Silica dosing

[aggrofish]

Prorocentrum is the worst. I battled them twice. First time, I was successful with silica dosing. Second time it hung around even after silica dosing. I siphoned out all the sand over the course of couple of day. Did not put any of the water back in. Essentially a mini tank reset. Dinos were gone in about 10 days.

I took a break from tanks for about 8 years. The previous reef tanks never had dinos. This stuff is a nightmare. Previously I'd pick up a few boxes of fiji rock and have an instatank. Now with the last couple tanks it seems like it really starts getting going after 6-9 months if you add a couple pieces of rock from an established tank. There's something about dry rock that sucks.

BUT Dinos started after two things: One using flux rx to control GHA and bryopsis and adding two adding Chaeto. I already was dosing after the flux RX to not let nutrients bottom out. The chaeto never grew even with detectable nutrients, but dinos did. Maybe algae barn chaeto gave me dinos...

 

[Acros]

My outbreaks also started after using FluxRx. There are a lot of people who do not have this issue. My rocks came from the ocean, but the tank was only 6 month old at that time.

 

[Acros]

@aggrofish using UV while dosing silicates is counter productive. It will kill the diatoms and are not very effective with prorocentrum.

 

[aggrofish]

@aggrofish using UV while dosing silicates is counter productive. It will kill the diatoms and are not very effective with prorocentrum.

Appreciate the heads up. Yeah the UV does literally nothing for the dinos, a waste of $400 buy boy is the water clear lol

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

No you are fine. Mixing it into a larger volume of water helps a little, but not much and pouring it in front of your return pump helps a bit, but not much. You will get the snow regardless and it will disappear.

He dosed 10ml for 60 gallons? SpongExcel recommends less than 1ml for 300 gallons lol. Am I mis understanding?

SpongExcel says 1 drop per 20gal. So for my 300gal I would do 15 drops. That's less than 1ml. 1ml is 20 drops.

I do notice now that it says that dosage will increase concentration by only .01ppm now though? That seems very low lol. Someone on another thread said he followed instructions and it spiked to 2.0ppm.

I suppose the only way to find out is to get a test lol. Does Salifert test work ok? They have it on Amazon.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

He dosed 10ml for 60 gallons? SpongExcel recommends less than 1ml for 300 gallons lol. Am I mis understanding?

SpongExcel says 1 drop per 20gal. So for my 300gal I would do 15 drops. That's less than 1ml. 1ml is 20 drops.

I do notice now that it says that dosage will increase concentration by only .01ppm now though? That seems very low lol. Someone on another thread said he followed instructions and it spiked to 2.0ppm.

I suppose the only way to find out is to get a test lol. Does Salifert test work ok? They have it on Amazon.

The person you are quoting has not been on for quite some time.

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

It's kind of a bummer that no one in the hobby has ever gotten an outbreak of noctiluca scintillans the bioluminescent dinoflagellates that you can buy and keep in a little container.

Yesss! hahah. Like the blue glowing ones that show up at the beach on rare outbreak nights?

 

[Bitcoin Reefer]

Man I’ve had dinos for what seems like forever, dosed neophos/neonitro, installed uv, raised temp, siphoned daily, changed socks daily, DIY coral snow. If the silicate dosing doesn’t work imma nuke it with dino-x.

Did it work lol?

 

[Ilya_Tihomirov]

Please tell me how to dilute sodium silicate or silica gel. What other methods can I use to dose silicon?

 

[EnterName]

Isn’t silicate something that causes Dino’s? How does this work

Silicates can cause diatom blooms. I believe diatoms either predate on or suppress in some other manner the dinos.

I wanted to start silica dosing in my reef to outcompete dinos... brightwell do spongexcell but it is rather expensive so was wondering if i can buy alternative product that will do the job? Will the product below be fine? Also does anyone know if there is a cheaper alternative to sponge excel in general?

I always look for food grade or pharmaceutical grade when buying bulk.

Diatoms are competing for nutrients and space with Dinoflagellates and Dinoflagellates predate on Diatoms (at least some species).

This means smaller amounts of Diatoms can actually boost Dinoflagellate growth if there isn't something else they can eat. I observed this for a long time in my tank repeatedly increasing and decreasing SiO2 within safe levels so neither Diatoms nor Dinoflagellates became a problem, but they always came and went together as I was able to confirm using a microscope.

Silicate dosing is still the right choice when dealing with dinoflagellates that don't leave the substrate and therefore won't end up in a UV-Sterilizer. I still recommend trying both approaches: 0 SiO2 and elevated SiO2 and see what works best.