Overnight diatoms?

[chromis]

I added 90 pounds of PA semi cured rock to my tank last wednesday. On Monday of this week I noticed airbubbles intertwined with reddish orange algae. I identified these as diatoms. I am using RO water as top off. Now the diatoms have spread on to the glass, the overflow, etc. and are covering the rock. I talked to my friend at the pet store yesterday and he said that if I stirred up the sand then that might have caused it The only thing that was different when the diatoms bloomed was that there was a thick foam on the top of the water which I have since dissolved with powerheads. Also I think some came with the rock because there was a small patch that was behind some rocks. Is this part of the cycle? Is there a diatom phase that I have yet to read about?

Please Help,
Andrew

[djskott]

Is this tank Cycled?
How long has the tank been setup?

I just setup a 10 gal, no skimmer yet with 14lb or LR and i had a CRAZY brown algea bloom, I got some turbo snails and they have cleaned it up real good, just waitng for some xtra cash to get a skimmer to help out.
My tank has had the LR for 3 weeks and setup for 5-6weeks with just water and sand.

Diatom blooms are a normal sign of the tank moving on, I had a Seriosly bad case of it in my 29 gal before i got a skimmer on it, now my rocks are green red purple yellow and blueish all over no more brown algea, cept for on the sand in a cpl areas but that goes away over night and reappears a hour before i turn the PC's off.

HTH
Skott

[chromis]

Thanks man. well the first life was added a week ago, I am using a protein skimmer, I'm pretty sure the tank is cycled but Im using a red sea test kit so, I dunno. The tank has had just water and sand for about 2 months now.

andrew

[djskott]

Cool cool when i added my LR I had some serious browness goin on,
its part of the cycle, the 1st 2 months of the LR i had an problem controling it, I only fed 2-3 times a week, and switched from Tap water to RO water and there was a Major Differnce now im at 7 months with the LR and Im seeing new life everyday and im also Doseing with ESV 7-12 ML a day and my Purple. Green and blue Corline is growin mad cray cray, and my Feather duster population has Trippled or even Quadupled since i started dosing in March. I just added 2x55 JBJ PC's last month and my Polyps that were a gray white are now turning a light Green color. Very nice. the mushrooms have doubled in size as well..
Just do some water changes and keep using RO water, is my advice,
also keep your lights on for a mininmal amount of time that will help cut back the brown stuff i found a well instead of 8-10 hours i did 5-6 for a cpl weeks and then went 6-7 and then 7-8 again.
Take care

[chromis]

does anyone else have opinions?

[addicted2fish]

Andrew,

You can pretty much count on getting a measurable cycle if you just added 90 lbs. of new rock last week. I would just monitor the nitrite until it comes back down, then add a good clean up crew (lots of snails and maybe a couple of cukes) to keep the film off the glass and sand. If your system behaves anything like mine you will also get some cyano in a month or two. Fortunately I only got a couple of small patches and my two emerald crabs took care of it whenever it popped up. This is what worked for me. Good luck.

Bill

[chromis]

Bill, the rock was a couple of days short of being cured so if I had a cycle it only lasted a couple days. So major diatom growth is expected even with RO water? Right now there is one turbo snail in the tank because he was eating all my macros in my 10 gallon.

THanks
Andrew

[addicted2fish]

Andrew, yes, in my experience you will get diatoms no matter what. I imagine that the elements that fuel their growth come in on the rock and/or sand.

Bill

[Randy V]

Any time you add rock to your tank you will have die off of organisms that didn't survive the transition. If you mail ordered the rock the die off will be significant. If you got it down the street it will be less, but you'll still have some and it may have just been shipped to them. Even fully cured rock will suffer die off after shipment. This is normal.