Is It Time To Remove Sand?

[Moe K]

Forgot to mention. Best way I found to take a sample is to scoop up a small amount of the darkest sand and put it in a small cup or jar with just enough water to keep the sand sample submerged. Take a q-tip and swirl the sand to break it up. Then dab the q tip on the slide and show us what you got.

 

[Badblackdog]

I’ve been fighting this algae or bacteria issue for almost 8 months. I’m wondering if it’s time to rip sand out.
It started as Blue Green Cyano. I beat it with Chemiclean ( so I thought ) !
After Chemiclean it has returned and so I’m dosing second round of Chemiclean , without luck. It won’t go away after 3 days running. It’s a brown dusting and goes away after lights go off. It comes back everyday though as soon as lights are on.
It’s brown but no air bubbles or strings affiliated with it.

Nitrates -10
Phosphates-0.06
Cal- 450
Alk9
Mag-1450

Take this for what it is worth before pulling the sand out.

I was fighting the same problem with my tank. I was cleaning the glass three times a day on weekends. Everyday when I got home from work I had to clean the glass too. The snail tracks through the algae looked psychedelic. I have a 40 watt UVS, I tried a water changes and vacuuming the sand surface but it didn’t make a difference. So I bought a large gravel vacuum. After a thorough vacuuming it made a huge difference. My sand bed was really old. I got down deep and really pulled out a lot of gray funky water and debris. I was worried that I was being too aggressive but funk kept coming out. I was desperate. The next day the tank was clearer than it had ever been and my algae problem was vastly improved. Good luck!

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

I run it 24/7. I’ll wait it out a month or so and see what happens

Run it only at lights out, 24/7 will kill other photosynthetic competition.

I am at the 11 month mark with dinos, and switching UV to lights out time only has helped.

However, UV doesnt do much to amphidium which is a sand dwelling Dino.

Siphon into the sump through a high micron filter, keep nutrients up, and maybe get your traces up.

I've known for a long time it's recomended to stop dosing traces, but I started dosing small amounts of chaeto grow and I finally have green and coraline algae growing, which helps some with my dino problem. I also use the marineland magnum in tank canister with the high micron, that helps me a lot bit may also be ineffective with sand dwelling dinos.

Maybe reduce light intensity if you can, while aggressively siphoning them out? Avoid having to add new salt water though, they also recomend stopping water changes, again that may not be the best way to deal with them. I've seen some comments on Randy's florine dosing thread where people claimed it ended their fight with dinos as an unintended conciquence, so we may see a big change in the strategy of fighting dinos.


I also think flow might be an issue, if you can crank your up. Try that too... maybe. Reef Beef a month or so ago did a piece on dinos and they say it's not even a thing for them, they change some parameter to shock the system, a little bit of lights out and changing flow, that's been the trick for them, but they also mention they get ahead of it quick, most of us don't.


Who knows, Dinos suck, and thrive in the same conditions our corals do so.... fighting them is not a science yet.

 

[rtparty]

It’s dinos. Up your nutrients. Get phosphate up to at least .1 if not .2. Get a good sand sifter.

 

[kingranch2003]

Without knowing exactly what your problem is, my sand looked like that for months. I added a few nassarius, a conch and stayed up on my pod population. It completely took care of my problem. With that being said and without knowing exactly what your issue is, you may have something different going on than I did.

 

[Sylvester]

You have to identify the dinos. If it is not ostreopsis or coolia than a regular UV sterilizer filter is not going to do much. If it is amphidinium dinos they will hide in the sand at night and never go through any uv filter plumbed in.

You do not have to remove your sand if it is indeed amphidinium dinos. I created a solution and plan to make a post about it soon.

Thank you so much for the response. I will get this issue on a microscope and I will post what I discover. Thanks for the outlined method of grabbing a sample as well.

 

[Sylvester]

Without knowing exactly what your problem is, my sand looked like that for months. I added a few nassarius, a conch and stayed up on my pod population. It completely took care of my problem. With that being said and without knowing exactly what your issue is, you may have something different going on than I did.

I will get this under a microscope and post pic once I get an image. Thank you !

 

[Sylvester]

Thank you to all your inputs and help. I will take everyone's advice and I will post a pic on here later from the microscope findings.

 

[Dom]

I have my lights on for 14 hours and I don’t have that

Yes but at what intensity and duration?

 

[blecki]

If you end up going the chemical route remember that dinos can release toxins when they die.

 

[MindlessToxin]

I'm going to preface this by saying I'm no pro. I've been keeping a reef for almost a year now. I have done a lot of reading on the matter here as I have struggled with and "beat" Dino(Ostreopsis) and Cyano.

As far as Dino it seems to be best beat with a "multipronged" attack:
Raising your nutrients(if they're 0)
Dosing Microbacter7 during the day.
Dosing Peroxide at night.
Running a UV (WITH CORRECT GPH)
Manual removal
Black out(I didn't do this but some do)
Add copepods(I didn't do this either)

For Cyano I ran Chemiclean per instructions. I've heard a lot of people have had success with CORAL SNOW. I haven't tried that one yet though.

Once you get your microscope sample there's a FB group called Mack's Dinoflagellates. They can help identify the strain and suggest the best course of action.

I hope this helps!!!

 

[Sylvester]

Yes but at what intensity and duration?

50% and 10 hours- Radion G4 and 2 Reefbrite Blues

 

[Sylvester]

I'm going to preface this by saying I'm no pro. I've been keeping a reef for almost a year now. I have done a lot of reading on the matter here as I have struggled with and "beat" Dino(Ostreopsis) and Cyano.

As far as Dino it seems to be best beat with a "multipronged" attack:
Raising your nutrients(if they're 0)
Dosing Microbacter7 during the day.
Dosing Peroxide at night.
Running a UV (WITH CORRECT GPH)
Manual removal
Black out(I didn't do this but some do)
Add copepods(I didn't do this either)

For Cyano I ran Chemiclean per instructions. I've heard a lot of people have had success with CORAL SNOW. I haven't tried that one yet though.

Once you get your microscope sample there's a FB group called Mack's Dinoflagellates. They can help identify the strain and suggest the best course of action.

I hope this helps!!!

Great info and I will have a look at that group. I'm going to post a pic on this thread as well to get some assistance. Thank you

 

[brandon429]

A prediction for claimed dinos solutions about to be posted:

Since nobody in reefing can consistently beat dinos, see the largest thread in existence on battling them below, and they hardly ever ever earn a cure it’s all in progress challenges for months:

Dinoflagellates – Are You Tired Of Battling Altogether?

I don't know what percentage of folks had luck battling dinos with any of the methods in the old Dino thread but it's obviously a very low percentage, so I'd like refresh folks on the natural alternatives and lay out three areas of info: some of the factors that contribute to a dino outbreak...

www.reef2reef.com

Any proofs will be the steps someone took at home that worked. Only for them

What the proofs will never, ever be until a real fix is found:

A giant thread of other peoples reefs being fixed. As soon as we get into real outbound work, things crumble you can see.

Sandbed removal is smart, notice this thread. It does use the OP’s tank example, but then others joined in for proof:

Removing sand to get rid of amphidinium dinos

That’s my story too. I removed 90% of my sand (what I could get to) when fighting small cell amphidinium. After the worst year or so of my 30 ish reefing career, my tank turned almost immediately for the better. That was about 6 years and tank is still great. Latest FTS

www.reef2reef.com

Any claims that do not use recent outbound job proofs, multiples, isn’t going to work out in public we can see by link contrasting. iD of species plays no bearing on fix ability, because there isn’t currently a fix ability anyone really has. Only snippets of possibility exist, nothing sure

 

[brandon429]

Sand removal is best because it removes hiding spaces and you can be physically siphoning out cellular mass until it abates. With sand it mostly won’t abate, we can see in pattern. Even if it’s not dinos, fighting any matted growths is easier in bare bottom, lower surface area setups. Even bad cyano can be helped this way. Species ID is never what I’d use to decide. Virility of the invaded decides (how fast does it come back after quick topical removal)

 

[blecki]

Raising nutrients will make dino worse.

UV is only effective on certain strains.

Peroxide doesn't do jack to it.


Nutrients reaching 0 does not cause dino. Plenty of us did (and do) run ULNS with no dino. 0 nutrients is just an environment where dinos do well. Enough microfauna and you'll never see dino in significant amounts.

Nor is dino something to be feared or eradicated it's food for the microfauna...

Add pods. Don't bother with anything else.

 

[MindlessToxin]

Raising nutrients will make dino worse.

UV is only effective on certain strains.

Peroxide doesn't do jack to it.


Nutrients reaching 0 does not cause dino. Plenty of us did (and do) run ULNS with no dino. 0 nutrients is just an environment where dinos do well. Enough microfauna and you'll never see dino in significant amounts.

Nor is dino something to be feared or eradicated it's food for the microfauna...

Add pods. Don't bother with anything else.

This is just your opinion. There plenty of other opinions and other people with experience that would disagree. Just like in MY experience the things I noted above helped me.

 

[xCROv]

Raising nitrates (along with having UV running) has always seemed to be the best way for fighting Dinos in my experience. I've been thinking about removing my sand as well due to some turf style algae. Post updates if you go through with it OP, curious how it works out.

 

[Sylvester]

Here it is. Video and pic

 

[Moe K]

Looks like amphidinium to me.

This is what works and is new. I have beaten LCA then dosed amino acids just to experiment then beat them again in roughly a weeks time the second time. You don't have to tear down your sand, dose chemicals or disrupt your stability in any way. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/sand-bed-uv-sweeper-by-3dreefing-has-anyone-tried-it.1066245/