Battling Dinos!!! (Almost quit, getting second wind!)

I had the same problem. Someone turned me on to a product called Special Blend. It is pure bacteria that eats up the extra nutrients in the water. It helped me with me problem. I am a firm believer in this product. The only bad thing about this product is it smells really bad. Don't do it if your going to have company over that day.


What is the proper dosing method, just follow the directions?
 
I'd say it's going poorly! I tried the special blend. I overdosed per the instructions on the box (instructs to overdose for saltwater). I also ran carbon for 3 weeks during that time. Special blend didn't seem to help. I tried a 3 day lights out with trash bags taped to the tank. That seemed to help quite a bit, but I believe I had some light getting in through the back corner a bit. My corals started to get affected a tiny bit, but not much. You either kill this stuff completely or it comes back fast, so I'd say I'm not winning.

This week I started running GFO instead of carbon and I've been keeping the Ph up using Kalkwasser, but I'm traveling next week and will just have to let the tank go on auto pilot other than feedings. I think once I get back from my trip I'm going to keep the Ph up consistently for a week or two and try a 5 day black out if I get that desperate. If that doesn't work, I'm going to hire a LFS, maybe SS to see if they can help solve the problem. Hope your fight goes better than mine. I feel like I could use a dino support group.
 
i had this very same problem with my tank not long ago and did everything you have and what worked for me was removing my sandbed and aid bath for the rock lol... true story have it for six months got sick of it.
 
I'm battling Dinos as we speak. I read the reefkeeping magazine artice about raising ph to at least 8.4
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/rhf/index.php
I cut my lights back to 8hr per day, and got some mrs wages pickling lime from the local grocery. Mixed up a few teaspoons and started dosing it until my ph got to 8.4

Next day dinos was on it's way out. It is hard to maintain a ph of 8.4-8.6 but that really beats the dinos down.

I have had my elevated ph for about 5 days now and the dinos is all but gone.
I just wonder how long I need to keep it this way to really get rid of dinos for good.

I never did lights outs for days on end.
 
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I add the pickling lime. I mix 1 teaspoon to 1 cup of RO water and add it slowly over a 5 min period to a high flow area. It will raise my ph from 8.39 to 8.42 on a 500G system. I just did the measurements last night :)
I usually use 3 teaspoons to raise it about .10 and it stays high all night long.
 
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