Diatoms everywhere

While I don't see it on the decor, there was a ton in my gravel and filter. And I must have missed a spot because when I turned the filter back on there was a dust of something (probably diatoms) that spilled into the crystal clear water after my water change. I do weekly 50% water changes and I thoroughly gravel vac. I don't think food is to blame since my fish are scavengers and leave nothing behind. I'm reading that they are harmless, but I feel like there's an excessive amount in such a short time. And only 1/4 of my substrate is gravel the rest is black sand. Which I'm also reading sand is a big culprit in providing nutrients to diatoms, and the substrate arrangement is fairly new.

I have a few plants and a marimo ball. And I am adding pothos cutting to the filter box. This is mostly to keep nitrates down but won't the plants compete with the algae and eventually starve the diatoms out? Or is that wrong.

This is 30 gallon tank.

 

I figured it out, I cleaned river rocks in my water bucket because I was going to add them to my tank but since they were covered in brown algae I scrubbed them first. I didn't end up adding the river rocks (I literally pulled them from a river) but I suspect this brown algae was diatoms and since I only rinsed the bucket with water I probably put them right into my aquarium! Plus I use a baby tooth brush to clean decor and that's what I scrubbed my rocks with.

In anyone's experience how long did it take to get rid of diatoms by doing 50% weekly water changes? On this particular tank I do it 1-2 times a week as is.

 

Unfortunately doing any percentage of water changes will not rid you of the brown scourge known as diatoms. Sorry... Didn't want to be the one to break it to you.

Diatoms are dastardly. It usually means you're tank has recently been established. It's just a matter of waiting it out most of the time, and eventually they will go away so long as your tap water isn't high in silicates.

I can't tell you exactly how long before it goes away, but it "should". In one of my tanks my diatoms disappeared in less than three months. In another tank -overstocked I might add - I didn't see diatoms until four months later. And now almost a year after set up I can always tell when my nitrates are getting too high because spots of brown appear.

You can help your tank through it, though.

- shut off your filter before scraping diatoms off glass or cleaning ornaments so you aren't trapping them. Dead diatoms leads to (wait for it....) an even thicker outbreak of diatoms.

- after cleaning diatoms off ornaments or glass perform a water change to remove them from the water.

- if you really must clean decor do it in a bucket outside the tank.

- keeping nitrate levels low has been greatly beneficial.

- keeping filters clean

- if your water is high in silicates you can purchase silicate removing media

- don't pull your hair out over it. Most likely one day they'll go away with age.

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Well I mean I vacuum until half the water is gone, gotta suck all that gunk out! I never saw much point in removing water if nothing's actually getting cleaned.

I probably had a minI cycle going on because I had to replace the filter and had limited options on how to preserve the old cartridge

 

I bet if I squeezed out my filter sponge again tonight there would be a ton in the bowl. I didnt clean the filter as much as I should have I mostly rinsed the tubed in tap water to "kill" the diatoms but I doubt it helped. I wiped most of it off the box and it was all over my biomax so I had to shake them in a cup of tank water.

I took a piece of driftwood from that tank too last night and put it in my shrimp tank, so I bet I just opened Pandora's diatom box!

 

Is this the tank you have a Fluval power filter on? I've never owned one so not all that familiar, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought these had a pretty large space for filter media and were semi-customizable? I'd make room for a pouch of biological media: ceramic pieces, lava rock, even a pouch of charcoal you can stick in there and leave makes good biological media. That way you have virtually no chance of starting minI cycles, which should hopefully mean less a chance of reoccurring diatoms. Even if that weren't a factor I'd make space just to make filter cleaning/replacement easier, and with some good media it's easier to start new tanks.

Or did you mean you replaced the entire filter?

Diatoms on my own reoccurring problem had previously come back with such ferocity I eventually did away with any replacement cartridges for my HOB and bought 100% polyester batting, ripped off the pad on the filter insert and just cover it again by slipping batting behind it after establishing some good ceramic media.

As for the driftwood? Your shrimp should go to town on it, hopefully just closing Pandora's box without so much as taking a peek. Should be alright. If not, well, that's what shrimp are for.

 

I had to buy a new filter and it is a Fluval. It has a sponge, carbon, and biomax. I shoved the old filters floss in between the biomax and carbon. I probably should have put it under the carbon tho. It's been removed anyways.

The box is transparent so the diatoms are more visible. Since its not really on my decor (yet) and is mostly under the gravel I think maybe it's not as big of a "bloom" as it seems to me. Ill just keep cleaning as usual and maybe they'll disappear. My city water is purchased from a neighboring city, which is ranked the 3rd cleanest water in the world. That being said I still checked the annual report and I didn't see any mention of silicates. But like I said, sand, I've read that they feed off it. And once they run out of food they will die off.

My shrimp are having a good time in their tank