Small cell amphidinium

[crysber]

So under a microscope I have a positive id of small cell amphidinum. I am working on bring my phosphate up as it’s at 0. Any of you that have dealt with this strain what has worked for you?! I’ve seen different info out there, some say they stay in the sand and uv doesn’t work and I’ve also see that they don’t act like the large cell and do in fact enter the water column.... I have silicate and a uv should I just use both? Will the uv stop the diatoms from growing if I do use it! I’m hoping I can get rid of these Dinos without tearing my tank down! Thanks for the help!

 

[Idoc]

I fought small cell amphidinium dinos for many, many months and finally beat them in 2 tanks.

I've tried everything under the sun. Dosing silicates didn't seem to help for me...i never showed a diatom bloom with dosing silicates.

A blackout will work, but it had to be 9-10 days! Shorter times don't work for this type. This can be rough on corals.

UV didn't really help with mine, but i run it anyhow. The blackout will bring them into the water column...i suspect a strong uv used during the blackout would work somewhat.

I dosed No3 and Po4 to keep the amounts elevated.

I finally performed a treatment called the Elegant Corals dino/cyano treatment plan and it worked awesomely! It is a very precise process using micro bubbles, bottled bacteria, dr runs waste away, and vodka as a carbon source. You must watch your pH very carefully for the 7 day treatment and get the bubbles just right and almost impossible to see. You can run it multiple times if needed. I was having a hard time finding the R2R thread on it earlier today... but maybe a Google search will bring it up.

But, there is hope... my tanks are clean now of dinos!