For me, I'm not sure if it's because I caught them early, but it took about 5 months. I basically stopped messing with it and just did MB7 25ml/daily and silica to keep it around 1.5ppm.
I’m holding silica at 2-3 ppm and keeping nutrients up. Hopefully that’s enough, mine is 80% on the substrate. I tried not doing water changes but my coral didn’t respond well so I resumed bi-weekly water changes.
I'm glad to hear this is working for you. I too have tried everything you've mentioned and didn't see much result until I started adding phyto. I've recently ran out and just placed an order for a larger bottle as I plan to increase my dosing.My progress towards white sand has been going well. Shortly after that photo I had somewhat of a relapse despite changing nothing, but for the past month I have been only dosing @AlgaeBarn phyto while making sure my phosphate and nitrate are elevated and here I am today. The past two weeks has progressed the most.
I don’t think there is any reason to leave them that high and that crazy imbalance might be why the dinos are back. That’s a really bad imbalance. I would shoot for .07-.1 and nitrates right where they are. You can use lanthanum chloride to drop just phosphates.
Salinity aside, I don't see any issues in your ATI results.
Largely LC amphids as they are sand hugging and less toxic than others. If you are fighting another dino that has chosen to abide in the sand (prorocentrum do this often) you could give it a try. The point of dosing silicates is for feeding competitive diatoms.
Salinity aside, I don't see any issues in your ATI results.
As to fighting LC amphids, I see no mention of 2 major tools in the battle but I might have missed.
a) the feeding of competitive diatoms with SpongeExcel (silicates).
b) the addition of licve rock to get some micro-bio diversity
Your phosphates are not elevated IMO. Here is a pic of .1 to .15 with about 10 parts NO3.
Salinity aside, I don't see any issues in your ATI results.
As to fighting LC amphids, I see no mention of 2 major tools in the battle but I might have missed.
a) the feeding of competitive diatoms with SpongeExcel (silicates).
b) the addition of licve rock to get some micro-bio diversity
Your phosphates are not elevated IMO. Here is a pic of .1 to .15 with about 10 parts NO3.
That is a tough call. Not all live sand is created equal. If you are certain it can provide some bacterial and microbial diversity then yes. Live rock -- if you can find it -- is even better.
I’ve been running filter floss in the back of my tank (28g nanocube) and changing it out about every 2-3 days. Here are a couple microscope slides of what the filter floss looks like when I change it.
Questions:
-To me it looks like LC amphidinium getting caught in the filter floss, but I thought they don’t go into the water column? Am I mistaken on this ID? (I know I have some LC in sand)
-Is it possible that the diatoms could be bringing the LC into the water column with them due to the mucus mats?
-While dosing silicate to induce a diatom bloom, is it counterproductive to run filter floss?
-I haven’t been running a UV sterilizer, would you recommend starting one?
- what is the long term game plan in the event I somehow extinguish these dinos? I haven’t found a lot of info on that.
Thanks everyone!
Thank you @ScottB. These ones weren’t moving and so maybe as they did they get released into the water column? (Likely hopeful thinking). I have placed an order to ipsf and should be getting it next week.
If they weren't moving they must've died. Perhaps that is how they made it to the overflow.
Appreciate the feedback bud. Dosing silicates is the one thing I haven't tried. I agree that my phosphates aren't too high as my tank has done well over the years, but feel they are heavily imbalanced compared to nitrates and is perhaps why I have this bacterial imbalance.Salinity aside, I don't see any issues in your ATI results.
As to fighting LC amphids, I see no mention of 2 major tools in the battle but I might have missed.
a) the feeding of competitive diatoms with SpongeExcel (silicates).
b) the addition of licve rock to get some micro-bio diversity
Your phosphates are not elevated IMO. Here is a pic of .1 to .15 with about 10 parts NO3.
Since we are talking about LC amphids here -- which require the patience of Job to overcome -- I have no issue with you doing whatever you feel is in the best interest of your acropora. WCs, trace, whatever. Tend to them first, the amphids can wait. And wait. The consensus is that these are the least toxic species we see in aquariums. They are unlikely to be directly responsible for acro troubles aside from their ability to out-consume acropora for nutrient and other elements. In my experience with ostreopsis, I did note depleted potassium and Iodine.
I didn't answer your second set of questions regarding nutrients. The imbalance MAY have something to do with the dinos, but in my experience it certainly has something to do with the cyano. How low are nitrates? If they are near zero, I would dose sodium nitrate into MY system. It would actually lower my phosphates. But my system is different from yours as I can only grow film algae, a little wire algae, but no GHA.
My nitrates are okay.. between 4-8. My phosphate was near .20 ppm when I added the gfo a couple months ago. Dropped them to where they're at today, .06 ppm with no noticable change in the dino. Appreciate the heads up and feedback.
