Hi all, i'm a new user and so excited to be here. I've been following and lurking around here for quite a while, but somehow I managed to live off your wisdom without ever contributing or needing much help... Well, that day has come. 
Last year I moved to an old 100 year old house that runs off even older piping and infrastructure. I don't have a TDS meter, but I see calcium deposits in the bathtubs, sinks and pretty much everywhere, so I'm thinking that this is the cause of my 3 month tank having had a 2 month battle of diatoms. It was cycled after the first month. I tried about everything I could think of at the time, from dropping lights ferts and blackouts, to crazy amounts of water changes but it didn't give up at all. I had to do 3 90%+ water changes a week to keep my AR clean but vaccuming brought hell on my carpeting plants, so they eventually became unhealthy and contributed to the mess, until I was forced to reset over the weekend. The 40g tank was dirted with platinum soil cap, had co2 at a 1ph drop, with 80% plant coverage and dosed at 80% of EI. Most of them were slow growers. Buce, anubias, blood vomit, pinnatifida, AR mini, hc cuba etc. ~80% power on Chihiros RGB Vivid starting from 7, down to 4 hours a day.
My plants and filter are now on a new tank while my old one is being gutted and bleached, but the situation was quite dire and I'm hesitant to put them back in even after a bleach dip. So with all of the above being said, my question is: Does anyone have any advice so I can be sure this won't happen again? Should I increase photo period and intensity right off the bat in order to out compete diatoms with another, less aggressive type of algae? I have some phosguard and purigen, does it make sense to use this on a lower-than-before-tech environment, where i'm dosing the things the filter pads are supposed to absorb? IF it does happen again, do you recommend that I return the water to the tank after siphoning out as many diatoms as I can (thus starving diatoms of their silicates?).
I can't believe how many questions this problem has made me ask, but damn i'm looking forwards to getting some answers and finally being a part of the community.
Cheers!
Last year I moved to an old 100 year old house that runs off even older piping and infrastructure. I don't have a TDS meter, but I see calcium deposits in the bathtubs, sinks and pretty much everywhere, so I'm thinking that this is the cause of my 3 month tank having had a 2 month battle of diatoms. It was cycled after the first month. I tried about everything I could think of at the time, from dropping lights ferts and blackouts, to crazy amounts of water changes but it didn't give up at all. I had to do 3 90%+ water changes a week to keep my AR clean but vaccuming brought hell on my carpeting plants, so they eventually became unhealthy and contributed to the mess, until I was forced to reset over the weekend. The 40g tank was dirted with platinum soil cap, had co2 at a 1ph drop, with 80% plant coverage and dosed at 80% of EI. Most of them were slow growers. Buce, anubias, blood vomit, pinnatifida, AR mini, hc cuba etc. ~80% power on Chihiros RGB Vivid starting from 7, down to 4 hours a day.
My plants and filter are now on a new tank while my old one is being gutted and bleached, but the situation was quite dire and I'm hesitant to put them back in even after a bleach dip. So with all of the above being said, my question is: Does anyone have any advice so I can be sure this won't happen again? Should I increase photo period and intensity right off the bat in order to out compete diatoms with another, less aggressive type of algae? I have some phosguard and purigen, does it make sense to use this on a lower-than-before-tech environment, where i'm dosing the things the filter pads are supposed to absorb? IF it does happen again, do you recommend that I return the water to the tank after siphoning out as many diatoms as I can (thus starving diatoms of their silicates?).
I can't believe how many questions this problem has made me ask, but damn i'm looking forwards to getting some answers and finally being a part of the community.
Cheers!
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