Diatom question

I'm having what I'm hoping is just a temporary diatom bloom. It's powdery brown, kinda like brown sugar or cinammon has been dumped on things. However, it's not on the rocks and not really on the sand either...it's mostly just growing on my powerheads, the glass and the over-flow box. Is that normal?

I have high phosphates that are gradually being removed (filled tank up with tap water at first and have been gradually changing it out with RO). Phosphates have declined from about 4ppm to around 1ppm over the course of a month, so I'm hoping that when that drops to 0 that the algae problem will go away too.

What do you think?

 

i'm still new at all of this, but i think that once your phosphates and nitrates are at 0 the diatom bloom will eventually go away by itself. And i do believe it is normal for diatoms to get on a lot of equipment. I am currently experiencing a diatom bloom because i have high nitrates and probably phosphates, i don't have it on equipment, but my diatoms grows on my lr, ls, and tank glass.

 

Yes the Diatoms will go away on there own. Diatoms are more about Silicates that are present, not the phosphates and nitrates. They are actually unicellular organisms not a true algae. As soon as they use up all the available silicates they will fade away.