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Thanks for posting what you are doing. Is there someplace I can read in detail about this method? Are there documented successes using this protocol?
I am seeing a change in the dinos. This morning it appears that there is green algae mixing in with them as the brown patches appear green.These same patches were brown last night .I did not siphon the sand last night, but I will tonight. The lights have not come on yet but I took a couple of photos to try and show the color change. I wonder if they will stay green all day? I doubt it, but I have to leave for work soon so I'll have to wait till later to see. The front glass has green algae also so maybe I am making some progress.
here's a thread I started on trying to understand this method.
Fingers crossed for you fellow amphidinium warrior. lol. I really admire when hobbyist self reflect on where things went wrong ... to figure it out. Good luck to you!Given the immense amount of help I have received from this thread, I wanted to post my anecdotal experience managing what I have self-diagnosed as an Amphidinium issue in my 140G aquarium.
I have *not* microscopically identified my dinoflagellate issue as Amphidinium. However, I have assumed they were the cause based on the following symptoms: (a) a brown carpet of matter adhering to the sand and glass, reappearing within 24-48 hours when stirred (sand) or removed (glass) (b) an already running 40W Pentair UV system at 140 GPH (c) little apparent effect on my corals- other than my plate coral being being fully retracted since the infestation began, all other SPS, LPS, and soft corals have been happy and healthy, with good SPS growth throughout the infestation.
The cause of the outbreak was low nitrates and phosphates, which were running near-zero when the dinos arose. The root cause of that was a relatively new tank, a new baby causing testing not to happen as often as it should have, and some outdated research from back when ULNS systems were in vogue.
My treatment regimen followed the first post of this thread. I:
- Began dosing phosphates and nitrates to maintain 0.03-0.1ppm PO4 and 5-10 ppm NO3. I purchased a ReefBot to help with the testing workload, to ensure my levels stayed within this range. It is fantastic. I also added the NeoPhos to a spare reservoir in my dosing system, so those levels stay constant, 24/7.
- Began dosing silicates, maintaining concentration with a Hanna cheker
- Purchased some pods and phytoplankton from Algae Barn (no way to know if this made a difference- honestly I have always just wanted to order from them!)
I believe I am starting to see some success. For the first few days I was dosing silicates, they appeared to accumulate in the system, with my Hanna checker reading 0.8ppm after several days of 0.2 ppm daily doses of SpongExcel. Then, suddenly, silicates dropped to zero, and over the past few days I have noticed the brown patches on the sand becoming lighter in some areas, where I believe diatoms may be beginning to grow. I keep dosing 0.2ppm - 0.4ppm of silicates daily, but my Hanna checker reads minimal levels a few hours later.
In the past few days, my livestock is suddenly much more interested in eating the brown stuff off the sand, and I see my foxface picking at it almost constantly. I am also starting to see come fuzz/hair algae returning to the rocks, which is being kept trimmed by the foxface as well.
The battle isn't won, but signs are encouraging. I will post an update in a few weeks.
Thanks to the author of this thread, taricha, and everyone else who has posted! This strategy works!
they know where the goodies are!Tha area is completely covered in amphidinium this morning. Just wow!
stoopid amphidinium!they know where the goodies are!
I had a bottle of Si once that I didn't know the concentration of.Can anyone tell me how much silicate I should be dosing?
I have a 160l tank.
Thanks!
First off, I recommend using brightwell spongexcel because it has detailed dosing guide, until you know how your system uses Silica. Then you can freestyle with more potent solutions.how did you dilute your Si I bough a bottle that is 100 percent Si and how do I know how much to dose per tank size
Lost interest and just wanted a quick kill to clean my tank and hob filter... dumped in some bleach and all disappeared, single rock went white, water clear.... scraped off the glass and bottom of tank to spread the dinos into the bleach water. A few days later, repeated with more bleach. The tank was spotless.
A week later, and the rock is turning brown... confirmed with a microscope that the amphidinium dinos were back! If bleach isn't killing these things... what hope do we have in our tanks?