Fighting LCA dinos with silicates

[OceanJack]

Hi all,

Been quite a journey with trying to conquer dinos in my little reef tank. I tried everything from bottled bacteria, blackouts, and my last real tool was the UV sweep but that didn't completely irradicate them.

So I decided to dose silicates, this was my last shot before ripping sand out again. So far, it's been about 2 weeks of dosing silicate. I am seeing quite a big bloom of diatoms in my tank and some cyano showing up. I can't tell if there are any dinos, as the diatoms have completely covered my sand.

Funny thing is, it also is on the glass and I can see that they're diatoms. Along with being on my wave makers, however I can't tell if there are any dinos present.

My question is, should I still get a microsope to see if Dinos are still present? How long do people continue to dose silicates to keep the bloom going until they stop?

 

[jrhudson11]

What are your nutrient levels? Every time I've had dinos - I was able to eradicate them by dosing large amounts of po3 and no3, blackouts, and microbacter7.

If they are actually diatoms, a good cuc should take care of them.

 

[Moe K]

Without a microscope you can never really be 100% sure if you are winning the battle. Diatoms, LCA, SCA, prymnesium parvum can all look identical to the eye. Diatoms are usually brighter in color when they first start to appear but when they get denser they will become as dark as dinos visually. You could still have a dino outbreak or you could have been growing diatoms for a while now. Microscope will tell you what happened and what is happening.