LCA Dinoflagellates- Have you beaten them?

[mcarroll]

Sorry Po4 was 0.21

That's a good number, just a little higher than you typically see. Definitely not a problem.

How will the nutrients balance out if I’m not actively removing them? Only way to remove them is by feeding less, water changes, mechanical filtration etc etc

By "balance out" do you mean "lower"?

I would not purposefully lower them, and they do not seem out of balance.

What I mean by balancing things out is allowing the tank to settle into its own stability around your basic husbandry routines. (Not carbon dosing or anything like that.)

This is why I thought I would carbon dose to try and get them in a better shape, I wasn’t going to lower them down to near zero.

Lower just isn't better.

The only real problem to have with nutrients in a coral reef tank is to not have enough.

If you could feed corals more reliably (we can't) then dissolved nutrients would matter MUCH LESS.

The way things are they matter a lot....so allow the tank's natural nutrient levels to settle in.

Let "out of balance" mean seeing NO3 or PO4 at or near zero. (Both near zero *might* be fine....balanced. Depends on the state of the rest of the tank though.)

So going forward, will weekly water changes be okay or should I just leave it all alone and just dose my all for reef to keep Alk,Mg,Cal in check? I’m still dosing Phytoplankton and Copepods.

Many thanks

Like I said if you want to do water changes for different husbandry reasons (ie tank cleaning; trace element replenishment, salinity corrections, etc, etc) then go ahead with your normal routine.....just dose the new water with NO3 and PO4 (as mentioned previously) so the water change does not drop the tank's nutrient levels.

Otherwise, yeah just maintain the Big Three and keep the basics nailed, let some time pass, and see how things stabilize.

One thing I just wondered mostly for my own curiosity: Do you happen to have a pic of the tank "at its worst" with dino's?

 

[TheDon]

Yes