So what types of foods do we believe corals consume in our tanks? I think we can agree that it small particles of dissolved organic matter mostly in the form of fish waste. In fact the coral’s Zooxanthellae are Dinoflagellates with the ability to live inside corals.
So what happens when we have an overabundance of coral foods like amino acids in our tanks? We can get outbreaks of Dinoflagellates.
So here is my hypothesis that I hope other reefers will test themselves. Since we have gotten so efficient at removing NO3 and PO4 from our tanks and we don’t have any easy way to test for organic nutrients we feed our tanks as if they perfectly reduce fish waste into NO3 and PO4. What we can’t see is that in our zeal to feed our tanks to try to keep up with our awesome inorganic nutrient export we are overloading the nitrogen cycle in leaving lots of organic nutrients in the water column. Dinoflagellates love this organic pollution and bloom because we have overloaded our systems.
So the key to beating Dinoflagellates is reducing our feedings but also reducing the efficiency of our NO3 and PO4 exports. Or we need to find a way of making the nitrogen cycle itself more efficient.
So what happens when we have an overabundance of coral foods like amino acids in our tanks? We can get outbreaks of Dinoflagellates.
So here is my hypothesis that I hope other reefers will test themselves. Since we have gotten so efficient at removing NO3 and PO4 from our tanks and we don’t have any easy way to test for organic nutrients we feed our tanks as if they perfectly reduce fish waste into NO3 and PO4. What we can’t see is that in our zeal to feed our tanks to try to keep up with our awesome inorganic nutrient export we are overloading the nitrogen cycle in leaving lots of organic nutrients in the water column. Dinoflagellates love this organic pollution and bloom because we have overloaded our systems.
So the key to beating Dinoflagellates is reducing our feedings but also reducing the efficiency of our NO3 and PO4 exports. Or we need to find a way of making the nitrogen cycle itself more efficient.