Tim

Long time no post. Let me fill everybody in. My last post was in regards to diatoms and the abundance of them. The advice I received was to let it run its course. Further reading in the message boards lead me to an revelation. Some one had mentioned that diatoms are silca based creatures. Later on I was reading the debate between weather or not fresh water tanks should have small amounts of salt added to them. I am one that has, on the advice of mom\pop fish store, added a small amount during a water change. But wait... silca based creatures......adding salt to the water...... all I was doing was feeding these guys. Hence the population explosion. I did a 50% water change and did NOT add salt this time. That was almost a month ago. I have not had to scrape anything since. My two Ottos keep everything under control. As far as my tank goes, I will no longer be adding salt. I hope this can help someone out there. Diatoms are ugly to look at.

Tavel

I would personally rather look at diatoms than algae. Diatoms look like dirt, algae looks like you don't take care of your tank. haha

I didn't know sea salt had silca in it. Perhaps it's something else in there that does it...very intriguing.

Chief_waterchanger

Thanks for the update, Tim.

That's a small scale scientific experiment you have done and presented to our forum, thank you.