'The Ugly Stage' - How to fix Diatoms and Cyanobacteria with no chemicals. 

I had a 60 gal reef 20 years ago in college and have missed it ever since. So I recently started a 10 gal nano just 2 weeks ago. I'm right in the thick of my diatom bloom as well. Dr. Tim's sure does help! Same thing with the adjustable light colors... solutions we didn't have back inthe day! It's amazing how much the hobby has progressed. Glad to be back in it and glad to see you enjoying it so much, even through the "ugly" times. Your tank looks great!

Great video again Jay and glad so see you are back!! Sorry to see your tank going through the ugly stage. Im sure you will get it back to its best soon. Jump guards, what a nightmare!!

Nice update. As already said the ugly stage is the norm but you are doing the right thing. Also adding live food such as copepods, baby brine shrimp will help along with additional food for fish.

Glad to see another video , I’ve had the diatoms as well , the gobys done a good job with the sand by flipping it all & my CUC finally starting to make a small dent in it - emerald crabs seem to be munching on it all day . I’ve tried to buy some trocus snails for the rock work but seem to be sold out everywhere ! We’ll get through this 💪🏼

Brilliant video. I have been watching your video's for about a year before I took the plunge and got myself a Red Sea Max Peninsula. I am a few weeks in with fish, CUC and a small GSO frag and hit the ugly stage for sure! Good to know that you have did what I was going to do myself, always a comfort to know I am doing the right things haha Also, filter floss around the return pump is ace. That will be done later tonight to stop the low humming from what is a near silent tank 👍

Hi, Jay just give your tank time to process this cycle. Dont panic it's natural to happen in any aquarium. I remember when my pristine tank just flipped over night and it was worrying, I took advice just maintained water changes and 3 weeks later it passed just like that. I didnt add any chemicals to the tank and I ran my lights still for 11 hours a day but dropped the percentage to only 25% blue. Keep up the videos, I'm in touch with Ryan at prestige at the moment too as trying to find a nice hammer/frogspawn for the tank. This was just how I done it, have a good weekend. Ian

This has been really helpful, my max nano has just started the ugly stage.

Don’t worry jay it’s just a phase that everyone goes through, keep them nitrates and phosphates controlled and it will die off. Crack on with the maintenance and water changes and just patience mate. I know it’s hard, even after multiple reefs, if I’ve had diatoms or cyano. I want it gone immediately 😂. Another top Video 👍🏼

You said it Jay, stability is key and not to chase those ‘perfect’ numbers. The ugly stage will come and go if you just keep what you’re doing. That’s when the patience part of the hobby will kick in again, easy and tempting to grab the chemicals early on for the quick fix. Interesting vid from Tidal Gardens recently about an algae issue in one of their tanks that’s worth a watch.

Jay You have a cracking handle on it... and as always a great quality vid! Haven’t read everyone’s comments below but It looked like diatoms and hair algae to me. I would: Get a conch to eat the diatoms Keep going with the great water change and cleaning regimen... it will come good. Don’t get too hung up on loads more dr timms your tank is well seeded with the right bacteria now. Either way I love how much research and knowledge you have e being so new to the hobby... it’s a great attitude and will ensure you have absolute success long term...

Hi Jay, will email you a link. Getting both these in my frag tank since adding the coral 2 weeks ago. It’s worth a read. All the best.

Looks like you doing the right things! You can use a mix of bacteria additives like the Dr Tim’s, Vibrant, and Microbacter 7 they are all different but do the same so adding a mix is good. Also looking into micro bubble scrubbing when you do a water change. It is taking a power head and pulling it just to the surface so it makes a million micro bubbles this will essentially skim your entire tank. Run the filter for a bit to clean out the skim scum then do your water change. Going through a cyano out break myself and it is annoying! Good Luck!

Hi Jay, i also got a diatom bloom since last week. The funny thing is, its only on one side of the tank, since my pistol shrimp keeps digging and moving the sand on the other half of the tank. Im going to get some snails too next week, but until then, i‘m just gonna do regular water changes.

Missed this one jay great video and advice loving the Friday night's 👍🍺

Brilliant video and good choices of how to fix the issue too 🙌🏻

Hello Jay, brilliant effort, unfortunately I don't have any experience with this (or maybe I should have said fortunately) but I'm sure it will come at some stage and will definitely follow your instructions for removing it, I do keep my whites down at a really low level on my tank tank have done from the start so hopefully won't be too bad, keep up the great work mate! (I also prefer the DD jumpguard, looks more classy than the other one you have)

Wow that tropic Marin salt mixes crystal clear. I’ve been using Reef crystals that seems to always be cloudy no matter how long you mix it. Think I may try and switch salts now, lol. Great, informative video! I found your channel from Nathan W. I just subscribed! 👍🏻

Water changes can actually fuel diatoms. Silicates are what fuel them. Salt has silicates as well as your water source even if it has been RODI treated

Great video! Thank you

Great video Jay! seems to me that u know your stuff! 😀👍

I would just like to say what a Chanel Jay, always look forward to your updates and cracking info, started a tank with my son just 12 months ago and you give us more confidence in what we are doing and joy that we are doing it wright, all the best mate, thanks again #willberwoo

I had this in my first year, the red slimy stuff with bubbles. It was on the sand and even started appearing on the rocks. One dose of chemiclean and that was sorted. As for GHA, just do weekly water changes and then ensure you rinse your biomedia with the saltwater you take out, you will get a sh** done of nitrates and junk. This helped me and now I hardly get GHA. I keep my biomedia (seachem matrix) in 2 bags so easy to pull out and rinse during water changes.

Great maintenance Jay. If you keep that up and with the water changes, you will get past this stage real soon 😌

Hello jay ! It looks like diatoms and hair algae nothing to worry at all about just keep up with the gravel vacuum and for the hair algae get more sails and a sea urchin they live for algae

All been there buddy keep nutrients down and keep the cleaning maybe get a wavemaker for some more flow keep vaccing the sand it will soon clear not sure if u got one but maybe a small conch up your cleaning crew a bit but u will get through it I had one of those tanks but didn't think much of the skimmer so upgraded to the tunze one with controler but more flow will deffo help to

Great video as always, Re-watching all the videos after I started my first tank and its so exciting to see similar problems and progress on my tank to what you experienced. Most of the answers to my problems during the cycle I'm getting from your videos. Now I'm on day 15 and started to see diatoms on my sand bed and some of the rock ( I don't run lights at the moment), but funny enough the side towards the window triggered the diatoms and they started growing on one side of the tank. It took 15 days for the ammonia to reach near 0, after dosing the ammonia twice (day 1 and day 3) and using Dr Tims, but now I'm having nitrite spikes and waiting for them to be converted to nitrates. Can you recall how long your tank took to convert the nitrites to nitrates?

great video mate :)

I feel your pain, I found Cyano to be flow related so increase the flow and try to eliminate "dead spots". Lastly, forget Yorkshire Tea........ You should have Dr Tims as your sponsor at this stage! :)

A silicone heat mat may work as good as the floss around your pump, will,save you on the floss and collect less detritus

Good video mate, I got on top of my cyno by regular maintenance and raising the temp to 82.

Love the Waves acoustic version!

I’ve used Dr Tim’s waste away for diatoms. After 2 weeks the diatoms were gone. I used the gel strips so u can’t over dose your tank.

Hello from Liverpool dude. Don't worry about all this things, leave the nature to do its job we are here only to help this process with some maintenance on regular basis . Try to use less chemicals and add more natural sources and useful stuff, but most important thing is your regular water changes. Don't stress your corals with all this dark and blue environment, the most corals we are keeping comes from shallow and not very deep waters and they need as much close to nature light source, full spectrum is very important, but this is up to you. There is a good articles about lights and very good video series from Bulk reef supply . I know people trying to help giving advices and sometimes too much advices lead to crash . Do your own research and you will understand the things better than just follow what people say, then you will never get exactly what's going on. Dr.Tims products are great , but I moved to another brand so the choice here is yours what to use . I'm currently battling diatoms as well as I moved to a bigger tank, changed my lights from led to t5 and few more other things that lead to this problems , but I'm getting there slowly . Nice channel and keep going lad.

I’m sure you won’t be disappointed with Ryan’s corals! I hope not since I’ve got a bunch coming as well! You’ll get past the ugly stage. Just stick to the plan!

I am going through the same stage Jay and am worried about losing my 2 clown fish. With extended water changes does it take out the good bacteria 🤔

Try more flow Jay. I had the same problem when I first started added another wavemaker problem solved. Good luck.

I’m in the same place as you iv just hitting my 6 muth mark on my 280l tank it’s horrible

Sometimes cleaning things and thusly removing nitrates etc can actually make certain forms of pests like these come back ten fold. My experience

Diatom is brown and dusty, if you use a turkey baster and blow on it, it should go into the water column. Diatom in a new tank is normal, you just need to let it burn out by itself, the extra flow is only to remove it off the sand bed and rocks, i think using a turkey baster is better for this job. Silicate is what supports the growth for diatoms and by turning off the white light doesn’t fix the issue, all that does is prolong it being in your tank for longer. If you want to remove it quicker, you’ll need something like Sera Silicate Clear. Cyanobacteria which you’ve already picked up on is basically caused by high nutrient in the water. Keep on top of what you did in your video and the cyano will go eventually. Regular water change is more than enough for the amount of corals you have in your tank...

What’s filter floss around the return pump for mate ? Vibration ?

Mate I asked previously for the link to purchase the extendable algae scraper , please 😅

I used 3 things about this issue mate, Rowa-phos Water change little more than usual weekly And sand sifting starfish to move the substrate But I think u have cyano bacteria and green hair algea on the rocks

Try omitting the light from your window,, sure it doesn't help,,,,if it doesn't work,, cover your tank, over for a few days,, stay well all, 👍

some good info. but be warned, if you do water changes & your nutrient values are already low as is, don’t do so. just siphon it into a filter sock & reuse the water

what music???

Open window right next to your tank...ooof you are brave

Hi Jay, I've just gone trough the same stage. Had same stuff on the sand bed which think was just diatoms. This has now burnt itself out after a few weeks and sand bed is now clear. I did nothing special to get rid just kept up the weekly water changes.

Looks like all diatoms to me, its unavoidable completely all tanks will go through it some just worse then others. The important thing is keep up with water changes and keep your nutrients in check, less light or shorter photo periods will help, you also dose a bacteria product to help rather it be vibrant, microbacter clean or 7 from brightwell or prodibios products all will help get through this stage and a little patience. Its a good sign your tank is on its way through the stages and will be gone soon enough

Water change is not the key it's part of the reefing process mate no matter how much you clean the class or sand bed it all ways come back👍🐠

Wish i can share here my 2 months old waterbox cube 20 picture 😊

Man i just used chemiclean because i got frustrated and now i regret it because its brown algae and i thought it was cyano. No im extremely frustrated please help.

Now is the time to add the snails if you have not already done it. This is all normal just trust the process...

cyanobacteria I know you don't want to use chemicals but I use cyan rx got rid of it within 24 hrs

What are your nutrient levels at, cyano can be caused by an imbalance of nutrients even at really low levels, oxygenation feeds cyano too, all those chemi clean products work by starving cyano of oxygen, diatoms will burn out naturally, but both normal in first year or so and will correct themselves with good maintenance, just watched ending, ab+ definitely cause 🤣

If that’s Dino’s your tank is doomed

Get a bottle of Vibrant

🤦‍♂️ definitely looks a better