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Brown diatoms on plants


plantedAlex
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I consider diatom a right of passage for aquariums.  It’s a normal phase that usually goes away on its own. I pull the plants I can during this phase and wipe them off with a pepper towel to keep them healthy but that is unnecessary. If you wipe it off in the tank it will simply resettle on something else. 

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Can you let us know some additional info on the tank?

1. how old is the tank?

2. what's your pH, gh, kh, tds?

3. what's the substrate? where did the rocks get sourced from?

Diatoms can happen early in a setup but if they are recurring later it is because of the presence of silica. All of my questions are geared to sourcing that. 

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I've had a massive diatom outbreak the last month.  @Guppysnail has helped me massively.  

The last five days I've been doing lots of cleanings including stirring the tank and letting the sponge on the power head and non sponged aquaclear 50 with lots of floss to suck up the diatoms that are floating in the water column.  I also got a uv filter and letting that suck up some of the diatoms.  

It's been a challenge but it's been working. There are several issues I think I have but I think this is the way to do it.  

Today I also got a large aco net, I stir up the tank and put the net so it collects a lot of the diatom mats that have been stuck on the substrate. 

Edited by HotTunaCartel
It's 5 o'clock somewhere
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