Advice please!

[GunnerHursty]

Hi all, for the last week I have what seems to be Dinos on my sand bed and on some rock. Have been regularly syphoning through a filter sock and returning the water back to the tank, within a few hrs they're back! Almost like a horrible brown wavy blanket on my sand bed. When DT lights go out they seem to almost disappear.

What has me confused is that my No3 is stable at 10 but my Po4 seems to have bottomed out to undetectable. Is this a common thing with dinos? As I was under the assumption that it would effect my No3 also. Any help with explaining this from seasoned reefers would be appreciated. ‍ Unfortunately can't provide pictures at the moment.

Tank has been running around 8 months now.
Skimming + Chaeto tumbling in fuge
All soft corals
X2 clowns
Wrasse
Chromis
Tang
Emerald crab + CUC

 

[Stevorino]

The PO4 bottoming out was probably what gave Dinos the chance to get going.

I would:

1) Dim your lights as much as you can and still keep softies relatively happy. A little bit will make a big difference IME.
2) Get phosphate back up to detectable
3) Consider dosing Microbacter and/or Pods to help system overtake it

 

[GunnerHursty]

Thanks for the advice, I've started to dose a bit of Po4 and dimmed lights down. Will be dosing bacteria and pods from the weekend. Will continue to Syphon through a sock and battle on...I'm hoping to see I'm winning over the next few weeks

 

[Stevorino]

Dimming the lights was 90% of the battle for me.... good luck!