diatom algae bloom in saltwater aquarium???....help!!!!!?

Question

ok, i have just recently put my (new) light on my tank and there is a massive ammount of yellow/brown.....goldish algae on my sand, on my live rock, and on the walls (on thermomoter, powerheads, filter...etc) is this the diatom algae or not? and, how do i lower the levels of the algae?.......possibly crabs or something????........
the nitrates and nitrites are at a good, low level ....but i'm going to test them again right now.......i'm going to test the ammonia now too....thanks 4 your time!!!!!

Answer 1

Diatom growth is pretty common to see in a new marine tank. Two things that might be worth measuring that you don't mention, though - phosphates and silica.

Diatoms make their shells out of silica, so without this, no more diatoms. If the tank is fairly new, it'll deplete the supply and die out, unless there's silica in your salt mix or water source. They also thrive in water with phosphate, and since water companies add phosphate as a way of preventing pipes from corroding, the phosphates get replenished every time you do a water change. You can get phosphate-removing pads that you cut and put in your filter, or you can get a reverse osmosis filter (or buy the water) and mix this in some proportion with your tap water to dilute the phosphates (or use the RO water only) to reduce or eliminate this.

Once you add a clean up crew of crabs, shrimp, and snails, they'll help with removal as well.

Although the link below was written for freshwater diatoms, it will apply to saltwater as well for ways of controlling diatoms.