I had some dinos pop up a few months ago, and I was able to get rid of it pretty quickly. I might as well document what I did and how I did it, so it might help other people going through dinos.
Here is where I asked about silicate dosing back in May.
https://www.socalireefs.com/index.php?threads/anyone-silicate-dosing.116352/
This type of dino was not the one that would go into the water column because I had a large UV plumbed into my system.
Got it under the microscope, and I think they said it was LCA.
My system was never low on nutrient, so it was probably above 20ppm nitrate and 0.2ppm phosphates.
The dino would show up on the sandbed when the light came on, and because dark brown on the sand after the lights were on for a few hours. And it would disappear at night, probably back into the sand. I wasn't going to just let the dinos take over my tank as I've read horror stories of people fighting dinos are over a year. So I took quick action.
My strategy was to grow diatoms on the glass, and kill off the dinos at their peak in the sand.
So to accomplish this and since type of dino didn't really go into the water column at night, I had to use a UV sweeper on the sandbed...to kill off the dino when they are at their peak, around 2-3 hours after my lights had hit peak intensity. To use the UV sweeper, it's fairly simple...just let the UV sweeper sit on a patch on sand for 3-5 seconds, and move it to the next patch of sand. So the whole sweeping didn't take more than 5 minutes total. I didn't try to cover every square inch the UV sweeper will only temporarily hold the dino back anyways.
At the same time, I turned off the skimmer for a couple days and added water glass which is concentrated silicate. It was like $10 for a bottle, and I added only 1-2ml daily per 250 gal tank. This was equal to about 0.5-1ppm daily. I think I added for about 1-2 weeks. I did a check and my silicate was around 6 ppm, which is really high. No issues, and when I hit that silicate level 6ppm, I stopped dosing silicates because the system had more than enough silicates to grow diatoms. After I sweep, I add 1-2 drops of the bacteria...which probably didn't do anything to be honest...but I had it on hand and just added it anyways.
I didn't do anything with my light schedule (no blackout or spectrum change) because I wanted my corals to grow just the same. I let my glass get dirty and didn't clean it at all. No water change. My nutrients were still high as before (you may want to raise it if you are bottoming out) And within 1-2 week, I had diatoms growing on my glass. I continue to sweep the sand and let diatoms grow on glass.
After diatoms grow on the glass for about 1 week, I stopped sweeping the sand. I think that is the trick, to kill enough dino on the sand and let diatoms grow on the glass...so after a while, the diatoms can outcompete the dino in the sand. In about 1 week after that, the dinos were gone. There is just a light dusting of diatoms, and I just clean the glass and that's it. The critters/pods/snails are happy because they like to eat diatoms.
This is how I beat dinos fair quickly within 4 weeks.
TLDR: UV Sweep dino on sandbed, dose silicate (water glass to 5+ ppm) and let diatom grow on glass.
Here is where I asked about silicate dosing back in May.
https://www.socalireefs.com/index.php?threads/anyone-silicate-dosing.116352/
This type of dino was not the one that would go into the water column because I had a large UV plumbed into my system.
Got it under the microscope, and I think they said it was LCA.
My system was never low on nutrient, so it was probably above 20ppm nitrate and 0.2ppm phosphates.
The dino would show up on the sandbed when the light came on, and because dark brown on the sand after the lights were on for a few hours. And it would disappear at night, probably back into the sand. I wasn't going to just let the dinos take over my tank as I've read horror stories of people fighting dinos are over a year. So I took quick action.
My strategy was to grow diatoms on the glass, and kill off the dinos at their peak in the sand.
So to accomplish this and since type of dino didn't really go into the water column at night, I had to use a UV sweeper on the sandbed...to kill off the dino when they are at their peak, around 2-3 hours after my lights had hit peak intensity. To use the UV sweeper, it's fairly simple...just let the UV sweeper sit on a patch on sand for 3-5 seconds, and move it to the next patch of sand. So the whole sweeping didn't take more than 5 minutes total. I didn't try to cover every square inch the UV sweeper will only temporarily hold the dino back anyways.
At the same time, I turned off the skimmer for a couple days and added water glass which is concentrated silicate. It was like $10 for a bottle, and I added only 1-2ml daily per 250 gal tank. This was equal to about 0.5-1ppm daily. I think I added for about 1-2 weeks. I did a check and my silicate was around 6 ppm, which is really high. No issues, and when I hit that silicate level 6ppm, I stopped dosing silicates because the system had more than enough silicates to grow diatoms. After I sweep, I add 1-2 drops of the bacteria...which probably didn't do anything to be honest...but I had it on hand and just added it anyways.
I didn't do anything with my light schedule (no blackout or spectrum change) because I wanted my corals to grow just the same. I let my glass get dirty and didn't clean it at all. No water change. My nutrients were still high as before (you may want to raise it if you are bottoming out) And within 1-2 week, I had diatoms growing on my glass. I continue to sweep the sand and let diatoms grow on glass.
After diatoms grow on the glass for about 1 week, I stopped sweeping the sand. I think that is the trick, to kill enough dino on the sand and let diatoms grow on the glass...so after a while, the diatoms can outcompete the dino in the sand. In about 1 week after that, the dinos were gone. There is just a light dusting of diatoms, and I just clean the glass and that's it. The critters/pods/snails are happy because they like to eat diatoms.
This is how I beat dinos fair quickly within 4 weeks.
TLDR: UV Sweep dino on sandbed, dose silicate (water glass to 5+ ppm) and let diatom grow on glass.
