Another Help with Dinos/diatoms post. Microscope pics attached.

[Arsenix2001]

I moved the torch onto a rock above the sand bed. Checked nitrate and phos again, phos at .03ppm and nitrate back to 0.0ppm! Dosed more neophos and 30 ml of neonitro with more silacate. I think I am starting to see a diatom bloom but hard to tell if that or the dinos are just spreading. There was an area my clowns kept clear but now it is brown. I gave up and went ahead and siphoned off the diatoms with a gravel vac but had to use fresh salt water because I didn't have a fine enough filter. What mesh sock do you reccomend to strain dinos?

 

[ClutchCityReefer]

I would think the finer the better. I use Poly-fill as filter floss in a filter cup instead of a sock and replace it every morning - definitely can save you money and time when you should replace every morning with dinos. The stuff works great and clogs up if I (a) put too much in the cup or (b) don't remove quickly enough.

Something that really helped me is a battery powered gravel vac (I don't think this is what you're using since you mentioned having to utilize fresh salt water). This allows you to more aggressively siphon out the dinos without the hassle of going through so much water. You can put some of the floss in the chamber and use that to strain out the dinos (although I will note this decreases the power of the suction so may make it a bit tougher to siphon it all out)

 

[thedon986]

5-10 micron will do but don’t expect much of an improvement. They seem to fill the void faster when it’s clean and spread slower when they are established. Keep your head up it’s possible to have an aquarium that looks great besides the sand while you battle. Keep up on the dosing, If you are testing once a day and finding them back at zero keep upping the dosage and split it between morning and evening. Kee focusing on increasing biodiversity. Distract yourself with other things like tuning flow and lighting. Plenty of stuff to focus on while you’re dumping nutrients and silica in. Stay the course.

 

[thedon986]

I would recommend not siphoning though for sure because you’re also removing all the good guys with the bad guys. Diatoms are an impressive competitor, dose at least one drop per gallon per day, two would be better. I am at four right now! You will see the sand slowly start to turn whiter and lighter brown. Snails will start cleaning it more and become more active.

 

[Arsenix2001]

I would recommend not siphoning though for sure because you’re also removing all the good guys with the bad guys. Diatoms are an impressive competitor, dose at least one drop per gallon per day, two would be better. I am at four right now! You will see the sand slowly start to turn whiter and lighter brown. Snails will start cleaning it more and become more active.

Ok, yes the siphoning basically did nothing. Was back with a vengeance an hour later. You are saying to dose 1 drop of sponge excel per gallon??? Wow, I am following bottle reccomendation of 1 per 20 gallon right now. Willing to try anything at this point. My phyto, tisbe and tigro pods arrive today.

 

[thedon986]

Oh yeah that recommendation is for growing a few sponges, we are trying to cover the sand with diatoms. I am dosing 40ml per day to my ~80 gallons via doser. You're probably going to want to look into buying water glass or SpongExcel in bulk. Amazon has a 2L of SpongExcel but it's about $60. I stayed with that since I am comfortable with the dosage routine. Water glass may or may not be more concentrated depending on what you get, so there would be some trial and error.

 

[Arsenix2001]

Oh yeah that recommendation is for growing a few sponges, we are trying to cover the sand with diatoms. I am dosing 40ml per day to my ~80 gallons via doser. You're probably going to want to look into buying water glass or SpongExcel in bulk. Amazon has a 2L of SpongExcel but it's about $60. I stayed with that since I am comfortable with the dosage routine. Water glass may or may not be more concentrated depending on what you get, so there would be some trial and error.

Ok i will definitely up the dose.

Question, my torch is definitely been affected and now I noticed the diatoms got onto a colony of blue zoas. They were retracted and when I went to blow them off with the pipette one of the heads broke loose. This infestation is getting worse by the day. It is getting onto the rocks and obviously irritating corals. At what point do I try a blackout just to get it under control? I've read so many conflicting reports that blackouts work, blackouts don't. They end up coming right back afterwards and all you end up doing is just stressing the coral more... Don't know what to do here

 

[thedon986]

Those are probably not diatoms if you are only dosing according to the instructions. You wouldn't be able to see them at that dosing level. That is dinos and your corals are stressed by general conditions in the aquarium. A blackout might not be a bad idea but not necessary. I would try to take it east on your coral and not be too aggressive with the turkey baster. I know it sucks, I lost plenty of coral during my battle, but it's a big learning moment.

 

[Arsenix2001]

Ok, I turned my whites down to 10% for now. I have readable nitrate finally at 5ppm. Dosed 75 drops of sponge excel today. Added pods bacteria and phyto

 

[thedon986]

I would dose some more nitrate in a few hours before you go to bed and probably in the morning too. You'll start to learn consumption rates of both and be able to proactively dose to keep it elevated.