How I beat dinoflagellates (The easy way)

[BiggestE22]

About a month ago I decided to do a lager than normal water change. After subtracting the room my filtration takes up in the sump and the sand and live rock take up in my DS I probably did a 40% water change. I typically do smaller changes every week and I clean the sand once a every 6 weeks. This time I did the large change and cleaned the tank as well as adding more activated carbon than needed because I was happy that there was no hint of hair algae anymore and wanted that to continue. Thought maybe the addition of scarlet crabs and a few more Mexican snails also helped. Nonetheless 2 days after the change these brown webs that held bubbles in them started growing. Thought they might be cyano but after doing an Identification I realized it was Dinos. I tried a few different things but what worded was truer I g my over sized skimmer off at night. Only running my algae reactor a couple hours every 2-3 days. Turning up the flow on my MP40s to 70% reef crest and feeding the tank 3-4 times instead of twice daily. And stopping the water changes while maintaining calcium etc with AFR. The last couple weeks the Dino’s diminished and the last 5 days there has been no signs. Even on the sand.

 

[Cory]

Do you happen to know your tank ph at night before and after?

 

[Lavey29]

So you attribute the large water change to the source of your algae problem?

 

[BiggestE22]

Do you happen to know your tank ph at night before and after?

I use a CO2 scrubber. So it was 8.2-8.5 with the skimmer on and 7.7-8.0 when off

 

[BiggestE22]

So you attribute the large water change to the source of your algae problem?

The water change removed a lot of nutrients and that change tipped the scales to the levels being too low also as I said I had no GHA at all so that allowed other algaes to take over

 

[Lavey29]

The water change removed a lot of nutrients and that change tipped the scales to the levels being too low also as I said I had no GHA at all so that allowed other algaes to take over

I thought water change replaces nutrients like alk, cal, mag and all the trace elements?

 

[Mycetophyllia_Master]

I thought water change replaces nutrients like alk, cal, mag and all the trace elements?

Water quality will replace diminished levels in all of those “parameters”.

nutrients are probably referring specifically to phosphate and nitrate. The phosphate is the determining factor in most algae growth (red field ratio)

 

[BiggestE22]

It does but also removes dissolved nutrients or nitrate/phosphate.

 

[Lavey29]

It does but also removes dissolved nutrients or nitrate/phosphate.

Removes nitrates but does little to nothing for phosphate lowering .

 

[Lavey29]

Water quality will replace diminished levels in all of those “parameters”.

nutrients are probably referring specifically to phosphate and nitrate. The phosphate is the determining factor in most algae growth (red field ratio)

I agree but water changes do not affect phosphate levels hardly at all if anything. They do help lower nitrate levels though.

 

[Lavey29]

From the internet...

In most tanks, phosphates are added at a much faster rate than what a regular water change schedule can remove effectively. Even a weekly 20% water change will not suffice in keeping phosphates below 0.05 ppm for a majority of reef tanks that contain fish.