Beating sand dwelling(amphidinium ) Dinos. A method to try

[a.t.t.r]

I have been fighting these for a long time and have tried everything from blackouts (until coral got mad) to UV to po4 and silicates.
My tank is 20 gallons keep in mind.
What finally worked for me is the following.
UV turned on day 1 and will remain on until there is no signs (With naked eye )of dinos on sand bed or in water(you can see a tint to the water) for 3 days. Gently stir the sand bed everyday that the uv light is on.

I mixed up 10 gallons of IO added 8 capfulls of neophos (po4) and 4 dropper fulls of sponge excel (silicate) and used this to do daily half gallon water changes.
The key this time that I think made the biggest impact was I did not do a full blackout. I set my lights to acclimation mode for 20 days starting at 0 percent. The result was for the first few days no light except a little at noon and then slowly ramping up of blue and finally some white light in the second week. I think this gradual increase in light along with the added phosphates and the stoppage of the UV allowed micro algae and copepods to take over instead of the dinos.

My lights are now at 100 percent again and while I do see some dinos under the microscope they are unable to get a foothold again and my copepod/amphipod population has exploded.

To anyone else fighting the long fight give this a try it may work.

 

[Nanojoe]

I have been fighting these for a long time and have tried everything from blackouts (until coral got mad) to UV to po4 and silicates.
My tank is 20 gallons keep in mind.
What finally worked for me is the following.
UV turned on day 1 and will remain on until there is no signs (With naked eye )of dinos on sand bed or in water(you can see a tint to the water) for 3 days. Gently stir the sand bed everyday that the uv light is on.

I mixed up 10 gallons of IO added 8 capfulls of neophos (po4) and 4 dropper fulls of sponge excel (silicate) and used this to do daily half gallon water changes.
The key this time that I think made the biggest impact was I did not do a full blackout. I set my lights to acclimation mode for 20 days starting at 0 percent. The result was for the first few days no light except a little at noon and then slowly ramping up of blue and finally some white light in the second week. I think this gradual increase in light along with the added phosphates and the stoppage of the UV allowed micro algae and copepods to take over instead of the dinos.

My lights are now at 100 percent again and while I do see some dinos under the microscope they are unable to get a foothold again and my copepod/amphipod population has exploded.

To anyone else fighting the long fight give this a try it may work.

Good stuff! Cool to see other methods surfacing to fight off dinos.