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Showing results for tags 'diatom bloom'.
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My tank water has turned cloudy. It will vary day to day and even hour by hour some days. I recently had a big diatom bloom as well, but that seems to have stopped. Could it be the diatoms are dying and the bacteria are now blooming? The diatom bloom followed a re-scaping of the tank. I removed sand (which I had washed very well), moved rocks, planted more plants, and otherwise really stirred up the tank. I suspect that lead to silicates in the water which caused the diatom bloom. My water parameters have been steady. 0 ammonia for the most part (today it is maybe a smidge above 0 and the water is the cloudiest it has been). 0 Nitrites. Nitrates are now between 5-10 but were up around or over 20 when the diatom bloom began. It is a 20 long with 8 small white cloud minnows, 6 blacknose dace (native minnow) that are 1-1.5" long, and 3 amano shrimp. I have several plants (anubias, jungle val, water sprite, java fern, and some others so it is moderately planted). The fish seem normal and active. They don't seem to care. I also recently added a Fluval 207 in preparation for switching to that filter. Old filter, which is still running at low, is a Tidal 55. Filtration seems to be more than adequate. I plan to reduce feeding (was feeding once a day and don't think I was over feeding). I may also add charcoal to the filter. Right now they are both just the sponges and biorings. No chemical filtration (charcoal, Phosphate, etc).
