Badjester1
New Member
Just a final update on this. I mentioned that the brown on the leaves was different to the diatoms I remembered from cycling the tank. They were like big lumps. This is just a brown cover on some leaves. Anyway it can be confirmed as diatoms now, as I got some Otto's and in a day they've done a great job eating it off the ornaments. I actually would have considered Otto's before but for some strange reason I thought Otto's were big fish. Obviously this doesn't deal with the source but I've tested tank and tap water as I said the other week. Both were 1ppm for silicates which isn't ideal. I'm hoping that will go down as it gets cooler. Obviously the initial problem with the pond snails is sorted. The assassins have long cleared those. So plants are recovering especially the Salvinia which the snails nearly ruined the lot. As for light, I've finally concluded that 100% intensity is what works best for my tank. They're not the highest wattage and when I put them back up the plants started to grow again. Having the lights down imo just slowed the plants and left the diatoms to grow. Since I've put them up there's been no extra diatom growth but the plants have gone crackers. All this led me to do a really big clear up, cutting older sword leaves, leaving the new green growth. Funny enough the diatoms only seemed to contaminate older sword leaves? Can't work that one out. So for now the Otto's are the answer and by next spring my tank will be matured and not so new (it's 3 to 4 months at the minute.) I have read diatoms mainly plague newer set ups. Anyway it's kind of under control for now. I'll check silicate readings again in a couple of months and hopefully they've decreased. My plants now that they're growing again should keep them off. I only got 4 Otto's but I'll be picking another 4 up this coming week. They're a must have for me now.
