Yip, got them as well, small little white buggers,
Diatoms..
- Thread starter TheSnoek
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Yip, got them as well, small little white buggers,
Yes, I strated with no light fro the first three days, then build it up bit by bit until i got to to the full 12 hours.
Note that I only have 10w, still trying to find a way to put more in.
I have a little starfish (out of my live rock) that seams to love it. As well as little snails.
Think it is a balance, as long as you have enough thing to eat it, and enough of it to be eaten by the things it should be OK?
Think it is a balance, as long as you have enough thing to eat it, and enough of it to be eaten by the things it should be OK?
Diatoms are good, but not to the point where everything goes brown, like when your tank is cycling. Its all about balance! Diatoms are always present, but they should not be visibly winning over reef real estate! Diatoms are food for microlife, which is again food for corals!
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Snoek dont worry about the diatom as a sign of a tank cycling, rather watch the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels. Ammonia and nitrite will spike and come back to zero and then your nitrates should come down to below the 10 mark, once this has happened your tank has cycled.
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oh.
can't recall where i got that crazy idea.. readings are looking good. can you over cycle your tank? still wanna get a few things around the tank sorted and finalise aquascaping before adding fish..so if no new stock goes in..i'll be fine right?
can't recall where i got that crazy idea.. readings are looking good. can you over cycle your tank? still wanna get a few things around the tank sorted and finalise aquascaping before adding fish..so if no new stock goes in..i'll be fine right?
Snoek, nope. You can't overcycle a setup. The bacterial processes happens continuously. Decaying stuff causes ammonia which is converted to nitrite all the time. As nitrite is converted to nitrate all the time. "Cycling" is just a process of getting the bacteria colonies to a quantity large enough to support this "conversion" process.
Nature is all about balance. Your system can only sustain the bacteria that are being constanly fed by the nitrite / nitrate cycle.
That is why it is critical to add to your system slowly. As the Bio load increases so do the bacteria. This doens't happen instantly and you need to give it time to balance out. If the Bio load decreases so will the beneficial bacteria population decrease. It's all in the balance.
Does this make sense ?
No, that won't prolong it, rather just cause less bacteria to grow. The bacterial growth is proportional to amount of whatever it is that they convert. So the bacteria that takes up Ammonia, will only multiply until there is enough to take the amount of ammonia present in the water.
In order to build up the bacteria they need a carbon source to survive. There are ways to do this, ie vodka dosing.
However this is when your system starts to reach advanced stages, and dependent on the livestock you are trying to keep.
In the initial cycle phase of the tank let nature take it's course and wait it out. Once your nitrates dtop below 10 then the cycle is nearing completion and livestock can start to be added slowly.
