How did your dinos start?

[Brew12]

It’s a 2000s/opening of trade routes thing

That is possible.

Wasn't it in the early 2000's when the use of GFO became popular in the hobby? Could be a correlation there, too. Maybe a combination of the two.

 

[tastyfish]

I do agree that dinos can compete well in low nutrient environments, but I don't think it is that particular aspect. Most photosynthetic organisms in our tanks can use ammonia (most algae prefer it to nitrate) and urea.

Perhaps dinos are better at it, but it is not just because they can and others cannot.

I think the dinoflagellates biggest advantage is the speed at which they can adapt, as many are mixotrophic. They also seem to do very well in high PO4 low NO3 environments. I don't know if this is because they can gain N from other sources as cyanobacteria can or because they can utilise trace elements such as Fe, which I have also seen.

Many dinoflagellates will thrive in low phosphate conditions. I would suspect that the different additives such as amino's may be fueling the growth of "something" that is driving PO4 down. That opens the door for problematic dino's to thrive.

I found the inverse to be true. High PO4, low NO3 seems to favour dinoflagellates (or hinder other competing organisms growth).

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I think the dinoflagellates biggest advantage is the speed at which they can adapt, as many are mixotrophic. They also seem to do very well in high PO4 low NO3 environments. I don't know if this is because they can gain N from other sources as cyanobacteria can or because they can utilise trace elements such as Fe, which I have also seen.



I found the inverse to be true. High PO4, low NO3 seems to favour dinoflagellates (or hinder other competing organisms growth).

Dinoflagellates do not appear to be able to fix N2 from the air the way cyanobacteria can, but some species live in close association with cyanobacteria and thereby may get a source of N from them. Most dino species, however, do not do this.

This paper has a great review of dino nitrogen uptake capabilities:

Putting the N in dinoflagellates
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3849724/

 

[ihavecrabs]

I think it's just the opposite. Low nutrients are what most often causes them to get a foot hold. Dosing nitrates and phosphates is how I got rid of mine.

Same here.

Agreed. I had my Nitrates bottom out on my and they started to bloom. Getting the nitrate back up and other sources of competition is what got my tank back on track (IMO).

 

[Servillius]

I am curious to know how dinos started to show up in your tank. The more I read about it it seems people start to get dinos after they dose nitrate or started dosing aminos.

I started to get dinos after I dosed no3 in my tank. I seen @d2mini say he had brown fluffy algae in his tank when he was doing the triton method and his nitrate went to zero. He dosed nitrate and he looked to have dinos show up. @ReefBum on his YouTube channel said his dinos showed up when he dosed aminos and feed coral food. @Russ265 was dosing nitrate and had dinos show up.

I'm not saying if you dose nitrate or aminos you will get dinos but it seems to me that by doing so it may cause an issue.

What are your thoughts?

Always after I’ve killed off red slime. I use something like chemiclean and within days I start seeing dino.

This is consistent with the NO3 shortfall hypothesis.

 

[Servillius]

I do agree that dinos can compete well in low nutrient environments, but I don't think it is that particular aspect. Most photosynthetic organisms in our tanks can use ammonia (most algae prefer it to nitrate) and urea.

Perhaps dinos are better at it, but it is not just because they can and others cannot.

I don’t have anything that counts as evidence, but from what I’ve read on forums, it seems problem dino is frequently of one particular species (fat round guys that start with an O). Do we know if that’s true. If so, it’s not really about what dino generally can do, but what that species can do, right?

These fellers. Bottom right.

 

[Brew12]

I found the inverse to be true. High PO4, low NO3 seems to favour dinoflagellates (or hinder other competing organisms growth).

Agreed. I had my Nitrates bottom out on my and they started to bloom. Getting the nitrate back up and other sources of competition is what got my tank back on track (IMO).

I find that interesting. With my old system I could get dino's to start growing by adding GFO. I could get cyano to grow through vodka dosing. As long as NO3 was 4ppm+ and PO4 was .02ppm+ I wouldn't get much of either.

Of course, there are so many types of dino's that what we have observed could be 100% accurate even if opposite of each other. Even Marine Velvet is a dinoflagellate that I think we would all agree doesn't care about NO3 or PO4 in a meaningful way.

If interested, here is a study that shows the impact of a high N: P ratio on increased dinoflagellate blooms.
https://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/handle/1903/11423/Li_umd_0117E_10168.pdf;sequence=1

 

[ihavecrabs]

I find that interesting. With my old system I could get dino's to start growing by adding GFO. I could get cyano to grow through vodka dosing. As long as NO3 was 4ppm+ and PO4 was .02ppm+ I wouldn't get much of either.

Of course, there are so many types of dino's that what we have observed could be 100% accurate even if opposite of each other. Even Marine Velvet is a dinoflagellate that I think we would all agree doesn't care about NO3 or PO4 in a meaningful way.

If interested, here is a study that shows the impact of a high N: P ratio on increased dinoflagellate blooms.
https://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/handle/1903/11423/Li_umd_0117E_10168.pdf;sequence=1

What we may be seeing here is that either (High PO4 and no NO3 or High NO3 and no PO4) provides the opportunity for dinos to out-compete cyano, algae, and corals which allows then to get their foot hold and the edge.

Either way, balance seems to be their enemy

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

We also cannot forget that the symbionts inside our corals that actually do the photosynthesis are dinos.

It's a tough fight when we want to kill some dinos and leave others unaffected.