Are all low nitrate/phosphate situations equal?

[feelingfishy]

Agree with the interesting discussion. I am pretty sure we used to study Hypotenuse in math, and alternative hypothesis in science, and plurals seem to come with ii's at the end, but not in this case? Hypotheses, with e's replacing i's? Latin was not a course of study for me.

I made most of that up, but I truly agree this is a useful thread and discussion on nutrient levels and theories about cause and effect of them levels.

Thanks Kris, I’m all self taught here lately as I dropped out of school in the tenth grade. So bare with me if I am still learning the basics of English.

 

[KrisReef]

Thanks Kris, I’m all self taught here lately as I dropped out of school in the tenth grade. So bare with me if I am still learning the basics of English.

I graduated a few times but I scored in the 37th percentile in English Grammar and spelling. The computer and spell check have helped me cover up my own deficits in this area but I too get confused easily with spelling and grammar, I have dyslexia and that complicates the situation.

I also find that GIF is a great way to communicate.

 

[feelingfishy]

I would be using spell/grammar check too. I just find it to be more forthcoming to be authentic with my troubles.

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

I thought the consensus was the dinos aren't caused by low nutrients, rather the opposite - the growth of dinos unseen to the eye without a microscope is absorbing all the phosphate/nitrates in the water column as they grow. Low nutrients aren't the cause, but the symptom.

Cart before the horse. Take that with a grain of salt though, just something I heard.

Every time I get lazy and stop dosing my nitrogen and phosphate, I get dinos in a month.

There has to be a corelation between too few nitrogen compounds for other benthic life, and dinos succeeding.

 

[ChrisfromBrick]

I'm going with the scientist's (Randy) opinion on nutrient levels.

 

[CHSUB]

Dead bare rock dinos are “first to the party”, regardless of nutrient levels. More nutrients more dinos. Months later reefer adds corals and coralline algae starts growing, less space “at the party” less dinos, regardless of nutrient levels. Some “new” reefers think higher nutrients less dinos, when in reality it’s less space less dinos.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Dead bare rock dinos are “first to the party”, regardless of nutrient levels. More nutrients more dinos. Months later reefer adds corals and coralline algae starts growing, less space “at the party” less dinos, regardless of nutrient levels. Some “new” reefers think higher nutrients less dinos, when in reality it’s less space less dinos.

I don't agree. Many folks get dinos on new rock with low nutrients and solve the problem by dosing nutrients that help competitors to the dinos.

New bare rock with high nutrients seems to often just get the normal ugly stages of algae, etc.

 

[CHSUB]

I don't agree. Many folks get dinos on new rock with low nutrients and solve the problem by dosing nutrients that help competitors to the dinos.

New bare rock with high nutrients seems to often just get the normal ugly stages of algae, etc.

Competitors of dinos don’t also thrive in low nutrients environments, just takes longer? Example: my newest tank, dead rock undetectable nutrients started ugly definitely some dinos, 21 weeks now corals and coralline growing undetectable nutrients, very very little dinos. Beautiful thriving reef….

 

[CHSUB]

Just now.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Competitors of dinos don’t also thrive in low nutrients environments, just takes longer? Example: my newest tank, dead rock undetectable nutrients started ugly definitely some dinos, 21 weeks now corals and coralline growing undetectable nutrients, very very little dinos. Beautiful thriving reef….

Well, I'm giving a rationale for a great many observations over many years. That rationale may not be correct (although I think it is) but the overall observations are: low nutrients and new dry rock is a strong recipe for dinos and higher nutrients can stop them or prevent them.

Giving a counter example where it happened differently is akin to saying "I smoke and don't have cancer, so smoking doesn't contribute to cancer".

 

[CHSUB]

Well, I'm giving a rationale for a great many observations over many years. That rationale may not be correct (although I think it is) but the overall observations are: low nutrients and new dry rock is a strong recipe for dinos and higher nutrients can stop them or prevent them.

Giving a counter example where it happened differently is akin to saying "I smoke and don't have cancer, so smoking doesn't contribute to cancer".

We can agree to disagree and I to are basing my rationale over more than 45 years in the hobby and hours and hours of research. I would be convinced about raising nutrients to solve dinos if two identical tank were set up and Dinos were introduced, keeping everything the same while raising nutrients in one. Otherwise, all other examples, like mine, are hobby observation, akin to, “I fed my fish garlic and ich is gone”.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

We can agree to disagree and I to are basing my rationale over more than 45 years in the hobby and hours and hours of research. I would be convinced about raising nutrients to solve dinos if two identical tank were set up and Dinos were introduced, keeping everything the same while raising nutrients in one. Otherwise, all other examples, like mine, are hobby observation, akin to, “I fed my fish garlic and ich is gone”.

Ok, I have no problem with folks disagreeing with me.

 

[rtparty]

Lack of herbivores = algae. Has little to do with your nutrient levels.

Want algae to go away? Add more predators to eat it.

 

[Dan_P]

I've always read low nutrients are a problem

Where did this come from?

 

[Dan_P]

Well, I'm giving a rationale for a great many observations over many years. That rationale may not be correct (although I think it is) but the overall observations are: low nutrients and new dry rock is a strong recipe for dinos and higher nutrients can stop them or prevent them.

Giving a counter example where it happened differently is akin to saying "I smoke and don't have cancer, so smoking doesn't contribute to cancer".

The dataset we have on this topic is possibly biased. What is missing are the reports on the other possible combinations: low nutrients-no blooms, high nutrients-blooms and high nutrients-no blooms.

Our thinking on this issue follows the logic of someone at night who is looking for their lost car keys under a lamp post because the light is better than where the keys were actually dropped. Benthic blooms are much trickier to understand than pelagic blooms because we have virtually no information about the locale where the organism is accumulating. Water quality can be an extremely poor source of information about the 1 mm or less depth these organisms are thriving in. And just because high nutrients seem to be resulting in a different type of “ugly” growth, it in no way means that dinoflagellates are not also thriving in similar numbers as in low nutrient conditions.

I think the “low nutrient causes dinoflagellates” notion is a distraction with maybe a hint of truth.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

With at least two different types of dinos and greatly different environments in different reef tanks, the causes of problematic dinos are certainly complicated and varied.

There are certainly dinos plaguing folks with old rock and adequate nutrients, and adding more nutrients in those cases are not likely to be useful. But I am confident that the incidence on new dead rock is higher than in established tanks based on reading lots of folks experiences, and that low nutrients also seems to contribute. Actions which boost competitors such as boosting silicate, nitrate and phosphate or adding bacteria often seem to resolve the issue when the dinos are on new dead rock at low nutrients, and can do so fast enough in some cases to not be random coincidence (IMO).

Did you give Plus-NP a try? It's helped me deal with dinos on two separate occasions, with positive results in a matter of days.

Avoiding Dinos in New Tank

I've been out of the hobby for awhile and thinking about coming back! I had a bad persistent case of Dinos ID'd as Amphidinium in my 3 year old 45 gallon mixed reef tank that really burned me out. They weren't killing my coral but within hours of blowing them off the sand they would reappear...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[CHSUB]

Real world example in my back yard. In Florida, red tide is caused by the accumulation of Karenia brevis, a type of single-celled organism called a dinoflagellate. K. breves is always present 10 to 40 miles off shore but in low harmless concentrations. During the fall, on shore winds push k breves near shore where high nutrient waters cause harmful blooms killing fish and producing airborne toxin.

 

[Dan_P]

With at least two different types of dinos and greatly different environments in different reef tanks, the causes of problematic dinos are certainly complicated and varied.

Yes, this is maybe the nub of my skepticism, where simple changes have an apparent large effect on a microorganisms community.

There are certainly dinos plaguing folks with old rock and adequate nutrients, and adding more nutrients in those cases are not likely to be useful. But I am confident that the incidence on new dead rock is higher than in established tanks based on reading lots of folks experiences,

For me this, there is a potential large bias in the data we collect from social media. I think we might be dealing with the following type of data. 100 aquaria are started with dry rock and 10 started with live rock, There is a higher number of reported observations of X in the dry rock data than the live rock data. The problem is that we think the large number is the incident rate of X. The number of X observations with dry rock divided by the number of dry rock aquaria is actually the incident rate (I know that you have not overlooked this). This is why I don’t find the social media reports of new dry rock aquaria experiencing dinoflagellates convincing evidence that low nutrients cause dinoflagellates.

and that low nutrients also seems to contribute. Actions which boost competitors such as boosting silicate, nitrate and phosphate or adding bacteria often seem to resolve the issue when the dinos are on new dead rock at low nutrients, and can do so fast enough in some cases to not be random coincidence (IMO).

Did you give Plus-NP a try? It's helped me deal with dinos on two separate occasions, with positive results in a matter of days.

Avoiding Dinos in New Tank

I've been out of the hobby for awhile and thinking about coming back! I had a bad persistent case of Dinos ID'd as Amphidinium in my 3 year old 45 gallon mixed reef tank that really burned me out. They weren't killing my coral but within hours of blowing them off the sand they would reappear...

www.reef2reef.com

You say tomato and I say potato

Microorganism communities are terribly stable to change. When I hear about examples like above, simple changes resulting in rapid change, a red flag goes up. Also, such changes don’t seem to be so effective in other aquaria.

For me the “low nutrient causes dinoflagellates” claim is tentatively in the same category as “Prime, CloramX, etc, reduce the level of ammonia in water”.

 

[Reefahholic]

We can agree to disagree and I to are basing my rationale over more than 45 years in the hobby and hours and hours of research. I would be convinced about raising nutrients to solve dinos if two identical tank were set up and Dinos were introduced, keeping everything the same while raising nutrients in one. Otherwise, all other examples, like mine, are hobby observation, akin to, “I fed my fish garlic and ich is gone”.

It goes a little further than nutrients alone IMO. It also depends on the, age of the system, rock used, feeds, overall chemistry, water changes, stability, light, sand, etc.

Honestly, if you’re doing everything right and have good chemistry in a mature system…Dino‘s shouldn’t be a problem. At 2-3 years the biome ought to be able to outcompete them. I had them bad several times, but as the tank matured they could only resort to patches of detritus where there was no competition. They were outcompeted everywhere else as long as I didn’t fuel the fire with products they like. They were still in the system, but majorly hindered. Unless you’re creating a lot of instability or feeding too much rich feeds like amino’s, vitamins, etc…they should fade out.

IMO, Phosphate has a major impact on them. Not directly, but indirectly as everything in the system needs phosphate to thrive except Dino’s. So limiting Phosphate is a big mistake, but it does go much deeper than that.

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

Yes, this is maybe the nub of my skepticism, where simple changes have an apparent large effect on a microorganisms community.



For me this, there is a potential large bias in the data we collect from social media. I think we might be dealing with the following type of data. 100 aquaria are started with dry rock and 10 started with live rock, There is a higher number of reported observations of X in the dry rock data than the live rock data. The problem is that we think the large number is the incident rate of X. The number of X observations with dry rock divided by the number of dry rock aquaria is actually the incident rate (I know that you have not overlooked this). This is why I don’t find the social media reports of new dry rock aquaria experiencing dinoflagellates convincing evidence that low nutrients cause dinoflagellates.



You say tomato and I say potato

Microorganism communities are terribly stable to change. When I hear about examples like above, simple changes resulting in rapid change, a red flag goes up. Also, such changes don’t seem to be so effective in other aquaria.

For me the “low nutrient causes dinoflagellates” claim is tentatively in the same category as “Prime, CloramX, etc, reduce the level of ammonia in water”.

I started with 90% live rock and got dinos right off the bat.

In my posts on figuring out what it was everyone in the replies kept assuming the tank was started with dry rock. I've noticed that on some other posts too. It may make them more suseptible to start with dry, I do beleive that, but also there is miscommunication around the subject. My rock never dried out, I kept it all alive straight from the old system, others calling theirs live rock started out after bleaching there's dead which in my mind makes it similar to marco reef Saver, porousness aside.