# Diatoms just will not go away



## Sharksushi (Apr 26, 2013)

When I first set up my tank about a year ago, it was perfectly diatom-free for the past many months, this stuff is covering my glass, ornament, and gravel and it's a pain to having to clean manually. My water is a bit hard is that why? I've tried nerites, they didn't do anything. Otos have all died. Frequent water changes had no effect neither did increasing/decreasing amount of light.

6g edge, betta, some neons & some shrimp.

I don't know what to do anymore and it's really stressing me out. The shrimp will eat it here and there occasionally but won't clean the tank. It looks especially bad since I have white gravel and I literally had to take it out and scrub them with a toothbrush individually that's how desperate I was- only to have it come back within days.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Did your source water change or your lighting? IME this stuff thrives in low light, high nitrate, high silica (sand for substrate). Sometimes if you up the light a lot (like double or triple) you can replace it with green algae.


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## Sharksushi (Apr 26, 2013)

I left it on for the whole day and I'm getting green algae now. So it's either have brown algae or have green algae? That stinks. I'd rather have NO algae- when I first setup my tank there was no algae and it looked so clean with my white gravel. Argh, this is frustrating.


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## C. King (Dec 14, 2012)

Algae can be really tough to get rid of, once it gets going. I have not tried this myself, but have read that algae can be completely eradicated by blacking out the tank for several days. It must be a full blackout, no light even around the edges. I would think very good filtration, and added aeration would be necessary to avoid killing off the fish. If anyone on this site has personal experience with this, maybe they can give some input, or you can surf the web for info. Since algaecides are not an option for you(kills shrimp), you will have to focus on natural algae control methods, like changing substrate, switching foods, and using lights only when looking at the fish. Algae over growth is a result of either an imbalance of water chemicals, (overfeeding, too much fish waste, sand or ornaments that leach into the water, bad water source?) or an incorrect ratio of light to fertilizers if you have plants. If you do not have plants, lights are just for viewing anyway. Also, any tiny bit of natural sunlight on the tank means algae. I had a tank set up where I thought no light could reach it, and it was fine for months. Then, in the Fall, algae. When I spent a day watching for sunlight, I discovered a small ray from a window, which only hit the tank at a time I was usually not home to see. The sun had shifted with the season. Had to put tinfoil on that side of the tank (outside, not inside) until Spring. Wasn't pretty, but it worked.
BTW, do not try the total black out method without reading up on it thoroughly. Sounds like it could be tricky, and a potential disaster to the tank residents.


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

If there are nutrients in the water, something will eat them and grow. If not algae, cyanobacter (blue green slime) or water-clouding bacteria. You can attack the nutrients with lots of water changing or you could try to get something else to eat them, such as live plants, by making conditions even better for the something else than for the algae. Or you can try to get something to eat the algae, maybe a snail. 

I would go for green algae for a few weeks and see if your shrimp start eating it. The main advantage of green algae is that more things eat it. Many new tanks start out with brown and end up with green. 

The "kill everything growing in the tank" strategy by means like chemicals and blackouts and Uv sterilizers will only be temporarily effective as the nutrients are still there. 

You could try a combo of "kill the algae" and "outcompete the algae" by trying a chem or blackout followed by the addition of a big wad or hornwort or other easy live plant. 

Be careful with any algae-nuking technique as dead algae quickly turns to ammonia which can kill both fish and "cycle" in a tank that small. Remove as much as you can and do lots of big water changes.


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## Vicdad999999 (Dec 18, 2012)

I do the blackout method once a month on one of my tanks, its the only spot to have that tank and gets direct sunlight right onto the front of the tank for at least 5 or more hours a day (I swear everytime I walk by it theres a ray of light beaming right onto it 7am its got light 5pm that sun dont move). And rather than let me board up the windows or replace the wafer thin curtains she has up im stuck with a tank that gets very bad algae growth, i took a picture of my hob after one month. I dont swish it after every water change, i peel it once a month before the blackout. Its embarrassing to show but here is my algae filter every month.







[/URL][/IMG] The algae actually comes out of the filter and hits the floor of the tank you can reach in and grab hand fuls of it. Which I do and feed to my pest snail bucket. Sometimes i dry it out and throw it in other tanks, not sure if theres a nutritional value or not but i do it.
I first found out how to do it here. http://www.aquariumslife.com/headline/algae-control-the-blackout-method/ i dont have plants but i usually have to do it twice. the amount of time wasted trying to keep up with the algae growth in that tank is too time consuming for me so i let it go, I still do water changes and wipe it a little but its a continuous battle so i dont fret over it. I usually just use it as a qt tank but if i break it down she'll likely put something else in that spot and I lose a tank spot. I keep hoping she`ll eventually cave in and let me get blinds or something, but I also think shes waiting for me to cave in and well, that just aint gonna happen. Standing my ground with an algae tank. But to re iterate, the blackout method works, but itll come back if you dont find out whats casuing it.


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## BV77 (Jan 22, 2005)

Algae article, scroll down to the diatom section http://www.aquariumalgae.blogspot.com/


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Looks like some strange alien creature there, vicdad99999.


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## Obsidian (May 20, 2007)

Okay this is going to sound counter-intuitive but here is my idea, based on what I actually did when I got pissed off at my diatomes. It's probably the best "experiment" I ever ran. 

I got tired of cleaning it, so I stopped cleaning it off. Nothing, didn't clean it at all. I did regular water changes, but didn't mess with the glass or ornaments etc. I thought well I wonder how long it will happen or how bad it would get? After about 3 weeks the tank was so dirty with diatomes it was almost to the point where you couldn't see through it to see the fish, except at the top. I almost gave up, almost. 

About a week after that the tank cleared overnight. Like very little diatomes, it was gone. What was left was some green algae, but not the kind that you would ever want to get rid of. Planted tank owners would kill for a "grass" cover like this algae was. It was gorgeous and only along the top of the piece of wood I had in there. I left it be at that for the next 2 weeks before I wiped what little was left off of the glass. Tank was perfect. But it took patience. 

As for your otto's- please do not get anymore until this problems is solved. A friend of mine who ran a fish sop for over 20 years explained to me that otto's love diatomes, unfortunately they are not able to digest it right and they end up dying from their inability to digest. I have never done any research to verify this, but she knows her stuff fairly well from what I can tell.

Found a picture- notice how clean the tank is. There are still some diatomes clearing off of the bottom of 2 of the rocks, but the top has the carpet algae. It's hard to see in this picture but the algae is a bright bright green and fuzzy.


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## TheOldSalt (Jan 28, 2005)

Kind of extreme, but it works. When they overpopulate and use up all the available nutrients, diatoms crash hard.


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