Which Red Sea 2 part supplement did you use.
*I used the Reef Energy.
Never heard of Dino's from their cal and alk part a and b.
*Nope, not starved and not alk or cal.
Dino's can come from an starved reef.
If it's Reef Energy A and B, I love that stuff.
What do your phosphates and nitrates test at, using good test kits and not API?
Thanks!!
I tried the Safilert test for phosphates and nitrates. When my nitrates came back at 25 I did a large water change. No difference in the next test. I tested again, water changed again. This went on for about two weeks. Testing, water changing, testing water changing. Which was impossible unless the nitrates were accumulating at an exponential rate. If that had been the case they would have kept going up when I skipped a day to test that idea. If I tested before and after even very large water changes, again no change.
I tested the water right out of the sink to compare, then the water out of the RODI, the water with salt, without salt, even tested the substrate fresh from a bag to see if it was causing an issue. Everything was 0.
Only think I can conclude is that the test was extremely faulty.
While I had both, the test couldn't seem to differentiate between some and none and continued to give me the same positive if it wasn't a flat 0.
When I did an API test I got less than 5 ppm nitrates (which I also know cannot be right). I can't remember what the phosphates were at the moment only that they were about the same as the safilert test, .25 I think.
However, despite all that, my dinos did not occur until a few hours after dosing. The first bloom very small, the second dose it was larger. Quit dosing and they've gone away. Anecdotal I know. However, dinos do happen in a young reef too with poorly cycled rock etc or when there are excess nutrients.
Like I said, I will try again later.
I don't feed light since I have a lot of gorgs and slow eating fish, however I've also not had a dino issue for over a year.
Now having said all that...
I normally don't test. I did when I first started out and chasing numbers (bought Red Sea, safilert etc.) It did nothing so I quit (okay it gave me a migraine and anxiety but that's all I got). I've just kept an eye on my tank and it has always done well. Then I had some hair algae pop up and everyone insisted that it was because of nitrates and phosphates because I didn't test (so I couldn't know) and I didn't use an RODI system.
The horror, I know.
I have a rock drilled well that tests negative for both nitrates and phosphates and pretty much anything else you can imagine, even bacteria. After the hair algae lingered I let myself be talked into an RODI system.
Guess what, no change. My corals didn't explode in growth, they didn't turn twenty shades brighter, and my hair algae didn't vanish.
My fish still don't poop gold either which I am extremely disappointed about.
I've pretty much decided the RODI system isn't doing anything that several feet of a rock filter can't and wasn't doing.
So is it possible that the dino were luck of the draw, sure. That's why I'll test again. Once, chance, two, coincidence, three a pattern. However I want to make sure that everything is totally clear so I don't have any outside influences that may affect the results.
