ideas on a better clean up crew.

[dclegern]

The tank is looking beautiful. but still with this light diatom film on the glass and substrate.
all fish and softies are lovin' the new tank/lights etc.
all parameters are in check, barely feeding these guys.....but always with this light brown annoyance.

any ideas once again would be great.

[Europhyllia]

feed your critters. the ocean is full of nutritious food. Don't feed junk though. Get some good frozen food without additives, rinse it, enjoy!

[StevenSeas]

I had the diatoms pretty bad too they would grow and then i would blast them off with a pipet and 3 hrs later after gettin back from class there it would be again mocking me LOL. get a fighting conch. Ever since adding mine I havent had any brown diatoms on the substrate....however it has all moved to my frag rack and the upper rocks where he doesnt go. So now im running seachem phosgaurd and more aggressive skimming and its fading away on my rock work and frag rack.

[Europhyllia]

I have had the worst diatom outbreak after I removed several rocks from my tank. To me diatom is often related to:
major rearranging rock work, disturbing sand bed, having a new tank.
I always use RODI water but I guess you could also import stuff in water.
I fought my diatom outbreak with everything I could find: phosphate adsorbing media or different kinds, daily water changes, etc.
In the end it just ran it's course and was gone again -replaced by much anticipated green algae. lol

[StevenSeas]

the problem w/ letting it run its course if for those of us that dont/cant use RO water. Like in my case my ATO adds new water bout 3 times daily so more diatoms are added 3x daily so it is just a continuous thing to deal with but so far the phosgaurd is working well. However I do agree with Europhyllia in that if you can do us RODI water as it will make a huge difference. I used to use RODI when my tank was in SA and never had any diatom issues now that im on tap water I dont think i have had a day w/o any but now that i added the conch and the phosgaurd it has gotten substantially better and is getting better daily

[kkiel02]

Yeah RODI is very helpful as it will get the silicates along with other disolved solids out of your water. Phosban will help to remove them from your system.

[BIGBIRD123]

You also need to monitor your media regularly if you use phosban as it will leach phosphate back into your tank if not changed regularly. I use GFO (granular ferric oxide) because it will not leach back.

[allan]

I was at Lorraines house the other day and her tank is spotless. I offered to give her, free of charge, a frag of my red cyano. She declined.

Her point was an excellent clean up crew. And true enough she had quite a bit in the hermit and snail cuc. That and flow, no dead areas.

I'm beefing up my cuc with each trip to the lfs.

[Europhyllia]

You forgot to mention the size of each of her critters. Her emeralds could thumbwrestle you and her shrimp are big enough to grill and eat! lol