apologies if this has been done before .. I did search but couldn't find a thread on it
There is a question here: is it madness to try and encourage diatom growth? Has anyone tried it. The screed below is about how I came to start pondering it.
I disappeared down a rabbit hole. The inciting incident was watching 'The Body on the Beach' documentary in which diatoms played an important part in the forensics. I started reading generally about diatoms. What interested me was the observation in this article that diatoms "increase dissolved oxygen in the water. They produce more oxygen in their life cycle than they consume" and that "the nitrates and phosphates absorbed by diatoms are enclosed by [their] shell and cannot be released back into the water body." These seem like significant benefits for an aquarium.
I came across two groups of people who try to encourage diatom growth, reef tank keepers, particularly if they are trying to grow sponges, and people managing open water / natural swimming pools. And then there are people studying river health who use diatoms as an indicator.
Searching on here for info about them, there are a couple of mentions of diatomaceous earth in filters, otherwise virtually every mention of them is as a bad thing, to be fought like people fight algae (they are a form of algae), and something typically encountered in new aquarium starts. I can see why that's so, for people who are primarily aquascapers and want pristine tanks, but for those of us who are more relaxed about algae, or even want some of it (as a food source for some fish, as part of Aufwuchs particularly for fry). I like to have algae in a growout tank. And I recall a new tank startup which had the usual bloom of diatoms which, when I introduced platys disappeared overnight: the platy's evidently loved it.
So, is there a case for encouraging diatoms which, given they're silica limited, would likely mean dosing silicates like the reefers do. The freshwater trade is full of stuff for eliminating silicates, but I couldn't see any products aimed at dosing them. (The way to dose for them is to use sodium silicate, which is very inexpensive). I found one very helpful article on dosing, by a reef tank keeper, and much of what he says about diatoms wouldn't translate to freshwater, but there's useful data that would translate.
So, I now have sodium silicate solution in my amazon watch list and am pondering. I am technically out of my depth both on the biology and the water chemistry, but intrigued. There seem to be at least 17 different methods of indicating the strength of a waterglass solution, no definite guidance on what ppm we might be aiming for, not a multitude of simple ways to get accurate measurements of dissolved silicate in the tank, and that's all a bit scary. Not least since some of what's available has a very high pH and it's all fun until someone loses an eye.
Is this utter madness? Has anyone else here tried dosing silicate? If so, any practical guidance?
There is a question here: is it madness to try and encourage diatom growth? Has anyone tried it. The screed below is about how I came to start pondering it.
I disappeared down a rabbit hole. The inciting incident was watching 'The Body on the Beach' documentary in which diatoms played an important part in the forensics. I started reading generally about diatoms. What interested me was the observation in this article that diatoms "increase dissolved oxygen in the water. They produce more oxygen in their life cycle than they consume" and that "the nitrates and phosphates absorbed by diatoms are enclosed by [their] shell and cannot be released back into the water body." These seem like significant benefits for an aquarium.
I came across two groups of people who try to encourage diatom growth, reef tank keepers, particularly if they are trying to grow sponges, and people managing open water / natural swimming pools. And then there are people studying river health who use diatoms as an indicator.
Searching on here for info about them, there are a couple of mentions of diatomaceous earth in filters, otherwise virtually every mention of them is as a bad thing, to be fought like people fight algae (they are a form of algae), and something typically encountered in new aquarium starts. I can see why that's so, for people who are primarily aquascapers and want pristine tanks, but for those of us who are more relaxed about algae, or even want some of it (as a food source for some fish, as part of Aufwuchs particularly for fry). I like to have algae in a growout tank. And I recall a new tank startup which had the usual bloom of diatoms which, when I introduced platys disappeared overnight: the platy's evidently loved it.
So, is there a case for encouraging diatoms which, given they're silica limited, would likely mean dosing silicates like the reefers do. The freshwater trade is full of stuff for eliminating silicates, but I couldn't see any products aimed at dosing them. (The way to dose for them is to use sodium silicate, which is very inexpensive). I found one very helpful article on dosing, by a reef tank keeper, and much of what he says about diatoms wouldn't translate to freshwater, but there's useful data that would translate.
So, I now have sodium silicate solution in my amazon watch list and am pondering. I am technically out of my depth both on the biology and the water chemistry, but intrigued. There seem to be at least 17 different methods of indicating the strength of a waterglass solution, no definite guidance on what ppm we might be aiming for, not a multitude of simple ways to get accurate measurements of dissolved silicate in the tank, and that's all a bit scary. Not least since some of what's available has a very high pH and it's all fun until someone loses an eye.
Is this utter madness? Has anyone else here tried dosing silicate? If so, any practical guidance?
