I'm using the Heinz brand found at every grocery store. Are there any interactions I should be aware of besides the PH drop? Currently dosing AFR, MB Clean, Waste Away, and Sodium Silicate.
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Keeping phosphates around 0.10ppm would be ideal for growing algae to outcompete the dinoflagellates; detectable phosphate is paramount.I'm dosing at night to battle dinos, not lower nutrients, if that makes a difference. Water volume is 27 gallons.
This is quite a cocktail being dosed to the system. What is the problem?I'm using the Heinz brand found at every grocery store. Are there any interactions I should be aware of besides the PH drop? Currently dosing AFR, MB Clean, Waste Away, and Sodium Silicate.
Keeping phosphates around 0.10ppm would be ideal for growing algae to outcompete the dinoflagellates; detectable phosphate is paramount.
It's just silicate, BB, and all for reef which maintains my cal/alk/trace. I wouldn't really call that "quite a cocktail," lol. I'm fighting dinos and after trying everything, appearently the new go to dino fighting method seems to be carbon dosing at night. I just can't find anything on how much vinegar to dose.This is quite a cocktail being dosed to the system. What is the problem?
Start at 0.10mL/gal and work your way up to 0.50mL/gal.My phosphates and nitrates have been elevated for a month. I'm really just looking for a dosing recommendation of vinegar to help fuel a bacterial bloom (I cant find a mL/gal anywhere and have no idea where to start)
Thank you.Start at 0.10mL/gal and work your way up to 0.50mL/gal.
The starting dose would be 2.7mL per day.
Read this article: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dinoflagelates-a-disruptive-treatment.926454/I’ve never heard of using organic carbon dosing to successfully treat for dinos.
Read this article: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dinoflagelates-a-disruptive-treatment.926454/
People are actually being very successful with carbon dosing to treat Dinos, especially when using sugar as the carbon source!
I'll report back and let you know. Would you agree with the 0.1mL/gal vinegar dosing regiment?Thanks. It will be interesting to see if this is generally a useful method.
I don't know about successfully, but here come a quote fromI’ve never heard of using organic carbon dosing to successfully treat for dinos.
My experience is that many Dino's just love a diet rich in organic carbons. I'm not sure feeding them is the way to go.I don't know about successfully, but here come a quote from
Reefkeeping Fundamentals by Angel Cegarra
“Start organic carbon dosing. Using an external source of organic carbon, heterotrophic bacteria reproduce in an exponential rate, grouping together in biofilms that cover all available surfaces: sand, rocks, pumps, aquarium and sump walls, etc. These biofilms “suffocate” and “intoxicate” dinoflagellates, conveniently deactivating them”
Excerpt From Reefkeeping Fundamentals
Angel Cegarra
This material may be protected by copyright.
How did you got to that conclusion? How does dinoflagellates (algae) use organic carbon?My experience is that many Dino's just love a diet rich in organic carbons. I'm not sure feeding them is the way to go.
Read that thread. You’ll see a few members doing it where the dinos recede. They post the progression. I’m personally sold on it being an effective treatment.My experience is that many Dino's just love a diet rich in organic carbons. I'm not sure feeding them is the way to go.
I had read it, just didn't have a chance to respond before I forgot and got distracted.
It's quite good. Beuchat has spent enough time in dino threads that he's probably looking at the right organisms (even without microscope ID).
It's also interesting to me because the article is consistent with what people found with the Elegant Corals method where a massive carbon dose drives a cloudy water bacterial bloom and shocks the system away from a dino/cyano outbreak. It really pushes cyano and dinos out of their niche - at least temporarily. I think @Reef and Dive has advised people with this method a good bit and finds it's generally successful (it's extreme - drops O2. don't play around if you have a tank full of great stuff. )
So massive bacterial blooms overwhelm dinos, makes sense as the reproduction rates for dinos are like ~a day vs <an hour for a bacteria during a well-fed bloom.
But what's new about Beuchat's article is the suggestion that a very modest constant carbon dose can also keep dinos in check. Sounds a lot like zeo method systems.
I confess I've been skeptical of zeo systems because years ago I saw the single worst dino outbreak ever posted on a forum - and it was a zeo user. But it turns out over time that anecdote doesn't seem to be backed up by a wider trend.
I also like theories about the "good old days" before widespread hobby dinos. I've collected quite a few but this is a good one I hadn't considered and is along the same idea. A hypothetical larger reliance on organic carbon in the past. hmmm...
In one sense, you're right and it is obviously just a correlation. Because it's clear that how you got there seems to matter quite a bit more than just the PO4 number itself.
In another sense it's not a correlation. People take concrete steps to lower PO4, PO4 drops, organisms susceptible to PO4 starvation (like GHA) struggle and disappear, organisms that handle it better become more prevalent (like dinos). It's causation because the PO4 drop is precipitated by an outside mechanism - not simply that people notice low PO4 and later notice dinos.
(But there's certainly quite a few hidden and correlated variables between the PO4 drop and the dino bloom.)
As for the luck that PO4 explains so much - you've grown quite a few test samples yourself where PO4 level looks like some sort of crude master control knob to turn up or down the amount of photosynthetic growth across multiple classes of organism.
That's kind of my thinking in this thread. It's a shame to throw away PO4 regulation as a master control knob, when there are some systems that use it quite successfully and never have dino issues. Worth thinking about those successes and not just the low-PO4 failures that plague the nuisance algae forum.
I do not have personal experience with eradicating Dinos, but again, there is a link to article by same author about eradicating them, including providing Carbon source, apparently Xepta NP was particularly effective:My experience is that many Dino's just love a diet rich in organic carbons. I'm not sure feeding them is the way to go.
I'll report back and let you know. Would you agree with the 0.1mL/gal vinegar dosing regiment?