Disclaimer: This page contains advertisements and/or affiliate links. We receive compensation from clicks and/or purchases made through these links. Though we may not have tested the specific product(s) mentioned, we do our best to recommend products that are beneficial to our visitors.
Diatoms
Last updated on November 17th, 2023
About Diatoms
Diatoms are a powdery brown or gold algae that are common new aquariums. Diatoms are an algae that show up on new rock and sand when added to the reef tank.
Diatoms give a dirty brown or golden appearance to most of the tank by coating everything. This algae is the main contributer to what is often reffered to as the "ugly phase" of new reef tanks.
What Causes Diatoms
Diatoms feed on silicates, found in rock, sand, and other plastics added to the aquarium. Diatoms are likely to occur whenever new sand, rock, or plastics are added to the tank because these silicates are in the sand and rock when added. Most of the time, diatoms will not be found in well established tanks due to the lack of silicates.
How to Get Rid of Diatoms
To get diatoms off the glass, you can use a glass scraper or magnetic scraper. When removing diatoms from rock or sand, you can blow this powdery algae with a turkey baster or powerhead. Unfortunately, after cleaning up diatoms, they will likely re-appear very quickly.
The only way to get rid of diatoms completely is to wait until they consume all of the silicates in the tank. In the mean time, blowing the algae off of the rocks and scraping the glass while letting cleanup crew members eat what they can.
What Eats Diatoms
Though they won't eat all of the diatoms, to help maintain less algae in your tank during the ugly phase, you can house cleanup crew members including cerith snails, nerites snails, trochus snails, and astrea snails. These snails will help reduce the amount of diatom algae in your reef tank. As an additional benefit, these snails are known to eat other things, making them beneficial to have even after the diatoms are gone.
Social Media