Amphidinium Dinoflagellate Treatment Methods

[Entz]

Vacuuming hasn't done much for me other than make me feel better (sand looks white for a day or so). It always comes back in mass in a day or so.

Anyone try a laser (kind you use on Aptasia) lol?

 

[Victoria M]

I removed 95% of my sand. What wee bit that is left does get some dinos after a few days. I vacuumed the sand yesterday, which resulted in a 10 gallon water change. The system is 240g total water volume.
Scrubbed off the rocks and a couple corals.
I also have to change my socks every other day.
Phos 10 ppb
Nitrate 50 ppm
Ca 450
DkH 8.7
pH 7.8
Mg 1470
So phos and nitrate are improving, and the other parameters are pretty stable.
I am dosing Trisodium phosphate, and put a nitrate absorping mat in the sump.
I am dosing Fritz 460 Monster sludge remover, instead of Dr. Tims waste away...fingers crossed that the change does not derail my progress.
Red fuge light is now on 6 hrs per night.
BTW. I dosed the Frits 460 Monster into the the fuge yesterday morning and I think the side walls cleared. Maybe too fast? Fingers crossed.
I am getting some cyano on my rocks. I brushed it off as it was starting to touch my john deere coral.

 

[saltyhog]

Has anyone successfully beat amphidinium by solely vacuuming out the sandbed every few days and letting the tank get dirty? My nitrates have always been 5-10ppm and phosphates have been 0.1ppm or more and i still got amphidinium dinos. I just upgraded to a new tank and its really ruining all enjoyment of the hobby considering i just beat ostreopsis in my old tank.

I'm currently dosing 6ml of spongexcel in my tank every day and trying to algae crowd by putting chaeto on the worst parts. Hoping to just hit it from all fronts and hopefully beat it and start to enjoy this hobby again.

6ml of sponge excel? My bottle says 1 drop per 20 gallons of water. Are there different sponge excel products?

 

[Entz]

I removed 95% of my sand. What wee bit that is left does get some dinos after a few days. I vacuumed the sand yesterday, which resulted in a 10 gallon water change. The system is 240g total water volume.
Scrubbed off the rocks and a couple corals.
I also have to change my socks every other day.
Phos 10 ppb
Nitrate 50 ppm
Ca 450
DkH 8.7
pH 7.8
Mg 1470
So phos and nitrate are improving, and the other parameters are pretty stable.
I am dosing Trisodium phosphate, and put a nitrate absorping mat in the sump.
I am dosing Fritz 460 Monster sludge remover, instead of Dr. Tims waste away...fingers crossed that the change does not derail my progress.
Red fuge light is now on 6 hrs per night.
BTW. I dosed the Frits 460 Monster into the the fuge yesterday morning and I think the side walls cleared. Maybe too fast? Fingers crossed.
I am getting some cyano on my rocks. I brushed it off as it was starting to touch my john deere coral.

I know it is not what you wanted but I think its the best course of action. The rest of my sand is going this weekened (save for maybe a patch for my Goby he seems to be winning).

 

[saltyhog]

I removed 95% of my sand. What wee bit that is left does get some dinos after a few days. I vacuumed the sand yesterday, which resulted in a 10 gallon water change. The system is 240g total water volume.
Scrubbed off the rocks and a couple corals.
I also have to change my socks every other day.
Phos 10 ppb
Nitrate 50 ppm
Ca 450
DkH 8.7
pH 7.8
Mg 1470
So phos and nitrate are improving, and the other parameters are pretty stable.
I am dosing Trisodium phosphate, and put a nitrate absorping mat in the sump.
I am dosing Fritz 460 Monster sludge remover, instead of Dr. Tims waste away...fingers crossed that the change does not derail my progress.
Red fuge light is now on 6 hrs per night.
BTW. I dosed the Frits 460 Monster into the the fuge yesterday morning and I think the side walls cleared. Maybe too fast? Fingers crossed.
I am getting some cyano on my rocks. I brushed it off as it was starting to touch my john deere coral.

Keep a close eye on your phosphate. If that Phos level is phosphorous by a Hanna checker it's only around 0.03(and could be as low as 0.01). The bacterial treatment could drive it lower. I'm doing the same thing but have more wiggle room as my PO4 is around 0.08.

 

[Jameseywayney]

6ml of sponge excel? My bottle says 1 drop per 20 gallons of water. Are there different sponge excel products?

According to dosing instructions to get a bloom people recommend 1 drop per gallon essentially to start. I have about 115 gallons of water volume, 115 drops is about 5.75 ml.

 

[Victoria M]

Keep a close eye on your phosphate. If that Phos level is phosphorous by a Hanna checker it's only around 0.03(and could be as low as 0.01). The bacterial treatment could drive it lower. I'm doing the same thing but have more wiggle room as my PO4 is around 0.08.

Yes, I am watching phos closely as I am dosing it to raise it to 15- 20 ppb give or take a couple ppb.

 

[Victoria M]

I know it is not what you wanted but I think its the best course of action. The rest of my sand is going this weekened (save for maybe a patch for my Goby he seems to be winning).

Thanks. It is ok.

 

[saltyhog]

According to dosing instructions to get a bloom people recommend 1 drop per gallon essentially to start. I have about 115 gallons of water volume, 115 drops is about 5.75 ml.

Thanks, I've never heard that. That's 20x the dose I've been using! How long do they say to do that?

 

[Torqued]

Well ive got a fairly good amount of diatoms now.... curious how long until i should expect the dinos to stick around?

 

[Neoalchemist]

Thanks, I've never heard that. That's 20x the dose I've been using! How long do they say to do that?

I was doseing lab grade sodium silicate solution 10 to 20ml. Per week in my 90 gal. No problem. And I haven't dosed in about a month and my tank is completely dino free any about 95 percent diatom free.
Also last week I put about 10 pounds of my rinsed sand back in. 1 week and the sand is clean and everything is hungry and growing. No3 is at 7 and po4 is at .06.

 

[Neoalchemist]

I was doseing lab grade sodium silicate solution 10 to 20ml. Per week in my 90 gal. No problem. And I haven't dosed in about a month and my tank is completely dino free any about 95 percent diatom free.
Also last week I put about 10 pounds of my rinsed sand back in. 1 week and the sand is clean and everything is hungry and growing. No3 is at 7 and po4 is at .06.

Now that I think about it I'm going to raise no3 back up above 10ppm

 

[taricha]

I am dosing Fritz 460 Monster sludge remover, instead of Dr. Tims waste away....
BTW. I dosed the Frits 460 Monster into the the fuge yesterday morning and I think the side walls cleared. Maybe too fast? Fingers crossed.
I am getting some cyano on my rocks. I brushed it off as it was starting to touch my john deere coral.

We need to understand what happens with bacterial waste/grunge remover products.
(I don't fully know the details myself)
But i think we should expect things to get worse before it gets better.

That these bacterial products can, under the right conditions have a bloom of runaway growth means that they are digesting a lot of available material.
But the digested material doesn't just all leave the system. Much bacteria may get skimmed out, but some of the digested material is likely getting recycled into the system. In published lit this is called "remineralization".
[Why Vibrant usually gives people cyano].

Am I saying it's bad?
No. I'm saying it's good, normal slow decomposition of detritus may fuel many undesirables, so a rapid bacterial intervention that burns through all of it in a short time ought to help a lot... once it's gone.

 

[David_Cool]

I know its off topic a bit, but what experience does anyone have with blue-green cyano competing with amph? I started dosing dinoX a couple weeks back and if I let the sand bet bad enough I start having dense patches of cyano pop up over the dinos. should I continue and hope they outcompete the amp, or do you think the amph and cyano are coexisting? I took a sample and there were a lot of dinos in the cyano, a lot looked dead though.

 

[David_Cool]

And should I be worried about the cyano taking over the tank too?

 

[dwest]

I know its off topic a bit, but what experience does anyone have with blue-green cyano competing with amph? I started dosing dinoX a couple weeks back and if I let the sand bet bad enough I start having dense patches of cyano pop up over the dinos. should I continue and hope they outcompete the amp, or do you think the amph and cyano are coexisting? I took a sample and there were a lot of dinos in the cyano, a lot looked dead though.

My experience is that dinos and cyano exist quite happily together! I wouldn’t worry about cyano as it is relatively easy to remove. I don’t have experience with dinoX however.

 

[taricha]

I know its off topic a bit, but what experience does anyone have with blue-green cyano competing with amph? I started dosing dinoX a couple weeks back and if I let the sand bet bad enough I start having dense patches of cyano pop up over the dinos. should I continue and hope they outcompete the amp, or do you think the amph and cyano are coexisting? I took a sample and there were a lot of dinos in the cyano, a lot looked dead though.

My experience is that dinos and cyano exist quite happily together! I wouldn’t worry about cyano as it is relatively easy to remove.

Same. My early observations were that Amphidinium and Cyano showed up hand in hand (dinos after cyano) in my tank (and others) so often that I felt like there was a happy coexistence or even a partnership.
Now I'm not so sure. An equally good interpretation is that they were both feeding off the same goodies in the detritus piles, because that's where they showed up.

 

[Marlon C]

I have dinos and it sucks. I'm gonna try and raise my phosphate from 0 and put a bigger uv sterilizer. Possibly get some live rock from another tank or Lfs to introduce some biodiversity. The issue started when I dosed vibrant for bubble algea. Bubble is gone but have dino after vibrant. I would swap dino for bubble anyday tbh. Seriously makes me sad to see my tank this way. Any advice you guys might have I appreciate it . What's this about dosing silicate.

 

[dwest]

I have dinos and it sucks. I'm gonna try and raise my phosphate from 0 and put a bigger uv sterilizer. Possibly get some live rock from another tank or Lfs to introduce some biodiversity. The issue started when I dosed vibrant for bubble algea. Bubble is gone but have dino after vibrant. I would swap dino for bubble anyday tbh. Seriously makes me sad to see my tank this way. Any advice you guys might have I appreciate it . What's this about dosing silicate.

Sorry!

Raising phosphates is a good idea and live rock as well. Do you know the type of dino? UV will help for some, not others. You can probably ID them for about $10. I would only dose silicates if I had amphidinium.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071JQFXC4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[dwest]

I have dinos and it sucks. I'm gonna try and raise my phosphate from 0 and put a bigger uv sterilizer. Possibly get some live rock from another tank or Lfs to introduce some biodiversity. The issue started when I dosed vibrant for bubble algea. Bubble is gone but have dino after vibrant. I would swap dino for bubble anyday tbh. Seriously makes me sad to see my tank this way. Any advice you guys might have I appreciate it . What's this about dosing silicate.

Oh, and run some GAC to reduce toxins if you don’t already.