Ok...so here's an update:
After my previous posts of disgust and frustration I felt better and regrouped. I had beaten Amphidinium once long ago in my old system ( the posts are early in this thread) by dosing Silicates and frequent pod (amphipod/Isopod) boosting. I figured as we were discussing I would continue this but stop all the other siphoning, stirring, etc. I still blew the rocks periodically to keep things off the corals.
So here goes....I spent some buck and purchased from @aquaculturenurseryfarms:
1. 10,000 Amphipods
2. 50 Feeder shrimp
3. Chaeto
4. Reef Soup
....a few days later I added another 5000 amphipods. I did this late at night in the dark- I scooped out some sand in a particularly bad area of dino and mixed in the amphipods and let things sit for a while. I then put the mix of pods and sand gently back in the tank. I started a small refugium in the sump using the old top off container that I drilled. I put some Garf grunge in that along with chaeto, amphipods, some feeder shrimp, and copepods.
A few days later my subscription of Algae barn 5280 pods came along with some phytoplankton. I've been getting this for a year now, and although it likely does not help eliminate Dino's, it does maintain the population for my wrasses. In any event, I also added to the order 4 bottles of the ecopods, and a bottle of the purple sulfur bacteria- PN Probio. I dosed a large amount of the bacteria empirically.
I added these new copepods to the refugium and display. Lastly, I re-stocked my clean up crew from reef cleaners, a mix of hermits, snails, limpets, etc. I purposely added some of the shipping water to the tank.
All the while I have been dosing silicates (sponge excel). The level would not rise much at first but finally bumped up to the ratio of 1:1 with my Nitrate Nitrogen. The diatom bloom was scary!!
At night the tank is teaming with life, pods running and scurrying everywhere- the feeder shrimp that did not become a wrasse meal are out and about as well.
Lastly I have been dosing coral snow in the evenings when the dino's are at their worst. This coincides with one of the bumps in flow that happen though out the day. I have my Neptuen Wav Pumps to go 100% for 5 minutes every three hours and get detritus suspended....using the coral snow along with this, I am having to change my filter socks every couple days.
I did leave my temps at around 82 ( 81.7-82.3) and continued my UV sterilizer due to the Ostreopsis that was originally the problem.
What I stopped was the daily sand stir and siphoning through the 1 micron filter, I stopped dosing waste away, MB7, MB Clean, and refresh. I stopped reef roids and any other supplements other than Nitrate (if needed and its not been). No water changes, and minimal scraping of the front glass only.
I have been feeding my fish twice a day- the morning is a mix of mysid, roe, seaweed, big stuff, etc., once a week I give my tang a 1 inch squat of Nori. In the evenings I feed some decap'd brine and arctipods for my anthias.
Nutrients are running on the high side- Nitrate is in the 16-24 range. Phosphate which had been 0.1 has creeped up to 0.3 and I am using all my willpower and restraint to not try and bring it down.
So the sand starts out clean in the morning and by late afternoon looks like vomit! The amount of diatom brown everywhere is scary! A few times last week I sampled and looked under the scope and saw sand pebbles covered in diatoms and those dang amphidinium having a party right along with them. It was so discouraging to see this every single evening.
Then I noticed something curious over the last two days. Despite my Silica levels running at about 2.6 the brown daily bloom did not look as bad. Normally it covered ever spot of sand but all of a sudden I am seeing areas that look white. I decided to be brave and look under the scope- I sampled the worst area I could find that was dark chocolate brown.
All I see are zillions and zillions of diatoms. They are covering every grain of sand....AND THE SAND MOVES!!! All sorts of critters, pods, nematodes, strange crab/tick looking creatures....just an explosion of diverse life but guess what....no matter how much I searched I only saw 1...yes ONE Amphidinium!!!!! I am talking about a small quarter size petri-dish with a layer of sand and water and I only found 1 amphipod.....hard to believe the transformation. Focusing through superficial to deep only shows diatoms. Focusing on the water column basically showed a sea of diatoms!
I am CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC......these ******** always find a way to become prominent so I don't trust that I am winning but I am pleased with what I saw for the first time in a long time.
I'll continue along this course and report back.
