# Have to clean glass every few hours?



## jdiaz (Nov 6, 2011)

There is this brown like dust inside of my tank, diatoms?, that collects on the glass mostly and I have to clean it every few hours. I recently cleaned the back glass on my tank, aka - "the algae wall", because I did not like the way it looked. Originally "the algae wall" was there to absorb the phosphates and my water clarity was amazing. Could it be that there is too mush phosphates and that there is hair algae trying to grow soo it collects of the glass? 


I can't test the water parameters cause I have has money issues and little nephew thought he would try to use my test kit to test his aquarium and just wasted all of the bottles. SUCKS!!!!


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## sidluckman (Jan 15, 2012)

This is a recently set up tank, Right? Diatoms are like the first of the 10 plagues of Egypt! They will persist for awhile then surrender to some other pesky algae, like Bryopsis, or Cyano, or something. But if there are no glaring water issues, like huge amounts of silicates, it should abate fairly quickly. Eventually, as more and more purple coralline algaes take hold and encrust the live rock and the back and side walls of the tank, the tank will stabilize and these early days of golden fuzz will become dim memories!


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## Reefing Madness (Jun 26, 2011)

I agree, but coralline won't grow with all th phosphates he likely might have. But yes, Diatoms will take care of themselves. And until you are able to rectify the phosphate issue, let the stuff grow on the back glass and absorb it for you. Beats the heck out if cleaning the tank every couple of hours.


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## sidluckman (Jan 15, 2012)

Agreed. Initially it is endless, indomitable. Unbelievable in it's ability to regrow in seeming minutes!

I used Phosguard in my sump during this phase in my first set up (120 gallon) , but am not sure to what extent it corrected the problem, if at all. When the same issue arose with my 210, I rode it out, added nothing and the problem corrected itself. But in line with what reefing madness just said, the coralline encrusting algae seemed to take much longer to proliferate in the second tank, so maybe use of phosguard would have been prudent there, too. 

It is possible my water doesn't have enough phospates present to make this a persistent problem, but that might not be the same in your case.


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## Reefing Madness (Jun 26, 2011)

sidluckman said:


> Agreed. Initially it is endless, indomitable. Unbelievable in it's ability to regrow in seeming minutes!
> 
> I used Phosguard in my sump during this phase in my first set up (120 gallon) , but am not sure to what extent it corrected the problem, if at all. When the same issue arose with my 210, I rode it out, added nothing and the problem corrected itself. But in line with what reefing madness just said, the coralline encrusting algae seemed to take much longer to proliferate in the second tank, so maybe use of phosguard would have been prudent there, too.
> 
> It is possible my water doesn't have enough phospates present to make this a persistent problem, but that might not be the same in your case.


All good stuff here.


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## jdiaz (Nov 6, 2011)

It is still going, so I am going to just let it grow on the back, it gets pretty bad. The tank is supper blurry. Since I don't have a RO unit I am going to do water changes to the minimal and going to use bottled water. BUT in the good case my Pink Pulsing Xenia is doing awesome. lol


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## sidluckman (Jan 15, 2012)

I love those things! Good for you.


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## jdiaz (Nov 6, 2011)

Yeah they are nice. Its only about 3 inches tall but has four branches and now they are dividing. I am only going to scrub the front and left sides, view sides, and see if it goes back to what it was before with crystal clear water and walls full of algae, haha.


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## Reefing Madness (Jun 26, 2011)

It should go back to where it was once the junk starts to grow back.


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