How do you know if you are overfeeding anymore?

[Chris Villalobos]

I just posted this on the Dino thread but I think it should be part of the nutrition discussion too. I think more than ever it is too easy to overfeed our tanks because efficient NO3 and PO4 export gives us a false sense of security.

Just because we have low NO3 and PO4 we can't say we have good feeding habits. We still may be overfeeding our tanks. The problem is we can't tell anymore because NO3 and PO4 export has become easy. Why Dinos bloom is due to an abundance of organic pollution. They love it!

The food we put in our tanks doesn't just go from say a mysis shrimp directly into NO3 and PO4. A fish eats it and reduces it to poop and urine then say a hermit crab eats the poop and breaks it down even further then bacteria start to break it down further still. But at no time in this process is the Nitrogen and Phosphorus testable as NO3 and PO4. So what happens when we overload the healthy process of breaking down these organics? We get Dinos and Cyanobacteria outbreaks.

Everyone here needs to re-evaluate their feeding habits. Just because we can dump food into our tanks and see no NO3 or PO4 doesn't mean it's healthy.

 

[Mr. Experience]

Well while I do agree that the conversion system into NO3 and PO4 can be misused almost always by many reefers who think that their 1-year-old "stable" tank can handle a little excess nutrients, and that it is these very nutrients that fuel the growth of a wide range of different pests and nuisance algaes, Dinos are actually way more common in tanks with little to no nutrients because all of their competition starves and they can even thrive with the most minimal of nutrients. In fact I had a tank that I started with dry rock and even before I added any fish I had a major Dino bloom that I have recently got under control with the help of nutrient dosing (thankfully cyanobacteria is taking over and getting rid of the Dinos and is much easier to clean up). However, although this is the most common knowledge about dinoflagellates, there are THOUSANDS of different strains and variances of Dinos that each may survive in unique environments. But in case you are in/ever come into contact with these reef devils, the one thing that will help no matter the case is biodiversity.

 

[Chris Villalobos]

In fact I had a tank that I started with dry rock and even before I added any fish I had a major Dino bloom that I have recently got under control with the help of nutrient dosing (thankfully cyanobacteria is taking over and getting rid of the Dinos and is much easier to clean up).

I really wish organic testing was much easier because I have to wonder if there were some organic nutrients on those rocks. I think we can all agree that dinos will not survive in a sterile environment. If that were so we would see dino blooms in our salt water mixing containers.

 

[Mr. Experience]

I really wish organic testing was much easier because I have to wonder if there were some organic nutrients on those rocks. I think we can all agree that dinos will not survive in a sterile environment. If that were so we would see dino blooms in our salt water mixing containers.

Well obviously there needs to be some sort of nutrient availability for nearly all life forms in our tank but if you see the studys and surveys people do, a majority of Dino blooms are found commonly in tanks with ultra-low nutrient systems. In systems with a much higher nutrient level, there is much more biodiversity and competition from secondary algaes and bacteria that either out-compete or eat the Dinos (which are relatively defenseless depending on the strain, toxicity, and developed resistance). Yet the reason I don't believe we see them in our mixing containers is that we do not commonly introduce them that way. Usually they grow off of a frag or a fish thats precontaminated and in a main display and plus they wouldn't have anything to properly latch onto in enough time before we use that water (if they happened to be introduced) assuming that you have your water circulation pump running to mix the salt. For some (like me), raising nutrient levels worked, and for others, it does nothing, just like with a lot of different methods for getting ideal parameters in the hobby.

 

[Chris Villalobos]

Well obviously there needs to be some sort of nutrient availability for nearly all life forms in our tank but if you see the studys and surveys people do, a majority of Dino blooms are found commonly in tanks with ultra-low nutrient systems.

What do you consider ultra-low nutrient systems?

 

[Chris Villalobos]

If we test zero NO3 and PO4 we can say that there is a low amount of inorganic nutrients but that tells us nothing about the organic nutrients. We could have just dumped a cup of mysis shrimp in the water but it would not register as NO3 and PO4. It needs to decompose and remineralize before it shows up as inorganics.

A person with a high driven chaeto sump may think he has a "low nutrient" tank because he is stripping away all the NO3 and PO4 but there could be plenty of organic nutrients in the tank.