Should I vaccume the diatoms on the sand?

Every day there is a fresh diatom layer on the glass and sand. If I rake the sand it just comes back, should I be vacuuming the diatoms into the sump?

 

I did it once and it worked great for awhile, but it comes back eventually. How is your temperature? As soon as I lowered mine by 2-3*, and cut back on my lighting 2-3 hours a day mine went away. Another quick fix I found that worked for a while was using a turkey baster on it. I used it to blast water straight at it and into the sand to bury the problem away from the light.

~Will.

 

IMO

no need, if they are diatoms, once the silicates in your system are exhausted they dissapear - it can take 4 - 6 weeks, but once they have gone completely you will never know they where there ( tank looks as clean as the day you set it up)

Steve

 

so it would be better to keep the lights on longer? grow them to kill them

 

Suprat - they are not an algae really - lighting IME never affected them
some people do run newly set up tanks with lights off but this is to discourage other algaes that may sprout from the rockwork

the only thing running lights off or just actinics did was make the Diatoms less easy to see ?

they come, they go, no attention is required in either direction lights on lights of , silicate availability defines how bad they get and how long they stick around for

Steve

 

Yep.. I wouldn't do anything and they will go away... Provided you're not adding more silicates with your water changes.

 

when the diatoms die though they will release phosphates and silicate back into the tank you need to get to the actuall source of the silicates and phosphates to stop it from coming back

 

+1.....if tank is new,....leave it be for awhile and it should slowly disappear. If tank is old, stop pouring silicates in!!!!

 

sucking them out will just prolong. As said above, let them consome the silicates in your system and they will go away.

 

The worst case of diatoms I had was when my 150 was bare. I never bad the lights on either and diatoms completely overtook my LR and a big area of my LF. As odd as it sounds, it went away after putting livestock into the tank. Make sure your topoff water is clean and your skimmer is running properly and it should go away naturally with time. You can also toss in some macro algae to consume the phosphates and silicates.