How I Beat Dinoflagellates with silicates

CreamCityCorals

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Hey R2R! Austin here.... Wanted to share my experience with battling and beating Dinos. I know this method works as I have had friends try it as well and have success. I believe it is worthwhile to read the entirety of this post so you can understand my situation/theories and the reasoning behind them.


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Let me start from the beginning of my issues and lead into the problem/solutions. My system is around 450-500 gallons now as it currently sits and contains 2 separate tanks....A new 75 gallon LPS tank and a roughly 350 gallon trough style tank. The 75 was installed right before my bought with dinos and wasn't set up when this all began.

The system is just about 1.5 years old. Around mid March I had finally gotten the system stabilized and had acros growing rapidly and colors were fantastic.....all was well...Due to my own ignorance I added a juvenile achilles tang after a brief observation qt and I allowed velvet to slip through and ravage my system....I lost most of my favorite tangs, including the achilles. I have always been an ich manager but this strain of velvet would have wiped my system out if I didn't tend to it. I removed all fish from the tank, which if you have ever had to do this with small damsels and gobies in a large tank you know that you essentially end up ripping the tank apart. The tank went fallow from march until early July.

DOSING AMMONIA

During this period my nutrients began to plummet. I was trying to feed the system but I couldn't keep up with my corals and algae growth. Nitrates slowly Began to get close to zero....cyano bacteria began to take its course. I began to panic a bit and searched the advice of many reefers. We decided to try a risky but seemingly interesting option of dosing ammonia. The theory behind this was if the fish were removed from the system the ammonia source was removed and the bacteria beds had nothing to feed on. As a result the bacteria and algae in my tank that was consuming bacteria would continue to grow and reproduce in the absence of the original heterotrophic bacteria. Simply a theory but I figured id give it a try. The result was increased nitrates....fairly rapidly as well. I was dosing daily and everything seemed good. However, corals were increasingly unhappy. I slowly Began to loose my Acros. Even as nutrients rose. Potentially too quickly? Potentially hit zero nitrates for a bit and was seeing a delayed effect? Not positive but I had to remove the remaining corals and put them into a healthy and thriving system. So we did that.



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PRE STAGES TO DINOS

Keeping this short....The combo of velvet outbreak and coral "Crash" from not having fish in the system gave me the perfect time to upgrade my sump and add an LPS tank. While doing this I removed sand bed that was breeding cyano, stopped dosing ammonia, and did a treatment of Chemiclean. I was trying to give myself a somewhat clean start without actually starting over. I did about a 75% water change with the new sump and system set up as well.

Around mid June I slowly started adding fish back to the system. Nutrients were still very low since the stopping of ammonia dosing. Phos .05 Nitrates 0-.5

After a month of adding fish the system was doing well and I add some SPS back into the tank. Everything seemed great. Awesome color, polyp extension, everyone was happy.
Give it a week or two and I started noticing a familiar thing....Recession from the tips and paling color that I had seen shortly after getting velvet. Something was obviously off but after such a big water change the only thing I could point to was the low nitrate. I decided to dose....SLOWLY....I started with .25 ppm a day slowly got up to 1ppm....Corals responded positively so I added a little more...Until slowly corals started to fade again within a week or two. This time I noticed a familiar foe....DINOS. I figured the imbalance combined with the massive system change triggered their growth. Within a week my whole system was covered. Corals dying, macro algae covered, rocks covered, they were everywhere. In the sump, covering the walls, in the skimmer, everywhere. So now I had essentially a FOWLR tank. I removed the remaining corals and placed them back into QT to recover.


PLAN TO BEAT DINOS

The strain I had was osteropsis however I believe I had another additional strain that I could not quite identify.

We are now around mid July and I am at my wits end with Dinos...My plan to beat them was lights out periods with the addition of nitrates and phyto. Have heard a lot of success with the "DIRTY METHOD". However it seemed the more nitrates I added, the more I fed, and the more blackouts I did they got stronger and more plentiful. The blackouts helped for short periods but within a day or two they were back. I dosed maybe 2 liters of microbacter 7 during this time with very little success. My nitrates were slowly rising but the Dinos were seemly still getting worse.



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BEATING DINOS

I was not going to let these things win...I began to ask around and have conversations with local reefers about their experiences and their ideas. UV came up a lot and Although it seemed like a good solution it had its drawbacks. Expensive, additional heat, additional pump and plumbing the list goes on. However, A few unique ideas had been tossed around with talking with other reefers. One local reefer mentioned that he beat dinos by dosing SILICATES at a high dosage into his tank in order to fuel diatoms.....hmmm interesting idea I haven't heard before....

This is what worked for me.... Make sure your filter socks are out during this period.

Day 1 Water change...I did 50 gallons on my system which is about 10-15%. I sucked out as many dinos as I possibly could...mainly the big clumps that I could get to. After doing this I dosed 250ml of Dr. Tims Priobiotic bacteria. The following morning I dosed 250ml of Dr. Tims Waste Away bacteria. Make sure when you add the bacteria you are adding it all over the system. Not just the main tank. Put some in the sump as well. I did lights out for 24 hrs and dosed roughly 100Ml of bright wells version of Silicates. During this entire first day I turned off skimmer and change filter socks.

Day 2 I gave it a day to allow this bacteria to work its magic. Lights back on

Day 3 Skimmer back on Time for UV....I bought a 90 watt LifeGard 3" model. They are built fairly well and are priced reasonably. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO HAVE THE UV PLUMBED CORRECTLY. I plumbed mine in the drain section of my sump. The vector pump intakes the water from the drains of my tanks. It then runs through the UV and the UV return goes into the return section of the sump. SOOOO....in theory this skips the entire sump and returns directly back into the system. This is the best way in my opinion if you have multiple tanks on the same sump. I turned this on for 48 hrs straight at roughly 3x tank volume turnover so roughly 13-1400 GPH for me. Over these first 24 hrs I kept the lights off to try and force dinos into the water column so they would go into the UV and die off. Also, multiple times each day with a STRONG powerhead blow off everything you can in the tank....This includes all of the rocks, walls, baffles, and pumps/equipment. The idea is to keep the dinos suspended in the water for as long as possible to allow the uv to eliminate as many as possible. If you have the species that goes into the water at night you will know. At night go take a flashlight to your tank from the top. you will see chunks of dinos floating around.

Day 4 LIghts on. Keep UV on All Day. Keep Skimmer on as well

Day 5 Right before lights on turn UV and Skimmer off. Add Probiotics Dr Tims, Silicates, and phytoplankton. Turn UV and Skimmer back on right after lights go out for the day.

Day 6 Keep UV and Skimmer on. You should be seeing a dramatic decrease in dinos......and a dramatic increase in diatom levels. Glass and sand bed should be green or brown and you should notice other algae beginning to come around.

Day 7 If you see a large reduction of Dinos, this is the time to do a water change, ideally first thing in the morning. Turn off skimmer and uv. I did another 50 gallon (10-15%) water change. Suck out any remaining dinos, detritus, or dead matter than you notice. After the water change is complete, add second large dose of Dr Tims Waste away. I did 250 ML. Also add the last dose of silicates. That night turn UV and Skimmer back on.

The entire following week....I ran Skimmer on 24/7 UV on 10-12 hours at night only. You can run UV throughout the day if you would like, this is somewhat up to you, however, I had success with only running at night.


THIS IS WHAT WORKED FOR ME.....Different strains will react differently and will need to be forced into the water column by blowing them off the rocks and or longer blackout periods. Dr. Tim's bacteria works....This stuff is proven and although its not cheap it is worth the investment. It is really important that you do not add both bacterias at the exact same time. Give them a bit of time and make sure you add the bacteria all over the system not just in the main tank.


THEORY ON WHY THIS WORKS....

So again this is just a theory but I believe it has some anedotal evidence that it works. Dinos in general are opportunistic and will begin to thrive if given the right unbalanced conditions. In my situation, chemi clean likely knocked out my bacteria colonies and created an imbalance. My beneficial colonies were not mature enough to process the addition of nitrate to the tank and it opened the door for dinos to grab hold. Once they do they can outcompete everything and anything. Silicates are not as easily consumed by dinos but are consumed quite well by diatoms. Diatoms although usually fairly ugly are consumed by fish, snails, urchins, and microfauna and begin to help revitalize the ecosystem. The addition of pods may be useful during treatment but I haven't done so. The probiotic bacteria will help to colonize and provide diversity as you beat back dinos with syphoning and blackout periods. Waste away breaks down the dead Dinos and other detritus that may be built up. Waste away is a fairly aggressive bacteria and has the ability to outcompete the dinos for nutrients. UV is king and I am a believer. I will continue to run my uv 12 hours a day as a preventative and may end up running it 24 hrs for water clarity purposes.


Hope this helps and if anyone has any questions please do not hesitate to ask!


Austin K
 

reefluvrr

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Nice write up. Thank you for sharing the info. I had battled Dinos three times within the last half a year. Every day I still dread it somehow popping up.
 
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CreamCityCorals

CreamCityCorals

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Nice write up. Thank you for sharing the info. I had battled Dinos three times within the last half a year. Every day I still dread it somehow popping up.
Yup I completely feel that! Which species did you have? I really think uv as a preventative is great. I plan to implement bacterial dosing after water changes. May even continue to dose smaller amounts of silicate as the diatoms are confused by fish and inverts everyday!
 
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CreamCityCorals

CreamCityCorals

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Very interesting read. Just one suggestion: you make quite a good amount of known methods that might have helped for sure, so I believe the title is a little misleading…
I get where your coming from but after trying silicates in combo with uv in multiple systems I do believe the silicates play a massive role. Again just based on my experience but want to give people another potential tool to battle these things!
 

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