Turning off UV sterilizer resulted in diatom bloom?

I recently turned off my UV sterilizer to stop killing good bacteria. I bought it for an ich problem couple years ago. I will now only run it when I have an ich problem. Well a few days later and now I have a diatom bloom everywhere. I'm gunna buy some more snails and hermits because I need to anyway, hopefully they will eat it off the rocks. Is this random bloom because of me turning off my UV? I am now considering to buy a phosphate reactor, good idea?

 

Well, diatoms live off of silicates. So you need to find the source of that. My first question is....are you using tap water for water changes? If so, I would pin the blame on that. I can't see the UV getting turned off causing the bloom.

 

I agree. Diatoms bloom will appear from old lights, nitrates an silicates. Generally the first thing to consider are the lights. Most people check for nitrates since the process of fish poo-poo breaking down is so commonly known and discussed, Ammonia-nitrate-nitrate...end of the line. But so many reefers do not check silicates - they are usually introduced through tap water but can also be from some salts & substrate.

I suspect that it’s either coincidental or the UV was killing *something* that is now permitted to generate nitrates. I am not sure what that something is of course, but perhaps its safe to say – turn the UV back on and/or check the other potential culprits. Good luck !!

 

Also, 99% of the bacteria lives in biofilms on your glass, your plumbing, on and in your live rock and on and in your sandbed. There are beneficial bacteria that are motile and are in your water but it if you kill them, big deal. Nitrifying bacteria can double in population in 20 minutes if there's an Ammonia or Nitrite source.

 

I have an RO/DI unit and always mix and top off with it. The diatoms seemed to have stopped growing now. Very weird, I have 2 150W 14K phoenix's that are about 9 months old now. Probably should order some new ones huh? - side note...I read an interesting article on advancedaquarist.com, saying how while 25% of your light output decreases in the first 6 months, over the next 6 months only another 5% decrease happens. You can then lower your lights a couple inches to assume only 25% depreciation. (this applies to HQI lamps)

 

This I knew......

Wow....no idea on this though. Great information. Pretty amazing if you think about it.

 

have you checked the TDI from your RO/DI? I got lazy and was not checking mine and all the sudden it was 220 or something like that. Needless to say I was WAY PAST TIME to replace cartridges. I just got the new one in the mail today so will be changing it out tomorrow. Check a reading and make sure your RO/DI is working effectively

 

"Under optimal conditions, Nitrosomonas may double every 7 hours and Nitrobacter every 13 hours. More realistically, they will double every 15-20 hours."

This is consistent with what I have read in other publications as well that the Nitrifying bacteria are slow to reproduce.

Source

 

I have a sunpod and was running 2 150W Phoenix 14,000K bulbs. My one bulb completely died after 8 months luckily I had a spare bulb and my 2 new bulbs were on their way. I have now xm 20,000k. Very similar look between the two. Phoenix bulbs might be a little brighter.
Adam