[Quiet_Ivy]

@jonasroman My experience with sandbeds mirrors yours. My dinos aren't on the sand much at all, they prefer the glass and rocks. Siphoning my sandbed actually made them worse. This may be species dependent, we just don't know.

@natas I've been fooling with a summary/flow chart sort of thing for identifying dinos. I tried to make a graph of all the methods of kill mentioned in this thread, but it's not going to be possible. Single methods tend not to work, and I am becoming certain that different genera have different vulnerabilities. Also I can't figure out how to make a chart comparing various groups and multiple methods.


tldr version: first things I'd try (all of these at the same time): stop water changes, pull chemical filtration except carbon, siphon what you can, run skimmer very wet, add a lot of carbon and do a 3 day lights out. Add filter socks or as much mechanical filtration as you can. I use cheesecloth in my aio. You'll need to change the socks at least daily, more during lights out.

It's very important to skim and run carbon during lights out. Longer lights out knock dinos back, but rarely kill them off completely. Lower photoperiod doesn't seem to have any effect either.

2nd step is probably: You want measurable nitrates, ~1 or 2, and phosphate around 0.03. (Less nitrate in an SPS tank) Add a lot of biodiversity, dose phyto, feed as many kinds of foods w different particle sizes as you can afford, stop skimming, pull all chemical media except carbon. If you have a reactor, try raising pH to 8.4 (If you don't it's nearly impossible unless you're home to add kalk on the hour)

3rd step: technology and chemistry

hth
ivy

biodiversity: pods from different sources (try to get benthic pods or a mix of copepods, amphipods, isopods etc), macroalgae, rocks, sand from fellow reefers, skimmate from someone with a good tank (yes, really), detrivore or maintenance kits from IPSF, reefcleaners, tbs