Diatoms after one month of cycling?

Hey so I thought after 1 month my tank should be ok to start slowly stocking as the levels are stable now, So I threw in a zoo or two and my emerald crab for some clean up, this morning there are diatoms, any reason I should worry about the health of my corals or emerald crab at this stage? he seems fine but just thought I would check

 

I don't see any reason to worry. Are you using tap water?

 

it's been a month since my tank finished cycling and I still have diatoms too. I think its a normal part of a new tank maturing and will go away on its own, shouldn't hurt any of your livestock

 

yeah I use tap water but its put through a reverse osmosis brita tap filter, and the nitrates/ nitrites come out at 0 so no concerns there

 

Diatoms feed off of silicates. They are pretty normal to see in a new tank. However, by using tap water you could be prolonging the diatoms life in your tank and setting yourself up for problems. Most faucet filters are not actually reverse osmosis. Typically they have some sort of sediment filtration and then pass the water through carbon. While this does reduce levels in the water, it is not actually removing as much as an ro/di unit. This could be leaving silicates, phosphates, some metals, and whatever else is in tap water. The faucet filters are better than nothing, but I wouldn't say no worries.

 

Yeah no worries haha, I have talked to the guys at out local marine store, and they said that ro/di units help, but if your water already comes out at 0 nitrates/nitrites, there is no reason to purchase on, cause its the microbial stuff in the water thats breaking down causing it, and my nitrates are low according to them less then 5 ppm is still in a safe range, so I'm not concerned about that, I just wasnt sure if the diatoms, would affect livestock lol but I guess theres no reason to worry.

 

I don't think I would listen to those guys actually. RO/DI units do more then just help. Nitrites/Nitrates have nothing to do with diatom at all. I honestly get my RO water from Walmart fo .33 cents a gallon. I haven't had any diatoms since using that water instead of my tap water. Nitrates at 5 ppm is perfectly safe, but still has nothing to do with diatoms. I would really suggest a different water source.

 

not trying to argue here or anything, but this is information from a few marine stores, yes ro/di is great for diatoms, but again new tank=diatoms, nothing to do about it really from what I have heard from them and on here as well from others, but wait it out, it would be ideal to use ro/di but in this case is not really 100% required, it could speed up the diatom die off, but other then that I have low nitrates in our water, and very little or no heavy metals or microbial organisms, in the water from our tap

 

Of course it does, diatoms, like anything else can't grow without Nitrates... Silicates help diatoms gain a competitive advantage, over other algae for the nitrates though. So, if there is no silica, then other algae (good or bad) will have a better chance of using those nitrates. The reason the op is seeing diatoms though is likely because the pod population isn't well established yet and there aren't enough snails. Once the pods take off they will consume the diatoms and then the diatoms will start to disappear. In the meantime adding some snails will help accelerate the process as snails will also consume the diatoms. Diatoms are a good food source for a number of organisms in an established tank. Once there is a population of consumers, the diatoms really will not be seen regardless of silica (too a point anyways) as they are consumed so readily.

 

Learned something new today. That makes more since then what I had been taught in the past.