Yeast to get rid of diatoms?

[TheRealChrisBrown]

Anyone ever heard of using bakers yeast to get rid of diatoms? I first saw it in this video from Vivid Aquariums: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrUjMlt86ag and for about the first minute of the video he discusses it. The recipe is 1/4 tsp per 400 gallons "every couple of days" which seems sort of vague. I did a couple of searches on the interwebs and came up empty handed.

Just curious if anybody has ever heard of this/tried it......success/failure?

 

[SynDen]

Hmm first I heard of that. Kind of makes sense as yeast is just a fungal microorganism that coverts salts and sugars to co2. So maybe the salts in the tank provide the needed fuel for the yeast and that in turn starves out the diatoms. Just a guess though. Not sure I would resort to something like that though unless I knew exactly what it was doing in my tank.

 

[Balz3352]

I wonder how much this messes with ph. I too would hesitate to use

 

[SynDen]

If there are no fish or corals in the tank, it might be worth the experiment, but imo the diatom bloom that follows the initial cycle of the tank is there for a reason and is providing an invaluable service. They arent pretty, that's for sure, but letting the tank naturally work through that process is important to the long term success of the tank. Cutting that process short generally can lead to other issue down the road. Although it may be that the yeast is just helping the diatoms complete the task faster, but I certainly would want to know exactly what its doing.