k log(omega)
Active Member
Hi everyone,
So as the title says, I’ve been fighting amphidinium dinos for not exactly sure how long since I had a good amount of snails die before I really got to the root of the problem, but it’s been about 2 weeks of dosing nitrate, phosphate, and silicate along with bacteria, photo, and some pods trying to get rid of them. I started seeing a slight decline of dinos in my sand bed a few days ago and now I have finally reached a phase of a huge diatom bloom in the sand bed. My glass is also covered with diatoms, green algae, and cyanobacteria (worth mentioning i’ve had a pretty horrific cyanobacteria infestation going on for a while which probably helped the dinos by keeping nutrients low and killing my beneficial bacteria as I try to fight them, but that’s a whole other conversation). When I take microscope samples, I still see quite a bit of dinos, albeit they are less in most areas and seemingly less active in motion than previously. I’ve seen quite a bit on people getting rid of their dinos this way, but most of it just leads up to the diatom bloom, so I’d like to know how to handle things now. I’m thinking “wait it out” is going to be a common theme, but in the meantime should I keep nutrients high? or let them lower some so that the dinos become limited as the diatoms grow? What signs should I look for other than microscope samples? Should I try a water change to clean things up like remove any waste and toxins released by dinos? I’m concerned a water change will add trace elements that will refuel them, and I’d like the diatoms to do their job of taking over instead of refueling the dinos. Thoughts?
So as the title says, I’ve been fighting amphidinium dinos for not exactly sure how long since I had a good amount of snails die before I really got to the root of the problem, but it’s been about 2 weeks of dosing nitrate, phosphate, and silicate along with bacteria, photo, and some pods trying to get rid of them. I started seeing a slight decline of dinos in my sand bed a few days ago and now I have finally reached a phase of a huge diatom bloom in the sand bed. My glass is also covered with diatoms, green algae, and cyanobacteria (worth mentioning i’ve had a pretty horrific cyanobacteria infestation going on for a while which probably helped the dinos by keeping nutrients low and killing my beneficial bacteria as I try to fight them, but that’s a whole other conversation). When I take microscope samples, I still see quite a bit of dinos, albeit they are less in most areas and seemingly less active in motion than previously. I’ve seen quite a bit on people getting rid of their dinos this way, but most of it just leads up to the diatom bloom, so I’d like to know how to handle things now. I’m thinking “wait it out” is going to be a common theme, but in the meantime should I keep nutrients high? or let them lower some so that the dinos become limited as the diatoms grow? What signs should I look for other than microscope samples? Should I try a water change to clean things up like remove any waste and toxins released by dinos? I’m concerned a water change will add trace elements that will refuel them, and I’d like the diatoms to do their job of taking over instead of refueling the dinos. Thoughts?
And I agree on correcting the parameters. I think I know what caused the dinos, I made some big changes to my tank that I should have known would throw things off and ended up with parameter swings, algae blooms, etc. Add that with a long vacation and thinking I could quickly solve the issue with some chemicals and depleting nutrients and bam haha
