Silicate Dosing for Reef Tanks

[lesismore]

Stay tuned. The reason I made this thread and chart is because I have a new dinoflagellates treatment article pending submission. It should be released very soon, and I’ll update this thread with the link.

But to answer your question, once the dinos are gone, you can slowly back off the silicate dosing after 2-3 weeks, I’d say. You don’t need to dose silica indefinitely in most cases once you’ve established a new balance. (I like dosing silicate even though I don’t have dinos).

Just don’t allow nutrients to bottom out.

Congratulations on your article and thank you again for your help. Can’t wait to read it when it’s out.

 

[dvgyfresh]

Tagging myself for the Dino’s post , love reading your posts!

 

[Miami Reef]

Congratulations on your article and thank you again for your help. Can’t wait to read it when it’s out.

Tagging myself for the Dino’s post , love reading your posts!

Beating Dinoflagellates: A Complete Guide

I'd like to give my perspective on how I approach dinoflagellates in reef tanks. They can be challenging to treat and release a lot of toxins. I personally dealt with dinos several times in the past, so I've gained a lot of hands-on experience...

www.reef2reef.com

Let me know your thoughts in the article.

 

[EnterName]

First of all: Great post!

I know there are plenty of reports about successful silicate dosing to get rid of dinoflagellates and I encourage everyone who struggles with dinos to try this approach if they haven't already. However, I still want to add that the very opposite approach can work as well:

In my tank the sand will start to slightly turn brown once the ion exchange resin of my RO/DI system is depleted and the top off water adds too much silicate. Looking under my microscope I'm able to confirm every single time that the resulting diatoms are accompanied by dinoflagellates (probably a less common Prorocentrum species, but I'm not sure). Once the silicate is gone, so are the diatoms and dinos. These slight discolorations are causing no harm and can actually be used to control nutrient levels quite effectively, but as you can see: less silicate means less dinoflagellates (in my case). This makes sense considering diatoms are a known food source for dinoflagellates. Especially in ultra low nutrient environments it seems obvious that dinoflagellates need to get their nutrients from somewhere.


It's also important to keep the side effects of silicate dosing in mind:

- Many people with dinoflagellate issues report low nutrient levels. If you start boosting diatom growth nutrients might go even lower.

- If you overdose silicate you can end up with brown slime just as bad as dinoflagellates. If it doesn't sort itself out silicate adsorbers will help. Note that they are pretty much the same as phosphate adsorbers so Phos 0.04 will get rid of silicate while ensuring you don't run into phosphate limitations.

- Dinoflagellates are hard to get rid off when they don't leave the substrate and go into free water where a UV sterilizer could pick them up. Under which condition dinos leave the substrate depends on species and environmental factors so every dino species needs a different treatment to get it into the UV sterilizer. If you provide them with additional food (diatoms) on the substrate, they might no longer need to leave the substrate at all, making it harder to get rid of them.

There probably isn't "one solution for every tank". So I encourage everyone to experiment with high silicate, low silicate, adding nutrients, reducing nutrients, adding copepods, etc. Sooner or later you will find out what the microbiology needed to stabilize without dinos.

 

[areefer01]

Silicate feeds diatoms and sponges in reef tanks. Diatoms in particular are good at outcompeting dinos, feeding copepods, and might even feed corals and filter feeders when scraping the glass. Diatoms are also less visible than the standard green film algae they replace.

There is no need to test for silicate because it depletes quickly and the dose I’m suggesting will not accumulate over time. In addition, the dose has absolutely no interference with phosphate test kits. It will not cause false positives.

Here are Amazon links to purchase sodium silicate:

https://a.co/d/9wJqPLJ

https://a.co/d/5KGT7It

Sodium silicate is very thick. It’s not as simple as saying 1 gram of silicate = 1 mL of silicate. I accounted for this by using its density, so pick whatever’s most convenient.

Maybe this was answered but why the capacity scale repeating? 60, 80, 100, 70, 80, 90, 100?

 

[Miami Reef]

Maybe this was answered but why the capacity scale repeating? 60, 80, 100, 70, 80, 90, 100?

Oh wow! I don’t know how that happened! Thanks for catching that. The math was accurate, but it is not supposed to be like that. Thank you for catching it.

I’m going to adjust that right away!

 

[areefer01]

Oh wow! I don’t know how that happened! Thanks for catching that. The math was accurate, but it is not supposed to be like that. Thank you for catching it.

I’m going to adjust that right away!

Didn't mean to give you work was just wondering. And yes, math was right as I checked that before I replied in case I missed the intent.

Hope your day is well.

 

[Miami Reef]

Didn't mean to give you work was just wondering. And yes, math was right as I checked that before I replied in case I missed the intent.

Hope your day is well.

You’re good. I actually really appreciate you catching it, and it’s no work because I have all my files saved and easily editable. Thank you again. I hope you’re day is well, too.

 

[Miami Reef]

Done.

 

[dvgyfresh]

Beating Dinoflagellates: A Complete Guide

I'd like to give my perspective on how I approach dinoflagellates in reef tanks. They can be challenging to treat and release a lot of toxins. I personally dealt with dinos several times in the past, so I've gained a lot of hands-on experience...

www.reef2reef.com

Let me know your thoughts in the article.

Great read! It’s especially relevant to me as I’m fighting a small Dino’s outbreak , I’m following most of it!

 

[MeganV]

Stay tuned. The reason I made this thread and chart is because I have a new dinoflagellates treatment article pending submission. It should be released very soon, and I’ll update this thread with the link.

But to answer your question, once the dinos are gone, you can slowly back off the silicate dosing after 2-3 weeks, I’d say. You don’t need to dose silica indefinitely in most cases once you’ve established a new balance. (I like dosing silicate even though I don’t have dinos).

Just don’t allow nutrients to bottom out.

I look forward to reading the article; keep us updated.

 

[Miami Reef]

I look forward to reading the article; keep us updated.

It’s here:

Beating Dinoflagellates: A Complete Guide

I'd like to give my perspective on how I approach dinoflagellates in reef tanks. They can be challenging to treat and release a lot of toxins. I personally dealt with dinos several times in the past, so I've gained a lot of hands-on experience...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[lesismore]

Beating Dinoflagellates: A Complete Guide

I'd like to give my perspective on how I approach dinoflagellates in reef tanks. They can be challenging to treat and release a lot of toxins. I personally dealt with dinos several times in the past, so I've gained a lot of hands-on experience...

www.reef2reef.com

Let me know your thoughts in the article.

I enjoyed reading your very helpful article. It’s pertinent to me as I’m overcoming a dino battle myself. I started with a 3 day blackout, and began adding dr Tim’s refresh at a lower dose than suggested on day 3 of the blackout. I did the same today which is the first day with the lights back on. Tomorrow I’ll dose again. My plan is to use a modest amount of waste away for a few days as well, and see how things are moving along. I’m going to dose some beneficial bacteria in the sand and I’m armed with some live diatoms and silicates to really boost my chances.

I vacuumed the sand bed really well prior to the blackout. So far, things are clean in the sand bed and glass, but I know it’s early days here.

I’m not sure how often I will continue to dose silicates if things are looking well resolved. I guess a periodic dose here and there is not a bad thing.

Congrats on contributing a great article.

 

[krayzie]

when i was dosing silicates with an outbreak, my hanna Phosphate ULR Checker would not read correctly.

i had to use a salifert test kit to get a more accurate reading until i assume all the silicates were taken up?

 

[Miami Reef]

when i was dosing silicates with an outbreak, my hanna Phosphate ULR Checker would not read correctly.

i had to use a salifert test kit to get a more accurate reading until i assume all the silicates were taken up?

We tested it. The Hanna checker will not have any interference as long as the silicate isn’t >2 ppm. If silicate is 2-3 ppm, it will give a false positive of 0.02 ppm phosphate.

What brand of silicate are you using?

 

[krayzie]

when i was dosing silicates with an outbreak, my hanna Phosphate ULR Checker would not read correctly.

i had to use a salifert test kit to get a more accurate reading until i assume all the silicates were taken up?

We tested it. The Hanna checker will not have any interference as long as the silicate isn’t >2 ppm. If silicate is 2-3 ppm, it will give a false positive of 0.02 ppm phosphate.

What brand of silicate are you using?

Walker ceramics silicates with about 43-45%

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

was it reading higher or lower than you expected?

 

[krayzie]

was it reading higher or lower than you expected?

it was flashing "0.90" which i think it means over its readable range thats where i took a water sample to the LFS and it was around 0.1ppm

 

[That Crusso Kid]

Well thought out and written article, @Miami Reef. Nicely done!

 

[Miami Reef]

it was flashing "0.90" which i think it means over its readable range thats where i took a water sample to the LFS and it was around 0.1ppm

Do you recall how much was dosed?