Silica dosing

[Charles4400]

Nope! 1-2 ppm Si is fine. It's plenty for any diatoms to grow and is in the ballpark of what natural levels can reach in the ocean.

So at this level I should not dose Silica the right? If that's the case do I have diatoms rather than dinosaurs? I still have some that stay on sand all the time and some that dissapear at night....don't have a microscope but may have to invest in that ughh.

 

[taricha]

hmmm... yeah. The idea is at that level of Si diatoms are as good or better than dinos at reproducing - and although both will grow, the mix should become more weighted toward diatoms and less dinos over time. Hard to confirm that visually without microscope. Plus 'scopes are super fun with a reef system.

 

[merereef]

So at this level I should not dose Silica the right? If that's the case do I have diatoms rather than dinosaurs? I still have some that stay on sand all the time and some that dissapear at night....don't have a microscope but may have to invest in that ughh.

Get a cheap microscope and check for sure..

 

[merereef]

Get a cheap microscope and check for sure..

So at this level I should not dose Silica the right? If that's the case do I have diatoms rather than dinosaurs? I still have some that stay on sand all the time and some that dissapear at night....don't have a microscope but may have to invest in that ughh.

i didnt bother testing my silicates at all... i just knew i had dinos and dosed the tank with silicates... over dosed at times to be honest nothing happened... dinos now gone..

 

[Potatohead]

So at this level I should not dose Silica the right? If that's the case do I have diatoms rather than dinosaurs? I still have some that stay on sand all the time and some that dissapear at night....don't have a microscope but may have to invest in that ughh.

I wish I could have dinosaurs in my reef

 

[Charles4400]

Ya those darn dinosaurs are troublemakers!

 

[taricha]

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.

 

[Brian barranco]

I have been dosing for 5 days and I still don’t see diatoms. Parameters are nitrates 25ppm and phosphate .1 I used spongexcel. Tank size 23-25 gallons . I been dosing an average 25 drops. What’s going on? Should I dose more ?what do you guys recommend?

 

[merereef]

I have been dosing for 5 days and I still don’t see diatoms. Parameters are nitrates 25ppm and phosphate .1 I used spongexcel. Tank size 23-25 gallons . I been dosing an average 25 drops. What’s going on? Should I dose more ?what do you guys recommend?

Keep dosing... you may NOT see diatoms.. i didnt see any and still dont... but the dinos are long gone!

 

[Charles4400]

Well started dosing tonight, dinos have spread now into the sump on my fuge glass so will go ahead and give this a shot. Dosed at 1 drop per 10 gallons tonight. Will keep increasing to 1 drop per gallon from here on out.

Hope I get the same results as you all!

 

[merereef]

Well started dosing tonight, dinos have spread now into the sump on my fuge glass so will go ahead and give this a shot. Dosed at 1 drop per 10 gallons tonight. Will keep increasing to 1 drop per gallon from here on out.

Hope I get the same results as you all!

You will beat it.. this is the ONLY thing that worked for me.. it will work for you.. keep going dont make any other changes.. i did add a bit of phytoplankton too but thats it

 

[leepink23]

Silica dosing is probably the best thing I ever did to get rid of amphidinium dinos. I battled them for two years.

Started dosing phosphate
Started dosing heavy MB7 and running UV, turned off skimmer and UV for four hours after dosing, didn't do much after about three weeks
Got SpongExcel, slowly brought up dose over the course of 7 days to one drop per gallon. Maintained that for about four or five weeks. Slowly the reddish dinos started turning goldy brown. Once I saw no more red I maintained dose for another week and since I have been reducing the dose about 20% per week. I am now about 40% of maximum dose and my sandbed is beautiful. I will probably just continue dosing until this last bottle is gone.

This is my exact experience with amphidinium, sponge excel has worked amazingly!

 

[Charles4400]

You will beat it.. this is the ONLY thing that worked for me.. it will work for you.. keep going dont make any other changes.. i did add a bit of phytoplankton too but thats it

Thanks! I'll keep my progress updated here as well. Appreciate all the advice from you and everyone else!!!

 

[ReefLab]

So is the consensus to use the Hanna LR silica checker to test the level of silicates? Searching the forums doesn't give positive reviews of the Seachem/salifert silica test kits & the Hach kit is pretty pricey

Im on day 3 of the H2O2/bacteria dose method and its not showing progress yet, thinking about doing this if it doesn't work out.

 

[35ppt]

So is the consensus to use the Hanna LR silica checker to test the level of silicates?
Im on day 3 of the H2O2/bacteria dose method and its not showing progress yet, thinking about doing this if it doesn't work out.

I use the salifert test kit, works fine.

 

[Charles4400]

So is the consensus to use the Hanna LR silica checker to test the level of silicates? Searching the forums doesn't give positive reviews of the Seachem/salifert silica test kits & the Hach kit is pretty pricey

Im on day 3 of the H2O2/bacteria dose method and its not showing progress yet, thinking about doing this if it doesn't work out.

I think the consensus is that you don't need to actually check the levels bc it's not relevant since you want to increase silica until diatoms outcompete the dinos and apparently that's not based on an actual value.

The hanna is nice, though I have nothing to compare it with. Pretty easy to use but longer wait times on it. I suppose good to know but seems it's not necessary.

 

[taricha]

I have been dosing for 5 days and I still don’t see diatoms. Parameters are nitrates 25ppm and phosphate .1 I used spongexcel. Tank size 23-25 gallons . I been dosing an average 25 drops. What’s going on? Should I dose more ?what do you guys recommend?

Here's my explanation from earlier in the thread for why a dino outbreak tank with N, P, and Si still may not see diatom bloom

Realize that dinos are exponential reproducers. So when their population plateaus, that means they are encountering a nutrient limitation (most likely). This occurs even in systems with plenty of N and P.
So now you are introducing Si which will allow diatoms to start trying to exponentially grow too. They will (probably) encounter the same limitations that plateaued the dino growth.
For this reason, people who dose Si after dino outbreak usually don't get a diatom "bloom."
Is it working? Probably. You are already reporting changes in the growth pattern of your dinos. And that's the goal. Where before, newly available resources got grabbed up by dinos, now an increasing number of those new cells will be diatoms instead. But it shows up at the microscope level before the naked eye level.

Because of that, I would try to check Si, to see if it's getting rapidly depleted or accumulating. Could do either. You may not see obvious diatom growth as a guide.

I think @35ppt is the only one I've seen say that salifert Si kit works well. It never worked for me or many others. The hanna kit has been great.

 

[35ppt]

Here's my explanation from earlier in the thread for why a dino outbreak tank with N, P, and Si still may not see diatom bloom


Because of that, I would try to check Si, to see if it's getting rapidly depleted or accumulating. Could do either. You may not see obvious diatom growth as a guide.

I think @35ppt is the only one I've seen say that salifert Si kit works well. It never worked for me or many others. The hanna kit has been great.

Weird, ya it seemed to work fine for me. I admit it's not like I've gone through tons of them. Maybe I just got lucky. Maybe it comes down to lighting differences. When I test I use a table lamp with a daylight CFL bulb directly over the sample.

 

[Potatohead]

I never tested silica. Overdose doesn't seemingly hurt anything so I just gave her. One drop per gallon (maybe slightly more at peak) and my dinos slowly faded away over weeks 2.5 - 4 or so.

 

[Brian barranco]

Lol I don’t have dinos . Never had. Well recently. I started to dose silicates to keep alive my starfish and other live stock. Tank is way to clean. I prefer feeding diatoms rather than hair algae or bubble algae.

Here's my explanation from earlier in the thread for why a dino outbreak tank with N, P, and Si still may not see diatom bloom


Because of that, I would try to check Si, to see if it's getting rapidly depleted or accumulating. Could do either. You may not see obvious diatom growth as a guide.

I think @35ppt is the only one I've seen say that salifert Si kit works well. It never worked for me or many others. The hanna kit has been great.