Possible to have Dinos with high nutrients?

[swoons]

Starting to get some brown/rust colored algae. I’m wondering if it’s possible that it’s Dinos however my nutrients are higher than what I thought Dinos would appear under. Don’t have a picture of it right now but more curious as I thought it was when one of nitrates or phosphates bottom out or both.

Nitrates: 14
Phosphates: 0.04 ppm
Salinity: 1.026

 

[Jonify]

Coral Euphoria on YouTube had a video where he was adamant that it’s not low nutrients where Dinos are likely to appear, but that it’s a tank imbalance that kicks it off and messes up the biome, the nutrients give them a foothold, and then by the time you notice Dinos, they’ve already consumed all the nutrients down to zero, so people have simply associated low nutrients with Dinos. He claims that’s backwards, and that you’re seeing low nutrient tests BECAUSE of the Dinos, not that low nutrients cause Dinos. I’m not sure about that and found it interesting … but anyways, in your case, brown/rusty algae-looking stuff could be chrysophytes … cyano … a few other things. Could you post photos?

 

[swoons]

Coral Euphoria on YouTube had a video where he was adamant that it’s not low nutrients where Dinos are likely to appear, but that it’s a tank imbalance that kicks it off and messes up the biome, the nutrients give them a foothold, and then by the time you notice Dinos, they’ve already consumed all the nutrients down to zero, so people have simply associated low nutrients with Dinos. He claims that’s backwards, and that you’re seeing low nutrient tests BECAUSE of the Dinos, not that low nutrients cause Dinos. I’m not sure about that and found it interesting … but anyways, in your case, brown/rusty algae-looking stuff could be chrysophytes … cyano … a few other things. Could you post photos?

That’s interesting. I’d have to keep an eye on my nutrients then if they are dropping. I’ll try and get a couple photos tomorrow.

 

[Idech]

In my tank it started happening when my nutrients were still high. But they were dropping and by the time they hit 0, the dinos were well established.

 

[hart24601]

I have fought Dino’s for years and always run high nutrients. At least 0.1 po4 and 10-20ppm nitrates. Only UV knocks it down for me. So yes, easily possible to have them with elevated nutrients.

 

[swoons]

I have fought Dino’s for years and always run high nutrients. At least 0.1 po4 and 10-20ppm nitrates. Only UV knocks it down for me. So yes, easily possible to have them with elevated nutrients.

I put in my uv yesterday so hopefully running it for a week helps.

 

[swoons]

In my tank it started happening when my nutrients were still high. But they were dropping and by the time they hit 0, the dinos were well established.

How did you deal with your Dinos

 

[Idech]

How did you deal with your Dinos

It’s a long story. I have a thread about it. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/how-long-to-win-the-battle-when-using-uv-for-dinos.878519/

Long story short, I had a first type that could be dealt with using UV, disturbing the sand, dosing H2O2 and doing a blackout.

But I hadn’t addressed the nutrient problem (that I didn‘t know I had) so they came back, and this time it was a different specie of dinos that did not respond to the previous treatment at all.

So then I had to dose silicates to compete for food. I also dosed phyto and Microbacter 7 and raised both my nitrates and phosphates that had gone down to 0 (With Neonitro and Neophos).

After a few weeks, the silicate dosing worked but everytime I did a water change, the dinos came back with a vendeance. So I added 3 bottles of pods. I did add pods before but for whatever reason, they didn’t seem to survive.

So now, fast forward almost 7 months since dinos appeared, I haven’t seen dinos since my last water change about a month ago. After the water change, I had to add silicate to make them go.

I’m kind of stuck right now because I can’t do water changes and I have some parameters problems that could be fixed with it. But hey, you can’t have it all I guess…. ;-)

 

[Bucs20fan]

I have recurring small instances of dinos, with high nutrients. UV knocks them down pretty good.

Live phyto and copepods are your friend
UV is worth it
Reduce photo period to 3 hours, Blackout preferred.
Keep nutrients up.
Dose silicates to 2ppm to induce diatom bloom.

 

[swoons]

I still don’t entirely know what I have yet. I took the turkey baster to the rock and it came off like dust. I’m gonna look into getting some copepods

 

[kierstin1993]

Yes. Contrary to popular belief, dinoflagellates are caused by high nutrients. They just often use the nutrients up giving it the appearance of low nutrients. Also some Cyanobacteria can look like dinos. Can you maybe take some pictures?

 

[killer2001]

I got dinos with appropriate nutrient levels, 15-20ppm NO3 and 0.05 to 0.15ppm PO4. I kinda let the tank sit for a couple weeks to see what would happen and the dinos took over and bottomed out my PO4. Nitrates still stayed around the same... 19 to 22ppm.

 

[Dan_P]

Starting to get some brown/rust colored algae. I’m wondering if it’s possible that it’s Dinos however my nutrients are higher than what I thought Dinos would appear under. Don’t have a picture of it right now but more curious as I thought it was when one of nitrates or phosphates bottom out or both.

Nitrates: 14
Phosphates: 0.04 ppm
Salinity: 1.026

Can you look at the brown algae under a microscope to determine whether it consists of dinoflagellates? At least then we would know that the nutrient theory and reality are not aligned.

 

[swoons]

 

[swoons]

Was hard to get pictures phone camera wasn’t cooperating/focusing. The micro bubbles on the glass are from the uv. The stuff on the rocks looks like.
here’s another video if it’ll process

 

[KonradTO]

Best thing I ever did since I started this hobby was reading the Amphidinium thread and the @taricha tips for fighting LCA. Since then I am not worried anymore when I see dinos because I have the tools to fight them. I use the mixed strategy:
1) keep nutrients in check, not too high not too low
2) dose silicate. I start from 1ppm/day and slowly increase until dinos start to disappear
3) dose bacteria in the morning
4) turn on UV at night
5) when dinos are mostly gone I give them a last punch with a 3 days blackout. (Since I got a goniopora colony I have been more careful with those bc it seems they are particularly annoyed by blackouts)

In this way they get outcompeted by other organisms very easily, at least it works against Ostreopsis and Amphidinium

 

[taricha]

2) dose silicate. I start from 1ppm/day and slowly increase until dinos start to disappear

generally agree with the sentiment, but 1ppm Si/day sounds really aggressive. I'd be more likely to advise 1/10 of that, certainly if you don't have a reliable Si kit (I've only had clearly positive reports from hanna or hach) .

 

[Tamberav]

Starting to get some brown/rust colored algae. I’m wondering if it’s possible that it’s Dinos however my nutrients are higher than what I thought Dinos would appear under. Don’t have a picture of it right now but more curious as I thought it was when one of nitrates or phosphates bottom out or both.

Nitrates: 14
Phosphates: 0.04 ppm
Salinity: 1.026

There are strains of dinos that can appear in higher nutrients

However... given the hobby grade test kits... 0.04 could be lower. It could actually be 0 due to accuracy 4% ±0.04 ppm (mg/L)....assuming hannah po4 kit.

If you started with dry rock then that is all the more potential problem.

 

[TokenReefer]

Excuse my ignorance but how would dinos exist and propagate without nutrients?

 

[Miami Reef]

Excuse my ignorance but how would dinos exist and propagate without nutrients?

There are always nutrients in a tank (if not, everything would be dead). Dinos can outcompete other algaes because they can utilize nutrients at very low levels.

The theory on raising nutrients is to get a different algae (GHA) to outcompete the dinos.