My Battle With Amphidinium Dinos

[BitReef]

DAY 52
Things are definitely looking better. I’d guess my sand is finally below 50% dino coverage. Of course the glass looks terrible. No glass scraping. It’s driving my family crazy, but I keep telling them to be patient.

 

[BitReef]

ALMOST GONE!
Dinos are almost gone. My glass looks terrible, but the sand is almost clean. I’m going to continue with the same regimen for a while. I don’t want another wave.

 

[BitReef]

NO MORE DINOS
Please don’t come back!

 

[BillyW]

So what did you do for the win?

 

[attiland]

NO MORE DINOS
Please don’t come back!

I started to read your tread and wanted to say dose silicates but than I saw you did and it worked.
they may come back but now you have the medicine and you will overcome the issue way faster

 

[BitReef]

So what did you do for the win?

Pretty much what I outlined in the first post, plus eventually added some silicates (SpongeXL). I got away from that plan for a while and had a second, significantly worse outbreak. But once I got back on track and stayed consistent, they slowly went away.

Hard to say if any one thing was the magic bullet. Silicates definitely seemed to help, however I was beating them the first time without them. I also went very light on the silicates. I feel like the live phyto made a big difference, but can’t prove it.

 

[Mark Moore]

You can actually soak up amphidinium off of your sand bed by using a flat piece of porous dry rock. It must be a brand new rock from your lfs with no other competing organisms on it. Use a glass scraper and carefully move as much of the dinos as possible into one sand pile. Then simply place the flat rock over the pile and press down gently to flatten the bed. The dinos will be starved of light and will be forced to permeate

the rock. You will actually see the dinos at the top of the rock within hours and when you remove the rock you will have white sand underneath. Wash the rock and repeat as needed.

 

[attiland]

You can actually soak up amphidinium off of your sand bed by using a flat piece of porous dry rock. It must be a brand new rock from your lfs with no other competing organisms on it. Use a glass scraper and carefully move as much of the dinos as possible into one sand pile. Then simply place the flat rock over the pile and press down gently to flatten the bed. The dinos will be starved of light and will be forced to permeate

the rock. You will actually see the dinos at the top of the rock within hours and when you remove the rock you will have white sand underneath. Wash the rock and repeat as needed.

You should have seen mine in its worse state. You wouldn’t have bothered with dry rock

 

[danberger]

Pretty much what I outlined in the first post, plus eventually added some silicates (SpongeXL). I got away from that plan for a while and had a second, significantly worse outbreak. But once I got back on track and stayed consistent, they slowly went away.

Hard to say if any one thing was the magic bullet. Silicates definitely seemed to help, however I was beating them the first time without them. I also went very light on the silicates. I feel like the live phyto made a big difference, but can’t prove it.

Hey there. Awesome journal. Thank you.

I’m pretty much doing what you’re doing. Did you ever go back to a high 70s temp or have you stuck to 82/3 range?

 

[BitReef]

I’ve stayed in in the 82 range. Mostly because of the temp in my house.

 

[Salty_Steve]

I'm having this problem now going to try your methods and hopefully this works

 

[Boosterman]

You can actually soak up amphidinium off of your sand bed by using a flat piece of porous dry rock. It must be a brand new rock from your lfs with no other competing organisms on it. Use a glass scraper and carefully move as much of the dinos as possible into one sand pile. Then simply place the flat rock over the pile and press down gently to flatten the bed. The dinos will be starved of light and will be forced to permeate

the rock. You will actually see the dinos at the top of the rock within hours and when you remove the rock you will have white sand underneath. Wash the rock and repeat as needed.

This is very interesting. I guess I don't have anything to lose by trying it. Thanks for the great idea!