Help! How to deal with dinoflagellates.

[lelandmarine]

Jda, Since all organisms need some level of nitrate in order to survive tell me what you mean by poisoning them with Nitrate?

I should’ve said nitrogen to survive

 

[Willbiker]

Jda, Since all organisms need some level of nitrate in order to survive tell me what you mean by poisoning them with Nitrate?

I dont think it poisons the dino, it provides a food source for all other organisms which causes them to thrive and outcompete the dino for space.

 

[jda]

Every living organism needs building blocks to create new organic tissue. They also will slow down and then stop cellular activity at a high enough level. The level at which each organism or cell will be affected is different and can vary widely from thing to thing. You can google toxicity levels of high nitrate for different things... plants, fish, etc.

This is a bad false equivalency, but your body needs some sugar for brain function and other things, but slightly too much will slowly destroy your body and way too much can cause damage much quicker and at some level, you will die. ... some alcohol and you can have a good time... too much and you can die. Macro algae needs some N and P to grow. Too much and it will stop. Even more and it will die too.

The dinos are poisoned and/or slowed by the higher levels of N - toxic at pretty low levels compared to other things in our tanks. There is a long thread on here that says with the post in #22 has said, but they are not correct. The premise and assumptions are wrong, but the result works if you raise the N. N nor P are not a food source or fuel. They are building blocks for organic tissue. The dinos and/or other microfauna need only a trace to survive and most of what it in the tank is not testable and they had enough before people dosed the nitrate -the microfauna that the thread supposed will grow faster with more nitrate are most likely growing fast enough already. The nitrate dosing is toxic to the dinos and they die back.

 

[Jorge Navarro]

Have you tried to add benthic copepods ? it works!

 

[lelandmarine]

i haven’t, i’ll look into that. Is there a source for benthic copepods?

 

[boomeraudio]

I had a Dino issue that I believe was caused by my nutrient levels being at zero. Here was my strategy.

• Turned off white lights, decreased intensity of blue / UV lights
• Dosed NeoNitro / NeoPhos to get my nutrient levels up
• Dosed 1ml per 10g of hydrogen peroxide at night
• Dosed 1ml per 10g of MIcroBacter 7 each morning.

This regimen cleared up my issue in about 2 weeks.

What size tank were you dosing this on? What type of dino's were you dealing with?

I have amphidinium that strictly live in the sand and don't release into the water column but back into the sand. This also means a UV sterilizer won't do the trick.

Going to turn off the whites on the AI Prime and just run a blue. I have dosed everything from NeoNItro/NeoPhos to Mirobacter7 to Phyto. I'm also going to try the silica dosing method with MicroBacter7 to try and induce a diatom bloom. This will hopefully outcompete the dinos. I've also removed my skimmer cup so that the dosing of NeoNitro/NeoPhos will actually work to level out at Nitrate 5-10ppm & Phosphate .05-.1ppm.

Would love to hear what kind of dino's you beat!