Remedies for small cell?

[Jamiem1976]

Hey guys,

Been dealing with a gritty tank for a while now and discovered yesterday I have small cell Dino. Been dosing 10ml phyto daily and pods once a week, along with manual removal using a 50 Macron sock.

Have seen a small improvement in the water quality, it used to stay cloudy nearly all day but now it just seems cloudy from when I get up at about 7am and I put the blue light on. Understand I need to use silicate but I'm a little short on cash having bought nitrate and phosphate this week as I thought initially it may be another variety.

Is there any other method I can use? Seen also about removal of sand completely, I don't have a sump so I would have to Syphon it through a hose, into my filter sock then into a bucket (guessing I would then put same water back into tank, but wouldn't that defeat the purpose?).

Looking for some help if possible so I can get this tank back to where it should be and replace some of my dead corals.

TIA

 

[Jamiem1976]

No one??

 

[Reefing Madness]

Bump

 

[jsker]

May I ask the type of lights you are running?

If LED's cut the white spectrum down to 10% and duration time.

If T5's I would say, it is time to replace your bulbs.

Would you happen to know your nutrient levels (phosphates and nitrates)

 

[ying yang]

A Dinoflagellate Treatment Guide

As the title suggests, this is intended as a short guide on what to do when you suspect dinoflagellates are trying to overtake your system. It is an attempt to boil down the protocols discussed across 11,000 posts in this "Are you Tired" thread along with thousands of other dino threads. I did...

www.reef2reef.com

Have a look through this.
Was looking for identification guide and how to treat but found this Instead which got guides and how to treat/ diagnose,the job lot.
Condensed version from tarichas thread I believe ( only just quickly skipped through begginning) seems very helpful

Good luck

 

[Jamiem1976]

May I ask the type of lights you are running?

If LED's cut the white spectrum down to 10% and duration time.

If T5's I would say, it is time to replace your bulbs.

Would you happen to know your nutrient levels (phosphates and nitrates)

So I'm using a Fluval Evo 52l and the stock lighting. Its either blue or blue/white so I've been running blue as that seems to take them out of the water column and makes the tank look reasonably clear. Phos was 0 and nitrate 2 for about 2 weeks or more, put some pellets in media compartment a week or so back and phos now 0.1 and nitrate 10 (maybe a touch more).

Have sodium silicate on order so will start to dose end of the week and will start adding more pods, trying to find Tisbe here in the UK but it seems impossible.

 

[jsker]

From reading, you are moving in the right direction.

Are you using RO/DI water, would be my last thought.

 

[Jamiem1976]

From reading, you are moving in the right direction.

Are you using RO/DI water, would be my last thought.

Yes, I am seeing an improvement but I know I have far to go.

I'm only using RO water as a top up from the loss caused from condensation, I've stopped doing water changes too, been a couple of weeks, I only add a little salt water after I lose a little with manual removal of the Dino's via filter sock (manually as no sump or skimmer).

With regards to the silicate, do I need to test first before starting dosage? Just want to check in a 52l/13.5gn tank I should start dosing at 0.1ml for a week, then 0.2ml for a week, 0.3ml for a week?

 

[jsker]

With regards to the silicate, do I need to test first before starting dosage? Just want to check in a 52l/13.5gn tank I should start dosing at 0.1ml for a week, then 0.2ml for a week, 0.3ml for a week?

It is great to read, that you are making progress. It slow, but slow is good

If you have the ability to test, it is alway good to know and a gauge to work from.

If you can test the tap water for silicates, this would also help determining if you have silicates in the tap water. If there is silicates in the tap water I would suggest add a DI chamber with silicate filtering media.

The reason I am suggesting adding DI to your RO, if there is silicate in the tap water. This would make your Dino battle frustrating because you will be adding silicate every time top off.