LCA Dinos?

[bcarl77]

Looking for some advice on LCA dinos (do not want to dose silicates). I do not have a confirm microscope diagnosis. It has not responded to multiple chemiclean treatments or bacteria dosing so far. Nutrients have been 20ppm .2 phos, but trending down as I dose bacteria. I have a 55W UV but from my understanding that won’t help much. Predominately on the sand and disappears at night. Thoughts on how to beat this without silicates?

 

[Acros]

rip clean. How big is the tank and why not dose silicates?

 

[nashlake]

The UV helped a great deal on my tank. It can only kill what is in the water column and not anything attached to rock or other surface. I have been using a baster to blow the dinos off the surfaces. It takes a while and you have to keep at it but in two weeks my tank is mostly clear and continues to improve.

 

[brandon429]

I'll never forget the power of your invasion, this is going on six years.

Did it ever self correct and rebounded or was it never fixed this whole time? We threw everything but the sink at your invasion

I never forgot our trial run. It was humbling

Rip cleans done right didn't work

Nobody on this entire site has seen a strain as mean as yours.


I know someone who has and he beat them. I'll send him your info

 

[Garf]

Looking for some advice on LCA dinos (do not want to dose silicates). I do not have a confirm microscope diagnosis. It has not responded to multiple chemiclean treatments or bacteria dosing so far. Nutrients have been 20ppm .2 phos, but trending down as I dose bacteria. I have a 55W UV but from my understanding that won’t help much. Predominately on the sand and disappears at night. Thoughts on how to beat this without silicates?

I'm not a Dino expert but doesn't look typical dinos to me.

 

[Mikeltee]

UV will not do anything. Your only option is to dose silicates or start over.

 

[Garf]

UV will not do anything. Your only option is to dose silicates or start over.

I'm wondering how you are so convinced it's dinos without a microscope I.D?

 

[thedon986]

My LCA dinos looked just like that. Sand dwelling dinos are beat by silica dosing mostly. I think carbon dosing at night helped me as it provided what other microfauna and algae needed to help outcompete. The thinking behind dosing it at night is that the dinos wont immediately consume it for themselves. Make sure your N and P stay elevated while carbon dosing or during any battle. Sand dwelling dinos like very specific condition and I have never had them show in my my lighted refugiums with sand.

Also get a cheap microscope so you can see what is going on. This will show you exactly what type they are, what other microfauna is present in the sand, and help you keep an eye out to tell when your diatom population is starting to explode after the silica dosing.

 

[brandon429]

I don't think most people could grasp what has already been applied to this tank, this is not your average hey I've got some red in my tank post




if there was any reef tank in history that needed the attention of a reefing pro, it's BCarl's. this strain of invasion is one I'd be interested to see and finalize through a microscope. curious if this is penta-nucleated invader cells from mars. it's tied for the top three meanest invasions I recall seeing in reefing.

I could be wrong but I think we did our work on it in 2018 ish.

 

[Mikeltee]

I'm wondering how you are so convinced it's dinos without a microscope I.D?

Oh sorry. I thought he said he confirmed it. I'm not sure why he would say LCA without a microscope as that's pretty rare. LCA generally has snot with bubbles on the rock which is the first sign. The sand comes later.

 

[Mikeltee]

It actually just looks like new tank uglies. His nutrients are sky high. I have the same thing going on in one of my new tanks. There's some cyno on part of the rockwork as well. The rock is Phosphate bound trending about .15. It does not bother me or the fish. Ive lost about half my inverts though. I'm not putting coral in there until the rock is covered in coralline.

 

[brandon429]

@bishoptf

if you had any brainstorms on possible action here this invasion is identical to yours if not by speciation it will dang sure be identical in virility. this is unkillable stuff we don't usually see, did you beat yours? I wasn't sure if your new tank you posted on HF's site was in addition to, or replacement of your original challenge tank that you have been working for years. I thought that what both you and BCarl were willing to try in the name of clean reefing was some of the strongest human resolve I've seen for aquarium labor ever seen online.

literally everything possible was tried already here

 

[Mikeltee]

I've been fighting confirmed LCA in another tank for 3 months. I'm dosing silicates and Microbacter7. It was never really bad and it's 99% clear now and has been for a few weeks. I'm still dosing though and shall until coralline takes over. I have a ton of coral in this one.

 

[Mikeltee]

Are you running the UV? I was running my oversized UV for the first couple of months with sterile rock but not much was progressing. I then added an algae scrubber and wasn't getting much action in it so I turned off the UV. It's progressing much faster now and the ATS is working as advertised. I bet that UV plumbed inline with the return would help. If it's just sump to sump I wouldn't bother as that's a waste of electricity.

 

[Garf]

dang sure be identical in virility

Maybe, but could be a myriad of things feasting on sand bed detritus, most of which will be food for something else.

 

[bcarl77]

I'll never forget the power of your invasion, this is going on six years.

Did it ever self correct and rebounded or was it never fixed this whole time? We threw everything but the sink at your invasion

I never forgot our trial run. It was humbling

Rip cleans done right didn't work

Nobody on this entire site has seen a strain as mean as yours.


I know someone who has and he beat them. I'll send him your info

This is a new tank, I use a very light sand bed ever since and rinsed all sand 2 till it ran clear when setting up. I had cyano at the beginning but overall its been pretty clean. For whatever reason this has no change from chemiclean. It has no mat to it which leads me to think LCA dinos.

 

[bcarl77]

rip clean. How big is the tank and why not dose silicates?

This is a 250G tank. Rock removal and full RIP clean is not possible unless we vacuum out all sand and replace with new sand.

 

[brandon429]

if you do that work, stall the sandbed re addition

run bb for a while, until it's beaten, then add back pre rinsed sand cloudlessly to the compliant setup. it is always harder to fight invasions when sand is present, and that's bigger grain size above it'll have more catchment to hold waste + invasion complexes. bb would be easier to fix although nobody knows what it will take to fix that.


**your environment selected for this twice, this is the same type and strength from the prior invasion*
that doesn't help you much it's just fascinating how speciation persists among tanks. I'd really like to see this one ID'd with a microscope, we didn't do scope ID on your last setup I don't think.

are you getting stuff from a lfs in particular over these past two tanks, and did you wind up winning in the prior tank or starting over here?

 

[bcarl77]

if you do that work, stall the sandbed re addition

run bb for a while, until it's beaten, then add back pre rinsed sand cloudlessly to the compliant setup. it is always harder to fight invasions when sand is present, and that's bigger grain size above it'll have more catchment to hold waste + invasion complexes. bb would be easier to fix although nobody knows what it will take to fix that.


**your environment selected for this twice, this is the same type and strength from the prior invasion*
that doesn't help you much it's just fascinating how speciation persists among tanks. I'd really like to see this one ID'd with a microscope, we didn't do scope ID on your last setup I don't think.

are you getting stuff from a lfs in particular over these past two tanks, and did you wind up winning in the prior tank or starting over here?

I had a completely different approach on this tank from the prior one. Minimal large grain sand. Its a fair point that it needs a good clean no doubt.

What is the effectiveness of pods/MB7.

 

[Garf]

I had a completely different approach on this tank from the prior one. Minimal large grain sand. Its a fair point that it needs a good clean no doubt.

What is the effectiveness of pods/MB7.

Pods are good, they work in the dark