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Long Term Filamentous Diatoms

I once had it for over 6 months and i didn't give up and it did go away on its own. Never seen it back again, the aquarium is about 5 years old now...

It was the first time for me for such a long period. Don't know why. My best guess it was also a first time that i used over 7 kilo's of Mopani wood in a 110-litre tank. And the water was coffee brown for about the same period... Both the algae and the stained water disappeared around the same time. Their could be a correlation something leaching from the wood that favored the algae.
 
Big thank you all for your comments and suggestions. I'm pleased to report that I am 90% over the hill with this one.

I made no changes to the general setup of the tank apart from the addition of a skimmer. Sadly I didn't have a great location for it, ideally it would have been the rear opposite corner to the filter outlet but the rotala doesn't allow for that. For now it's placed next to the filter outlet so I doubt has added much to the flow but I'm amazed at just how much muck it collects from what appeared a relatively clean surface, especially after a water change. It's a shame it looks like crap (it's the APS skim-250), nice chunky bit of plastic but I suppose it looks a damn sight better than swathes of brown diatoms.

The only other change was rather than gentle brushing I moved to brutal agitation and removal of the filaments. I vibrated my hands throughout all of the plant mass breaking up the filaments and did a constant running water change until the water looked clear - I left the filter running during the process. I did they every other day for a week and at the same time cleaned the Oase prefilter at the end of the process - it was pretty gunked up.

I've still got bits to go but it's very minimal so hopefully I'll just get those in regular maintenance/water changes.

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