Removing sand to get rid of amphidinium dinos

[REEFRIED!]

I used the Seachem sillica test, it's pretty good for just getting an idea, I started at about 2 ppm, and I have been dosing waterglass, now it's up to 6 ppm, which aligns with what I have been dosing. Still no diatoms, but I have been upping the dose, I hope to get them soon.

I think most people believe they will see a giant diatom bloom. Clearly visible to the eye and all over their glass. A “bloom” so to speak is difficult, especially the more established the system is. The best way to see if you are getting diatoms is with the microscope. In my case I believe (I forget now) that i was up to somewhere around dosing 40-50-ish MLs of silicates daily and in my last sample I looked at under the microscope it was 85-90% Dino’s, about 5% diatoms and about 5% other crap. Not the bloom I was hoping for. Also I believe at my last and highest dosage my acros were not happy. That could be from a myriad of reasons including the Dino’s. However when I stopped dosing silicates and still had Dino’s running rampant my sticks started looking better. I know that just have experienced no ill effects from dosing silicates and my issue could easily have been from 25 different things.

 

[k log(omega)]

Just back for another update... Ripped out all the sand and went bare bottom for 4 weeks. No sign of dinos.

This past weekend I washed the heck out of some new sand until it ran clean, then have slowly been adding it back to the tank over the past couple of days. Sand is sparkling white... no sign of anything coming back.

If your tank isn't huge, this is the way to go! Way less work (and expense) then all the other crap I tried!

hey! any updates? still dino free?

 

[Kellie in CA]

hey! any updates? still dino free?

Yes! New sand went through a bit of uglies, but no dinos!

 

[k log(omega)]

Yes! New sand went through a bit of uglies, but no dinos!

that’s awesome! i just got a resurgence of them so im finally pulling the trigger and taking all this sand out. wish me luck lol

 

[REEFRIED!]

I have been sand free for awhile now. Since beginning of January. My tank will now stay barebottom. I hate the look but I hate Dino’s worse!!! They have not come back for me.

12/4/23

8/25/24

 

[brandon429]

Dang, wow man.

 

[brandon429]

removing the sand alone didn't remove it all right? pls list the steps you manually enacted between those two pics above/looks great

 

[REEFRIED!]

removing the sand alone didn't remove it all right? pls list the steps you manually enacted between those two pics above/looks great

Oh man I’m getting PTSD just thinking g about it. I’ve listed it in detail in my build thread and in the LCA thread. I did everything!! First of all I had the worst outbreak I’ve ever seen. I’ve read 100 threads on Dino’s and mine was the worst I’ve ever seen.

I did everything. I raised temp, I dosed silica I siphoned and siphoned and siphoned. Into filter socks and just getting rid of the top layer. They would literally come back an hour after siphon. What I believed helped was that I stopped trying to fight them directly. I just focused on maintaining detectable nutrient levels, really dialing in my feeding and export. While also keeping alk and calcium stable, which I don’t think helped fight the Dino’s directly but definitely helped the tank mature properly. Then removing sand was the killer. After I removed all of it some would stay on my rocks. I would baste them off every two days for about a month. Most times I would put in a marineland filter for a few hours after. A month or so after sand removal they were basically gone. Still present but 95% gone. I put in a container of sand for my yellow coris wrasse and they would still be there most days. But it helped that he would push the sand around daily when going to sleep and waking up.

I always wanted sand and still do. So right after removing it I placed a container of new sand in my sump. I figured I could seed it with good biome/bacteria while in the dark in my sump. Every couple of days I would stir it with my fingers hoping to help it along. I left it in my sump for 2+ months. Then I added it to one corner of the tank with fingers crossed. It was pure white for two weeks then I started to see signs of Dino’s on it. This was 6-7 weeks into the tank looking great. I quickly removed it and haven’t looked back. That was probably around April of this year.


Then of course I started to get GHA. Which is another battle in and of itself!!!

Finally thoughts is that removing sand 100% helped me beat LCA. Although I am not sure they are ever gone. I would bet they are still technically present in my system. They are just lurking in the shadows lifting weights and sharpening their little Dino shanks waiting for an opportunity to take over again!! LCA love the sand. So in my case they will never get to put their little mutant feet in my sand, its bare bottom for me forever. Which isn’t terrible as I have an sps dominant system anyways.

 

[brandon429]

That contributes tremendously to this thread. This thread is valuable. I've linked it to others who are sending me messages about dinos challenges thank you for the follow up!

I will be linking this thread for a long time in the future


This is a real work thread because it's actual outbound jobs all testing the same common theme/ bed removal as dinos control

It isn't just the authors sole tank as the proof. Add the fact this is dinos/ roughest toughest invasion around, and I'm just shocked you beat it in a large tank. That's valuable info for reefing

 

[MnFish1]

Oh man I’m getting PTSD just thinking g about it. I’ve listed it in detail in my build thread and in the LCA thread. I did everything!! First of all I had the worst outbreak I’ve ever seen. I’ve read 100 threads on Dino’s and mine was the worst I’ve ever seen.

I did everything. I raised temp, I dosed silica I siphoned and siphoned and siphoned. Into filter socks and just getting rid of the top layer. They would literally come back an hour after siphon. What I believed helped was that I stopped trying to fight them directly. I just focused on maintaining detectable nutrient levels, really dialing in my feeding and export. While also keeping alk and calcium stable, which I don’t think helped fight the Dino’s directly but definitely helped the tank mature properly. Then removing sand was the killer. After I removed all of it some would stay on my rocks. I would baste them off every two days for about a month. Most times I would put in a marineland filter for a few hours after. A month or so after sand removal they were basically gone. Still present but 95% gone. I put in a container of sand for my yellow coris wrasse and they would still be there most days. But it helped that he would push the sand around daily when going to sleep and waking up.

I always wanted sand and still do. So right after removing it I placed a container of new sand in my sump. I figured I could seed it with good biome/bacteria while in the dark in my sump. Every couple of days I would stir it with my fingers hoping to help it along. I left it in my sump for 2+ months. Then I added it to one corner of the tank with fingers crossed. It was pure white for two weeks then I started to see signs of Dino’s on it. This was 6-7 weeks into the tank looking great. I quickly removed it and haven’t looked back. That was probably around April of this year.


Then of course I started to get GHA. Which is another battle in and of itself!!!

Finally thoughts is that removing sand 100% helped me beat LCA. Although I am not sure they are ever gone. I would bet they are still technically present in my system. They are just lurking in the shadows lifting weights and sharpening their little Dino shanks waiting for an opportunity to take over again!! LCA love the sand. So in my case they will never get to put their little mutant feet in my sand, its bare bottom for me forever. Which isn’t terrible as I have an sps dominant system anyways.

With the amount of things you did - it's impossible to say what did what. Your tank looks great btw. If you eat sand - just add a smalll amount - if it gets blown away - all good (i.e. into piles) - I might aim for 1/4 inch.

 

[MnFish1]

However in reality, the amount of sand did not IMHO - cause your tank to improve. Instead - when you looked at your tank and thought - wow it looks bad, you might have been more careful - And BTW. you have the potential for a beautiful tank (it already looks great)

 

[REEFRIED!]

With the amount of things you did - it's impossible to say what did what. Your tank looks great btw. If you eat sand - just add a smalll amount - if it gets blown away - all good (i.e. into piles) - I might aim for 1/4 inch.

Sort of. When I did try the different approaches to beat them I never did all of them at once. And I always waited. The one thing I never did was a blackout. I read a million people who did with mixed results. Plus I wasn’t really excited about stressing my corals any more than I had to. My sps looked fine throughout the whole battle with Dino’s, so did my LPS, but my zoas were stressed. I lost most of them.

But when I tried something I usually gave it enough time to figure out if it was working. The very first thing I did was raise nutrients. My PO4 definitely bottomed out at one point, but not for long. All of the other things I gave a decent amount of time to. I only raised temp for about 2 1/2 weeks. I dosed silica for almost two months. Eventually getting to an amount where I think it bothered my sps. I kept waiting for this lightbulb moment when I would see a diatom bloom. It never happened. At my highest silica dose I would see 90-95% Dino’s and 5% diatoms under the microscope.

When I committed to vacuuming the sand into a filter sock, then rinse in clean saltwater and add back, I did this every two days for weeks. It literally did nothing. They would come back just as fast after the first siphon as they did after the last one weeks later.

It only makes sense that if you happen to have LCA and they live in the sand, then removing the sand will definitely help!!!! Mine certainly lived on the rocks also, but I think they literally worked their way up the rocks after the covered every inch of sand. The sand in caves and under ledges were covered, although they definitely liked the well lit areas more. I have 20-50 pictures of my infestation. It went on for 6+ months. Two weeks after sand removal and the tank never looked so good.

For people who are questioning whether to remove sand or not, just do it. What will it hurt? You can even save the sand and rinse it out, put it back if it doesn’t work, and you are no worse off. Although I would never do that. I would get new sand. It took me 45 mins to vacuum out all my sand. The hardest part was emptying the filter sock full of sand every couple of minutes. Although my girlfriend did help and we got a nice system down with two socks. She would hold the hose in one while shaking the full one out into a bucket.

You can actually see in the bad pic above. The front left corner has no sand. On my last attempt at siphoning the top layer I just tried to remove a section and see what happened. The Dino’s covered the bottom glass!! I actually thought that removing it all wouldn’t help and was discouraged to do so. But I did it anyways. What did I have to lose! And it definitely helped. Once they had no foothold in my system they became weak and much easier to eradicate