Theoretical pH boosting question

[Boehmtown]

I have pretty consistent Dino's pop up over the years, I can easily get rid of them in my established system at this point when they do so it's no real bother.

So I've noticed when dinos pop up the pH shoots up, I'm assuming they photosynthesize pretty hard. Is there a world where someone can make a dinoflagellate reactor, an environment that they prefer, like an algae scrubber but you can control pH?

We spend a lot of time trying to figure out what environment they don't like, but maybe if we figure out what it likes (new plastics is one) and put it in the sump, light it real good, maybe have a gfo pre chamber with low turnover so it doesn't get out competed by algae..... I might play with it in the future, but just a thought to throw out there.

 

[taricha]

I'm not sure what the fastest organisms would be that you could grow for CO2 removal to raise ph, but I know our problem dinos are not the fastest. They more often take over because they are toxic and distasteful and nothing will eat them. Diatoms are significantly faster Growers, and their CO2 uptake abilities might actually be useful if you could have some sort of diatom reactor.

An interesting thought is that we may be doing this already, because algae Turf scrubbers are sometimes known to have a brown slime phase, which is probably more likely diatoms, but it's not impossible there could be dinos in there as well.
So my bet is algae scrubbers are doing this well already with the mix they grow.

 

[Alazo1]

It seems that some use UV to help / get rid of dinos.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I have pretty consistent Dino's pop up over the years, I can easily get rid of them in my established system at this point when they do so it's no real bother.

So I've noticed when dinos pop up the pH shoots up, I'm assuming they photosynthesize pretty hard. Is there a world where someone can make a dinoflagellate reactor, an environment that they prefer, like an algae scrubber but you can control pH?

We spend a lot of time trying to figure out what environment they don't like, but maybe if we figure out what it likes (new plastics is one) and put it in the sump, light it real good, maybe have a gfo pre chamber with low turnover so it doesn't get out competed by algae..... I might play with it in the future, but just a thought to throw out there.

Seems risky to me to cultivate a pest and hope that doesn’t continually seed the display tank,

 

[Boehmtown]

Seems risky to me to cultivate a pest and hope that doesn’t continually seed the display tank,

True. Maybe a diatom reactor like someone else stated. My dinos never really go away , just stay dormant until some Major change takes place, I dose phyto for a bit. Put a dollar store plastic basket in the tank (they seem to be attracted to it) which keeps them out of my main lit area and they just kinda peter away. But boy do they drive my ph up, my alk starts getting unstable because of it and the pH swings become massive.