Setting the Stage for Battle with the Diatoms

So I am in a pretty painful waiting situation here. The tank is absolutely covered in Green Dust Algae and Diatoms. I will try and post some pictures of it this week. I am currently intentionally letting the tank go to fight the Green Dust Algae (GDA). There seems to be some consensus that in order to defeat this stuff, it needs to live out its life cycle, as otherwise the spores just get knocked into the water and reattach themselves to the glass. I have been waiting about 15 days so far, so I should hopefully be getting close to the end of the life cycle, though I am not confident I am going to beat this one at this time.

The true target of my efforts is the diatoms (brown algae). I have been battling this stuff since day one, and I want it gone. Last week I ordered a reverse osmosis/ deionization (RO/DI) system with this purpose in mind. My water supply seems to be feeding loads of silicates to this stuff, as it is flourishing. As mentioned previously, I have altered my dosing regimes, spent 6 months doing water changes twice a week, added otocinclus catfsh (I currently have 12 plus the baby, who is actually looking pretty grown up now, which look like the picture to the left, which is not from my tank). They are fabulous little fish, but no match to the massive amounts of diatoms in my tank.

So the goal of the RO/DI system is that it will remove the hated silicates and thereafter remove the brown algae from my life. I can then focus on defeating the GDA that is in the tank. I have zero problems with any other types of algae, and the plant grown in my tank is good, so my hope is that this is a watershed moment.

But of course I have thought that of various other ideas I have had on dealing with the diatoms...

Pictures will come soon, as the thing looks too bad not to document at this point.

Changing the Focus of the Blog

Well, I figure it has been at least a year since I updated this thing. I have been spending a lot of time trying to get my planted freshwater aquarium right, and people have been telling me I should start blogging about it, so here it goes.

At the moment the aquarium is a disaster, though a controlled one. The biggest struggle I have faced is with diatoms (brown algae). I have tried just about everything I could think of to fix this problem to no avail. This includes changing dosing regimes, lighting intensity and periods, adding otocinclus catfish (I have 12 currently, not including the baby that is swimming around in there), and adding silicate/ phosphate absorbing material in the filter. None of these have really helped in any dramatic way.

So from here on out I am planning on documenting what I do, what the results are, and what my plans are.