The Puffer Forum

I have a 29 gallon brackish tank with a F8 in it. Starting about two months or so ago the tank has become over ran with diatoms. Does anyone have any tips on how to reduce these from growing? It does not seem like they are slowing down at all. I know a lot of people say they bloom madly then die off but this does not seem to be the case. Also is there anything I could possibly get that would eat the diatoms that would not get killed in the tank with my F8?

Thanks PP.

If you have access to olive nerite snails. they may clean up the diatoms. But the F-8 may kill them before they do the job. They do tend to expose very little of their foot, so the puffer will not have an easy time at them, but may get lucky. They are hardy from FW to SW, but breed only in SW. They deposit single eggs in fw, but those do not hatch.

Minimizing lighting is likely your best strategy.

Preprocessing the water (as the article PP references mentions) requires more equipment and costs and handling, but will do the best job.

HTH

Thanks for the replies. I will def. cut down on lighting. I had the light on probably about 10-12 hours daily give or take. How many hours a day do you suggest?

Hours of lighting depend on the tank stocking. Live plants in FW require longer and stronger light. Marine setups with photosynthetic inverts require even more intensity and equal hours of lighting. FO (fish-only) tanks may require only very little light intensity for viewing. It all depends on the particular setup.

Only live plants I have in it are Java Moss and Java Fern. Which I know require very minimal lighting.

What size is the tank and what wattage of light?