Diatoms, should I do anything?

[DarkHorseMBA]

My young 75g has a Diatom out brake. There are 6 dwarf hermits in there but they don't seem to making an impact. I've contacted reef cleaners but not placed an order yet, probably next week.

In the mean time, is there something I can pick up locally to eat the diatoms, or just let leave them alone and let be?

DarkHorseMBA
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[Mr Cob]

start praying!


Haha, just joking, diatoms will go when your systems adjusts to your new bioload. Snails will help....a ton of ceriths or other algae grazers. ..or just wait it out. Cutting your light back a bit will also help a little.

[DarkHorseMBA]

Party sounds great!
I just started a light schedule this week, for the Zoa frag I have in there. 12hrs of actinic and 10hrs of white 10k, I have a Refugium light running alternate this schedule.

What can I cut this back to considering the Zoa?


DarkHorseMBA
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[Mr Cob]

Well, I run my MH (20k) 6 hours a day and actinics 15 hours a day. Perhaps you could cut back to 8 hours per day on the main light.

[DarkHorseMBA]

Did a water change last night, well actually 12:00 am, (wife's out of town do I don't sleep much).

Tried to vacuum up the diatoms with turkey baster and the siphon tube.

Adjusted the light schedule too.

DarkHorseMBA
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[Mr Cob]

that should help a bit. Just know that normally diatoms are not a bad thing and they pass as the system adjusts...but I always try to do small adjustments to help them pass quicker. My 85g went through this during the first cycle and a month later when I started adding a lot of livestock it went through it again. Cutting the light back an hour and adding 50 ceriths along with a Yellow Tank helped a bunch.

[DarkHorseMBA]

Well I had yet to do a water change, so it was needed.
Do you think a yellow tang would be a good 1st fish? Would it get aggressive with fish added later?


DarkHorseMBA
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[Mr Cob]

I would add some chromis as your first fish or something peaceful/cheap. Yellow Tangs, in my experience are only aggressive with other tangs of the same body shape and color.

My first two fish in my 85g were two Pajama Cardinals (cheap) and two weeks later a Yellow Tang. That's it at the moment.

[Mr Cob]

there are so many routes you can take....that's just what works for me. Where's everyone else....?

[DarkHorseMBA]

Think everyone got sick of my newbie questions?! :-)


DarkHorseMBA
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