Any biology students here? YVR

[gregzz4]

Originally Posted by Animal-Chin

How are you not conducting your on experiments? lol

Good point! I've had so much going on I hadn't even thought of it

[gregzz4]

Arms in new water - no problems.
Arms in tank water - no problems.
Disturbing sand in tank gets the itching started.

I'm going to perform the dino 'strain in a cup' method and see what critter I'm dealing with. Maybe what I think of as diatoms is actually dinos.
Would explain some snail losses, and the weird smell in my sock and skimmer

[Animal-Chin]

If it is Dino’s we can fight them together! My new tanks has them now, I forgot how annoying new tanks are!!! Lol

[gregzz4]

I'm going to start with identifiying what's going on diatoms/dinos.
I'm also going to siphon off the top layer of my sandbed and 'gravel clean' the rest.
Then I will add back a top layer of new sand that has been THOROUGHLY rinsed to remove any particlulates.
This will ensure I can keep my sand clean in the future.

I think what's going on is I didn't wash my new sand well enough so the fine particulates are trapping detritus.
Also, I think the diatoms are causing my sand to calcify.

If it is Dinos, and cleaning my sand doesn't solve it, I'm going to consider the Metro method being discussed on R2R. Dinoflagellates - dinos a possible cure!? Follow along and see!
It's over 230 pages so be prepared for a night of reading.

[gregzz4]

Originally Posted by gregzz4

If it is Dinos, and cleaning my sand doesn't solve it, I'm going to consider the Metro method being discussed on R2R. Dinoflagellates - dinos a possible cure!? Follow along and see!
It's over 230 pages so be prepared for a night of reading.

Don't waste your time with that thread. It was a total bust.
This is a place to start


If you do have Dinos, up your nutrients for up to a couple months. This will allow microfauna and good algaes to out-compete it.