Finally was able to
beat dinoflagellates. I tried so many things, and got so depressed, I lost a lot of life but here is what I did and learn.
Do
NOT slowly raise elements -
Responses of Marine Diatom-Dinoflagellate Competition to Multiple Environmental Drivers: Abundance, Elemental, and Biochemical Aspects - PMC (nih.gov)
"Dinoflagellates had the competitive superiority (
α > 0) under low nutrient concentrations, but diatoms had the competitive superiority (
α < 0) under high nutrient concentrations (
Figure 2). The interaction coefficient α responded significantly to nutrient concentration changes (GLMMs;
Table 3), showing a decrease as nutrient concentrations increased (
Figure 2), while its responses to temperature and N
supply ratios were not significant."
This spelled my doom, I went from a moderate/high dinoflagellate problem; and when I slowly dosed Phosphate the dinos went into a feeding frenzy and in 2 days exploded in population.
I followed 2 YouTube videos mainly and what I learned.
- Get competitors to take the nutrients from the Dino's and starve them out.
-Vodka dosing isn't hard
Even though I tried to follow these videos to a T and threw so much money at this, these solutions did not help me. However, there are some things that I can take away that will help me in the future.
1. Get your Nitrates and your Phosphates above 0. I originally bought premade bottles, but I was "dosing" so often I burned through them so quickly. You can easily make your own if you have a good scale.
Here's a great calculator to determine how much to dose.
Planted Tank Calculator
2. If you slowly dose Phosphates throughout the day, the dino's will just consume it and explode. This was my big downfall, if you're going to dose; dose big and once a day.
3. Identification is key. Don't be like me, and just do the dose bacteria and raise elements. Buy the freaking microscope, and when you actually look at your enemy in the eye; it'll totally gross you out. They move, and they move a lot! I had Prorocentrum, and after weeks of fighting it, after I identified it I found out all I needed was a UV sterilizer.
4. Rely on the thousands of forum posts out there to help you out. So many people have beaten Dinos, I've been in this hobby for over 15 years; and I never encountered them. I have never been so depressed with this hobby.
After I found out my dinos were Prorocentrum, I did research on them. They don't always go into the water column, so I had to do a 3 day blackout in addition to plugging in my UV sterilizer.
3 Days later, and the tank looks amazing. The dinos were 95% eradicated, Phosphates that I struggled to keep above 0 are now reading at .07. Due to the lifecycle of dino's I plan to keep this UV sterilizer on for a month or so; and every night I plan to stir the sand and blow off the rocks.
I'm not saying anything negative regarding carbon dosing and bacteria dosing, it just didn't work for me. I can also post more of my research, but I used a lot of other forums; not sure on the etiquette when it comes to that.
