Silicate Removal

I've had diatoms now for 6 months. That seems to be a bit excessive for new tank diatoms from what I've heard. I'm guessing there are silicates in our water, which would not surprise me as it is town water from 8 deep wells around my little city. We're smack dab in the middle of the Sierra Nevada Batholith, which means granidiorite, which means quartz, which means silica. I knew I got a degree in geology for a reason. Better fishkeeping through expensive schooling. Anyhow...I digress.

I haven't been able to test for silicate in the water because I can't find a silica test at any of the fish stores I have access to. I do have phosphates in my tap water though, if that is of any help. My diatom problem has gotten so bad that its coating the leaves of the plants, which I believe cannot be helpful to their photosynthetic needs.

In your opinion, is it worth it to buy the filter media silicate removers? Do they actually work? The other option is RO/DI but I have limited space at the moment.

Other parameters are 0,0,0 at the moment, and medium-soft water. I tested GH and KH which both were right in the middle but I don't remember the actual number. If its needed I will test again. Thoughts, comments, concerns, questions, suggestions, and jokes welcome.

 

What kind of substrate did you use. Playsand has silicates.

 

Eco-complete

 

Rules out substrate then. There are diatom filters out there, maybe that will help if it is the water.

 

You have no nitrates? Are you sure your tank is still cycled? Unless your tank is very heavily planted, you should have nitrates. Using the API kit, beat the #2 bottle against a counter or table for at least a minute to get the crystals back into suspension.

If the tank is stable, then one option you might want to consider is purchasing some phosphate removing resins. Something like PhosPure, PhosBan or or Chemi-pure. These products are marketed to remove phosphate, but also remove silica. I had the greatest success with Chemi-pure and added it to a . Adding these resins to your main filtration doesn't work as well because the water current is too high for them.

 

My tank is planted, I'm not sure what qualifies as heavily planted though. I have 4 amazon swords, a cabomba, a hygrophilia, and an anubius in there. I've also taken cuttings from the cabomba and hygrophilia and planted those as well. Oh and I have an apongenton in the corner because there is less light there, and it likes it a bit darker. This is under T5HO lighting. I'm sure I'm still cycled because there is no ammonia and no nitrite, and hasn't been every time I've tested. Phosphates are running about 0.75 (between .5 and 1.0).

Will the Phosphate filter still not work even though its a canister filter? I can get the pet store near me to order Chemi-pure.

 

The water current is too fast in a canister filter for the resins to do much good. The key to success with these types of resins is slow water movement. Do you have a small HOB filter you could place the resin into an control the current? Everything I tried didn't work which is why I created the air driven filter for it. It made a big difference in my silica levels, but wasn't able to affect my PO4 much.

For a planted tank your PO4 levels are perfect. My city water has 2PPM if not more PO4. In fact, my planted tank is not dosed PO4 because it runs 5-10PPM!

What are you using to dose ferts? Amazon Swords are heavy root feeders and stem plants can quickly deplete the water column of nutrients. I use Flourish Root Tabs under my swords, and they grow like weeds under T5HO lighting; and I use dry ferts so I can control the components in the water column. If you consistently have 0 nitrate, then your plants will not be getting all the nutrients needed.

Ideally, parameters in a planted tank should run: 10-20 PPM NO3; 0.5-2.0 PPM PO4; 10-30 PPM Ca; 2-5 PPM Mg; 0.1-0.2 PPM Fe; KH 4+ degrees/drops; GH 4+ degrees/drops

 

I am waiting for my API tabs to run out this month, and then I'm going to use flourish tabs for the swords. I use leaf zone for the rest. I have to use excel to get the nitrate where I want it, this last reading was low because I adjusted the dose after adding more fish, but I didn't add enough.

I will probably try the DIY filter.

 

Excel doses CO2, not nitrates. Maybe it was your root tabs that were helping to increase your nitrates?

Good luck.

 

Nope. I dose excel for C02...lol. I dose Flourish Nitrogen for nitrates.
*facepalm!

 

Adding nitrogen to a tank confuses me. We're told to keep nitrates low, <20, yet our plants need. So we add more. How do we keep the balance?

 

Nitrate is one component used for plant fertilizers. A planted tank should aI'm for 10-20PPM NO3 to have enough available to plants. Some tanks are higher and others are lower. IME when a tank constantly has no measurable nitrate that the plants do not grow well.

There are several different ways to increase nitrates. The most common is adding more fish and keeping them well fed. Other means would be to do smaller water changes or increasing nitrates through fertilization.

In my planted tank, I dose 10PPM nitrates one day and the next it is down to 5PPM. So my plants are taking in 5PPM plus the amount of fish waste.

Hope that helps psalm.

 

I use a product called Leaf Zone in my planted tank. Before I started using it the plants didn’t seem to grow very well and looked droopy even with my tap water testing out at 40ppm Nitrates. Once I started using Leaf Zone by API my plants perked right up and within just a few days I could see the difference it made.

I also just started using a product called Natural Nitrate Reducer by Instant Ocean in my none planted tanks to help with the tap water nitrate. It claims to lower the nitrate to maintain it at any desired level. I will let you know how it works in a week or so because it says it can take up to a week to get the levels down depending on the level of nitrates in the tank to start with.

 

I use a product called Leaf Zone in my planted tank. Before I started using it the plants didn’t seem to grow very well and looked droopy even with my tap water testing out at 40ppm Nitrates. Once I started using Leaf Zone by API my plants perked right up and within just a few days I could see the difference it made.

I also just started using a product called Natural Nitrate Reducer by Instant Ocean in my none planted tanks to help with the tap water nitrate. It claims to lower the nitrate to maintain it at any desired level. I will let you know how it works in a week or so because it says it can take up to a week to get the levels down depending on the level of nitrates in the tank to start with.

API Leaf Zone doses potassium and iron. As your plants responded bowcrazy, these components are in short supply in your tank.

Good luck with the Nitrate Reducer. Hopefully it will provide a significant difference for you. I'd be interested to hear your results.

 

I went into my local fish store and asked them about the diatom issue. Our water does have silicate in it, and they suggest using their RO/DI water. I asked about a silicate removing resin, and they had a bunch - but said they had the best luck with Kents Power-Phos before they set up their giant RO/DI system. They told me it is designed to go in the filter - and if it doesn't work set up a system like catsma said.

I opened up and cleaned my filter out and it was covered in brown inside. There was also a random suction cup in there and some gravel. I have no idea how it sucked up a suction cup though.

I also replaced my carbon at this point - and the water looks great. It took out the tannins from the driftwood and so far I have no new diatoms from overnight. They usually spring up on day 2 after cleaning so I will keep you posted.