Live Sand as a Weapon Against Dinos

[Tankkeepers]

Or do as I did and just go bare bottom problem solved forever hehe

 

[Tankkeepers]

Honeslt tho it spund like stored organics in your sand bed and adding sand on tip of this will only make matters worse not better your trying to hide the problem rather then fix it

And dinos shows up ime when you bottom out nutrients as it can dissolve organics and use then before bacteria can thus starving the bacteria so adding more bacteria will not help

 

[mccusker1818]

Day 3 update: so far so good. Sand is clear but blowing around a bit in some places but even the lower flow areas in the corners have remained relatively clear. NO3 is 5 ppm, PO4 is 0.08 ppm. I’m still dosing NuAlgea and Reef Solutions vitamins as well as Brightwell aminos hoping to help the coral recover. Coral STN seems to have stopped. I also programmed my Apex to turn off the skimmer from 5 to 10 each day to keep NO3 and PO4 from bottoming again.

it’s too early to tell if this is the solution but I’m encouraged.

What happened with this whole experiment?

 

[ggNoRe]

What happened with this whole experiment?

I tried this and it did not work for me. The dinos still came back.

Another Dinoflagellates Experiment

4 days after lights back on. 50%leds and T5s only on 50% of the time. So far very promising.

www.reef2reef.com

 

[djf91]

I’d also like to hear an update. I just added ipsf sand/mud to hopefully help with my prorocentrum problem.

 

[k log(omega)]

also looking for an update from anyone. anyone go through with this and have any success? considering doing the same thing after silicate/bacteria/phytoplankton dosing and manual removal of dinos through sand rinsing and probably scrubbing some rocks. will probably follow it with a 3 day ol blackout then dose some more silicates just in case. any experience on this anybody??

 

[capt.dave]

I apologize to the group for not following up on this post, especially if you got here looking for a solution to Amphidinium. Bottom line, it did not work. Dinos stayed knocked back longer than they had from a good sand-vacuum water change, but they did come back just as bad.

So for my microscope confirmed case of Amphidinium, none of the commonly recommended courses of action worked. UV (doe NOT work for Amphidinium), three day blackouts, Elegant Corrals Method, live sand, adding heterotrophic bacteria, adding silicates to encourage diatoms, raising phosphates and nitrates to feed competing bacteria, all failed. But the good news is that I finally found something that did work: PODS! In one of his videos on overcoming the uglies, Ryan at BRS showed a video from the Monterey Bay Aquarium showing amphipods and copepods eating dinos. Can't hurt, right? I bought 4 jars of EcoPods from Algae Barn and injected three of them into my sand bed with a turkey baster. I put the forth jar into a 1 gallon container of saltwater with an air pump turned down low and a good dose of phytoplankton to cultivate more of them. Then every month or so, I'd harvest about half of them and inject them into the sand, putting the rest back in to grow. After a couple months of this, a year+ dino problem was gone! I'm still cultivating phyto and pods to feed the tank. There are lots of videos on YouTube showing how to do this, so I won't include my process here. I just wanted to share that copepods were the answer for me.

 

[legionofdoon]

I tried literally everything the first time I had dinos, lights out, nitrate dosing, waste away, peroxide, mb7. The only thing that worked and I've done it twice now. Is microbe lift special blend. I dump half a bottle with skimmer off for a week. Dump the second half wait a day or two turn skimmer on and dose another bottle per label directions. It's a PNS bacteria so leave your lights on it takes about two weeks but will clear up dinos I promise. Any time my sand starts looking off I get a bottle and follow label directions.

 

[taricha]

thanks @capt.dave grazers/herbivores can indeed be helpful against dinos - provided that they are low or non-toxic. Large cell amphidinium often fits this category.