# The cause of Diatoms?



## Red_Rose (Mar 18, 2007)

When I looked up Diatoms on the internet, on some sites it says that not enough lighting can cause them to form yet on other sites, it says that too much lighting is the problem. Which is it? I know that they are common in newly established tanks but I'm just confused as to which one of the two could cause them to form?


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## Raul-7 (Feb 4, 2004)

Red_Rose said:


> When I looked up Diatoms on the internet, on some sites it says that not enough lighting can cause them to form yet on other sites, it says that too much lighting is the problem. Which is it? I know that they are common in newly established tanks but I'm just confused as to which one of the two could cause them to form?


It is usually due to high silicates from your tap water, but it can be caused by any of the factors that are responsible for poor plant growth and hence rapid algae growth (ie. imbalance of nutrients). As for the lighting issue, they both could be right. It could be due to excessive lighting such as having an over extended photoperiod (9 hours+) or on the other hand due to extremely low lighting where plants can't effectively grow well enough to out compete the algae. HTH.


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## Red_Rose (Mar 18, 2007)

Raul-7 said:


> It is usually due to high silicates from your tap water, but it can be caused by any of the factors that are responsible for poor plant growth and hence rapid algae growth (ie. imbalance of nutrients). As for the lighting issue, they both could be right. It could be due to excessive lighting such as having an over extended photoperiod (9 hours+) or on the other hand due to extremely low lighting where plants can't effectively grow well enough to out compete the algae. HTH.


I have some diatoms on the glass of my tank, which is about eight months old yet all of my plants are growing great. Even if I scrape it off, it eventually comes back. I had thought it might have been because my tank wasn't getting enough lighting(it's an El Natural tank). It gets about 9 1/2 hours of lighting a day even though the recommended amount for El Natural tanks is twelve hours a day.


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