HELP- Diatom Bloom Lasting Over a Month Plants Dying

[sapling]

Please help me. My fish tank is about 1 1/2 months old and the diatom bloom in the tank has lasted about 3 1/2-4 weeks. I do regular water changes, use easy green fertilizer and keep the light on for 12 hours. My water parameters are 0 Ammonia, 0Nitrites, 10ppm Nitrates using the Master API Testing kit. I really have no idea what is going on and I need help.

[Patrick_G]

Don’t despair!  I had a very similar experience a few years ago when I first dove into the planted tank hobby. The tank looked great for a month or two then all of a sudden it was covered in brown algae. 

I’d definitely cut back on the light unless it’s very low power. Start off at seven hours. That should help stop new algae from forming. Next step is to remove the current algae. I see what’s probably diatom and maybe some green hair algae too. Both are easy to remove. For the glass a razor scraper or just a credit card works great. For the substrate, use you water change siphon to suck it out of the tank. The plants can be cleaned with a soft toothbrush. The good thing is that usually the diatom algae goes away on its own so keep with with the manual removal and give it some time. 

[sapling]

I will try this for the upcoming week and if it doesn't work I will post an update. Thank you!

[nabokovfan87]

On 10/11/2022 at 12:49 PM, Patrick_G said:

Don’t despair!  I had a very similar experience a few years ago when I first dove into the planted tank hobby. The tank looked great for a month or two then all of a sudden it was covered in brown algae. 

I’d definitely cut back on the light unless it’s very low power. Start off at seven hours. That should help stop new algae from forming. Next step is to remove the current algae. I see what’s probably diatom and maybe some green hair algae too. Both are easy to remove. For the glass a razor scraper or just a credit card works great. For the substrate, use you water change siphon to suck it out of the tank. The plants can be cleaned with a soft toothbrush. The good thing is that usually the diatom algae goes away on its own so keep with with the manual removal and give it some time. 

100%!

I would recommend using a toothbrush to scrub all this stuff off.  Take the rocks out, scrub them, rinse them, and then set them aside to clean the rest of the tank.  Whatever the lights are at now, cut it by 50% and make sure you're not OVER 8 hours for your lighting times.  Make sure that you're using a timer, etc.

Once you scrap everything, use the gravel siphon and get it all out until you're happy with the change.  Keep doing this every 2-4 days and you'll get ahead of it.  Once you get it "clean" then you can just focus on having clean water, good conditions, and solving the issue long term. 

If this was my tank, I'd clean it, which usually is an 80-90% water change when all is done.  This shouldn't cause any major issues, but this is all dependent on how close your tank water is to your tap water.  If it's similar, you're very comfortable to change out water.

The only final thing to note.... Please look into a background on the tank. Potentially the sides as well if lighting in those spots becomes an issue.  There is a window behind the tank or something bright and it could be causing greenwater and those kinds of symptoms in the tank.  You can use anything from a black trashbag, black paper, posterboard, window film, acrylic paint, etc.

Edit:  I also forgot to mention.  You can use the soft toothbrush on the plants too.  Hold the leaves in your hand and gently brush them.  Remove them so you can do a deep clean on everything in the tank and not be concerned about siphoning them out.  The plants will recover!  Get your dosing and lights in order, they will come back.

Edited October 11, 2022 by nabokovfan87

[sapling]

Won't doing an 80% water change mess up my cycle?

[nabokovfan87]

On 10/11/2022 at 1:26 PM, sapling said:

Won't doing an 80% water change mess up my cycle?

I've done it multiple times when need be.  Once in a while you won't have any issues.  Keep things wet. Rocks, plants, substrate, filter media, sponge, etc. and you won't mess with the cycle itself. The water is not what holds the cycle.  You're doing a major cleaning, scrubbing hard surfaces, but the majority of the bacteria is going to be in the filter media, substrate, and hardscape.  (not the water itself).

[Patrick_G]

On 10/11/2022 at 1:26 PM, sapling said:

Won't doing an 80% water change mess up my cycle?

Most of the beneficial bacteria lives on the surfaces of your filter media and on the surfaces in the tank, not in the water. There’s still a chance you’ll have a blip in your cycle after all the cleaning, but you should be ok, just follow @nabokovfan87’s instructions above and you’ll end up with a clean, cycled tank, 

[sapling]

Ok im about to clean it now. Lastly can one of you tell me what to do with my filter? It seems to be covered in algae and my media cylinders are also green and brown. Ive cleaned them before with a toothbrush but it took like 2 days for it to come back even worse.

[nabokovfan87]

On 10/11/2022 at 1:46 PM, sapling said:

Ok im about to clean it now. Lastly can one of you tell me what to do with my filter? It seems to be covered in algae and my media cylinders are also green and brown. Ive cleaned them before with a toothbrush but it took like 2 days for it to come back even worse.

what filter is that? Maybe we can help to set it up a bit better.  I see what looks like a cartridge, which explains a TON of the issues you're having.

Take everything in the filter, including the filter itself (if possible) and then go ahead and use the toothbrush to clean as much as you can in a bucket.  Fill it up with water about halfway just to keep things wet and make it a lot easier on yourself.  Anything that isn't filter media you can take to a sink and clean and rinse at that point.  Because of what you're showing you absolutely need to clean out the pump and the impeller and make sure those things are working correctly at max flow.  Secondly, verify that you do have some sort of an intake filter on that pump if possible because you do have a lot of floating debris in the tank right now.

Edited October 11, 2022 by nabokovfan87
typo

[sapling]

I also have a sponge filter in the tank but this is the filter that came with the tank.

[nabokovfan87]

On 10/11/2022 at 1:52 PM, sapling said:

I also have a sponge filter in the tank but this is the filter that came with the tank.

If you can, when you get the gunk off and stuff. Please show the filter itself so I can get an idea for layout.  Looks like water in from that inlet, pump is around there, and it goes to the cartridge and then out?

[sapling]

[Patrick_G]

At some point I’d probably put all coarse sponge in the hang on back, those little disposable cartridges don’t provide much surface area for bio-filtration. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 10/11/2022 at 1:59 PM, Patrick_G said:

At some point I’d probably put all coarse sponge in the hang on back, those little disposable cartridges don’t provide much surface area for bio-filtration. 

yep, exactly.  Let me try to find a manual.

[MattyM]

What everyone said here is great advise. I'd just like to add what I'd do: 

1. More plants, especially faster growing ones, will help out-compete the algae. If you are regularly dosing Easy Green for only a few plants, you're mostly giving the algae food. I'd cut the dosing way down.
2. Use root tabs to feed the rooted plants.
3. Floating plants will help too - if you can't dim your light, they will help prevent blasting the entire tank with light. 
4. Put the light on a timer, and give the tank a "siesta" (lights off) in between your lighting periods. So like 3.5 hours on, 2 off, 3.5 on. 

You'll pull through, my first tanks looked like primordial soup the first month or so. 

Edited October 11, 2022 by MattyM
grammar

[sapling]

I use root tabs and have thought about ordering floaters thanks!

 

so should i just throw away the cartridge and have no cartridge? 

 

[nabokovfan87]

On 10/11/2022 at 1:59 PM, sapling said:

Make sure that ceramic media in the bucket stays wet! Put that as close to the output as you can (after the cartridge).

Working on some sketches now.

What size tank is this?

[Patrick_G]

On 10/11/2022 at 2:03 PM, MattyM said:

More plants, especially faster growing ones, will help out-compete the algae. If you are regularly dosing Easy Green for only a few plants, you're mostly giving the algae food. I'd cut the dosing way down.

I agree 100%. I’m not sure of the science, but it just works. The more plant mass the better!

[MattyM]

On 10/11/2022 at 4:09 PM, Patrick_G said:

The more plant mass the better!

I can't recall who, but someone on this forum advised me to shoot for 70% of the tank being plant mass. I've pretty much done that over the past couple months and my algae issues are minimal now. 

[sapling]

its a 10 gal

 

[MattyM]

I have a 10g too. It started off looking a lot like yours - 3 months later this is what I have, and what I mean by heavy planting: 

[sapling]

So do i order a bunch more plants or do i wait to control the diatoms first?

 

[MattyM]

On 10/11/2022 at 4:22 PM, sapling said:

So do i order a bunch more plants or do i wait to control the diatoms first?

I'd get those plants ordered, they will help and with the info in this post, you'll be looking much better. I wouldn't worry about planting them right away - let the bacteria on the rockwool marinate in your tank for a bit. FWIW it took me a few tries to figure out what plants worked best for me. The floating plant in the above pic is water sprite. You can float it - plant it, or both!

[MattyM]

Oh, and if you feel your tank is cycled you can toss some amano shrimp in there (very low bio-load), and they will be in flavor town. But I would wait for the plants b/c they like cover. 

[meadeam]

Here is my battle with what turned out to be diatom.  TLDR;  I used Phosguard and it seemed to work, although it may have been in combination with the other steps taken.   My issue may have been due to an overabundance of silicates in the sandstone rocks I collected locally, and the play sand substrate.