to remove manually (in that they are soft and not attached firmly).

I have heard both the BN _will _eat them and_ will not_ eat them. I have also heard nerites eat only soft green algae. I didn't get my BN or nerites until after my diatoms were gone.

Changing the quality of light to encourage green algae might help, that is something I never tried but is often mentioned.


----------



## Dj823cichild (Mar 30, 2009)

Scrub them off that's what I used to do.


----------



## AElliott (Feb 14, 2010)

Dj823cichild said:


> Scrub them off that's what I used to do.


I do scrub them off -twice a week in fact. The problem is that they keep coming back. I have some old 6700K bulbs so I may switch those up per DJRansomes suggestion.


----------



## Dj823cichild (Mar 30, 2009)

:thumb:


----------



## AElliott (Feb 14, 2010)

A beautiful sight- diatoms dying off all this week. I hadnt made any of the changes that have previously been suggested but early in the week I noticed they had started to die back. I did a 50% WC and switched on my UV on saturday and it has seemingly helped in their removal. Its so nice to see patches on rocks where they used to be clear of any algae of any kind. I guess patience is key as it is around 8 weeks from the tank being set up. Now I have to wait and hope that they will continue to recede.


----------

