Cure for Dino’s

[Turkeysammich]

just passing it along. It worked for me. I’ve had Dino’s in my frag tank but no where else. This was brought on by carbon dosing. I’ve beat Dino’s before the Brs way with uv and Microbactor 7. It was slow and expensive. Well a few months ago I found a website forum called Mack’s Dino something. Anyways they said to dose sodium silicate ( water glass). Formula is 1.3g =100 gallon of aquarium water. Target is 1ppm. Dose every day until gone. So I tried it. And in less than a week. Dinos are gone.
The sodium silicate makes diatoms. Diatoms out compete the Dino’s for nutrients. The Dino’s dies off.
Hopefully this helps someone else.

 

[derek_SR]

What were you carbon dosing and how much?

 

[Turkeysammich]

I started with the diy nopox which is 550ml vodka ,375ml vinegar and 125ml ro/di. Ramped up to 50 ml. For 350 gallons of my water volume over 2 months. I’m still super high on phosphate and nitrates. In the past month I’ve moved over to straight vodka. After reading some. They say vinegar has to be dosed 8x more. I didn’t know that. It has dropped my ph tho. Use to be 8 at night. And 8.3 day time. Now it’s 7.8 night and 8.1 day.

NEW Vodka and Vinegar Dosing Charts

The reasons I'm updating the Vinegar and Vodka dosing charts are two-fold: 1. The ramp was unnecessarily slow. There was no perceived benefit to such a tedious ramp, and it led to reefers quitting because they thought carbon dosing didn't work. 2. The ramp did not scale up correctly...

www.reef2reef.com

I still don’t have it under control yet. Work in progress

 

[Coral reefer]

I used like 30 ml per day of vinegar for my 360 gal and any more i would see nitrates going down too fast. Never seemed to help with phosphate for me.

 

[newfly]

@phc567 Interesting. I have ongoing minor dinos. Where can i but Sodium silicate? Not sure i have tools to measure ~0.8g for my tank size. is there a liquid version and dosing guide?

 

[Turkeysammich]

@phc567 Interesting. I have ongoing minor dinos. Where can i but Sodium silicate? Not sure i have tools to measure ~0.8g for my tank size. is there a liquid version and dosing guide?

You can buy it on Amazon. It’s like 16 dollars. I found another place for like 10 dollars shipped.

https://www.supplyhouse.com/Lynn-Manufacturing-5602-4-oz-Sodium-Silicate-Bottle-Water-Glass?utm_source=google_ad&utm_medium=Shopping_ntm&utm_campaign=Shopping_NTM_New_users&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIoPuH35ehgwMVYgytBh3KeAZyEAQYAiABEgIlifD_BwE

So the formula is kinda sketchy. Since it’s on a fb forum and people are just talking. That’s how I heard of it. Then I went to YouTube to find the formula ratio.

 

[Turkeysammich]

@phc567 Interesting. I have ongoing minor dinos. Where can i but Sodium silicate? Not sure i have tools to measure ~0.8g for my tank size. is there a liquid version and dosing guide?

If you’re in sf I can give you some. You only use very little

 

[CaseyP]

This method also worked for me when I had amphidinium dinos that were exclusively in the sand and didn't migrate into the water column at night where UV would get them. I used Brightwell Spongexcel which is essentially the same silicate dosing.

I took samples to monitor when diatoms overtook the dinos since they look kind of similar to the naked eye. Eventually when I was happy with the ratio of diatoms to dinos, I stopped dosing and they all went away.

Initial sample, 95% dinos

A week later, diatoms more prevalent, including different kinds I've never seen before

More cool looking diatoms

 

[Darkxerox]

I used like 30 ml per day of vinegar for my 360 gal and any more i would see nitrates going down too fast. Never seemed to help with phosphate for me.

I think for most people it's most effective for bringing down nitrates. Lou Ekus mentioned adding nitrates to push down phosphate further once N becomes limited. Lanthanum and GFO just seem easier for P imo.

I wonder if people running tap water ever run into dinos when starting tanks cause of the silicates?

 

[derek_SR]

This method also worked for me when I had amphidinium dinos that were exclusively in the sand and didn't migrate into the water column at night where UV would get them. I used Brightwell Spongexcel which is essentially the same silicate dosing.

I took samples to monitor when diatoms overtook the dinos since they look kind of similar to the naked eye. Eventually when I was happy with the ratio of diatoms to dinos, I stopped dosing and they all went away.

Initial sample, 95% dinos
View attachment 51460

A week later, diatoms more prevalent, including different kinds I've never seen before
View attachment 51461

More cool looking diatoms
View attachment 51462

How long did you dose the silicates before you saw this transition? A long battle with Amphidinium Dino’s is the reason I rebooted my system, I tried everything including silicates but maybe I didn’t stick with it long enough.

I think for most people it's most effective for bringing down nitrates. Lou Ekus mentioned adding nitrates to push down phosphate further once N becomes limited. Lanthanum and GFO just seem easier for P imo.

I wonder if people running tap water ever run into dinos when starting tanks cause of the silicates?

Lanthanum dosing has been a real revelation. Clean, easy to modulate, simple, basically no maintenance besides refilling a dosing jug. No equipment required since it can be done by hand if you don’t have a dose head available. Just gotta do a little maths!

I am surprised more people don’t use it, I can’t imagine ever fussing with GFO again.

 

[H2OPlayar]

Lanthanum dosing has been a real revelation. Clean, easy to modulate, simple, basically no maintenance besides refilling a dosing jug. No equipment required since it can be done by hand if you don’t have a dose head available. Just gotta do a little maths!

I am surprised more people don’t use it, I can’t imagine ever fussing with GFO again.

Can't agree enough there.

 

[under_water_ninja]

@richiev how did you get rid of those dude?

 

[under_water_ninja]

just passing it along. It worked for me. I’ve had Dino’s in my frag tank but no where else. This was brought on by carbon dosing. I’ve beat Dino’s before the Brs way with uv and Microbactor 7. It was slow and expensive. Well a few months ago I found a website forum called Mack’s Dino something. Anyways they said to dose sodium silicate ( water glass). Formula is 1.3g =100 gallon of aquarium water. Target is 1ppm. Dose every day until gone. So I tried it. And in less than a week. Dinos are gone.
The sodium silicate makes diatoms. Diatoms out compete the Dino’s for nutrients. The Dino’s dies off.
Hopefully this helps someone else.

BRS always loves to
Sell you something! Magic “in a fucking bottle”

I started with the diy nopox which is 550ml vodka ,375ml vinegar and 125ml ro/di. Ramped up to 50 ml. For 350 gallons of my water volume over 2 months. I’m still super high on phosphate and nitrates. In the past month I’ve moved over to straight vodka. After reading some. They say vinegar has to be dosed 8x more. I didn’t know that. It has dropped my ph tho. Use to be 8 at night. And 8.3 day time. Now it’s 7.8 night and 8.1 day.

NEW Vodka and Vinegar Dosing Charts

The reasons I'm updating the Vinegar and Vodka dosing charts are two-fold: 1. The ramp was unnecessarily slow. There was no perceived benefit to such a tedious ramp, and it led to reefers quitting because they thought carbon dosing didn't work. 2. The ramp did not scale up correctly...

www.reef2reef.com

I still don’t have it under control yet. Work in progress

dude why are you guys chasing these numbers!!! Your doing to much!

 

[under_water_ninja]

if

Can't agree enough there.

I forgot about how much the ocean gets dosed with lanthium!!!!! Proper water change schedule, the right amount of herbivores predators, and good husbandry prevents the addition of knawrly chemicals added to a closed ecosystem. There are certain people that really know what they are doing that use this method, it is not for newbies. Those people I speak of feed there tank heavily! Providing non stop food for finicky fish and coral throughout the day, which might require such additive's. Less is more, unless you know more, then do more. The basics is how reef tanks survive! Throw the tech out the window.

 

[H2OPlayar]

if

I forgot about how much the ocean gets dosed with lanthium!!!!! Proper water change schedule, the right amount of herbivores predators, and good husbandry prevents the addition of knawrly chemicals added to a closed ecosystem. There are certain people that really know what they are doing that use this method, it is not for newbies. Those people I speak of feed there tank heavily! Providing non stop food for finicky fish and coral throughout the day, which might require such additive's. Less is more, unless you know more, then do more. The basics is how reef tanks survive! Throw the tech out the window.

Definitely not for newbies! I would argue relatively easy though if you can do the basic math on how much to add per your system volume to reduce po4 by 1/2, and start slow. If you have the luxury of water changes, that is a great way. Once the systems get into the multiple hundreds of gallons though, water changing becomes less realistic and specialty solutions are required. Could you imagine the water bill doing 50-100 gallons every two weeks? Well, you can at your LFS, lol.

 

[Coral reefer]

Definitely not for newbies! I would argue relatively easy though if you can do the basic math on how much to add per your system volume to reduce po4 by 1/2, and start slow. If you have the luxury of water changes, that is a great way. Once the systems get into the multiple hundreds of gallons though, water changing becomes less realistic and specialty solutions are required. Could you imagine the water bill doing 50-100 gallons every two weeks? Well, you can at your LFS, lol.

Water is way too cheap. Especially compared to salt it’s not a big factor for me. I used to change 100 gal at a time easily once or twice a month. Not that big a deal. I think with salt and water and RODI filters it was like 30 something cents per gal. Maybe 40.
Salt has gotten more expensive, but still only like 50 cents a gal for cost

 

[derek_SR]

Water is way too cheap. Especially compared to salt it’s not a big factor for me. I used to change 100 gal at a time easily once or twice a month. Not that big a deal. I think with salt and water and RODI filters it was like 30 something cents per gal. Maybe 40.

For me it’s not the cost that’s prohibitive, it’s the hassle.

I have 55g drums in my garage so try to change about 50g at a time, any more than that is not feasible. So I change roughly 50g from my tank every 2 weeks which is 20-25%. I think this is a very reasonable amount from a husbandry perspective. And yet even with a filter roll and large skimmer my Po4 would climb indefinitely without some other means of export.

I think this holds true for many, if not most, reefers that have young to middle aged tanks and like to feed their fish a lot.

 

[Coral reefer]

The problem for me was that water changes did not really seem to lower the phosphates/keep them low (enough for me)
Gfo was probably as expensive as salt water was for me. I wanted to try the lanthanum but never got around to it. Wasn’t a huge issue because what I was doing was working (well enough for me) and wasn’t too much work (for me)

 

[Coral reefer]

For me it’s not the cost that’s prohibitive, it’s the hassle.

I have 55g drums in my garage so try to change about 50g at a time, any more than that is not feasible. So I change roughly 50g from my tank every 2 weeks which is 20-25%. I think this is a very reasonable amount from a husbandry perspective. And yet even with a filter roll and large, quality skimmer my Po4 would climb indefinitely without some other means of export.

I think this holds true for many, if not most, reefers that have young to middle aged tanks and like to feed their fish a lot.

Posted while I was posting my very similar post lol. Not sure age of tank has much to do with it though to be honest. Gotta feed. Food has phosphates. Unless you’re starting with a super low amount and doing a high level of constant water change I don’t see a way around having to deal with phosphates in some way. Which can and sometimes does include letting them get “super high”