What feeds dinos?

[Back where it all began]

I admit I haven’t read the entire Dino thread, but what are the dinos consuming. Is the battle to reduce their food source or to increase diversity to crowd them out. Both perhaps. It was suggested that I should introduce as many life forms as possible to increase competition. Good strategy. My nitrates and phosphates are higher than average as my community likes it that way. I can introduce copes, etc, but still gets me back to the thought of what the Dino food sources are.

 

[Spare time]

Usually they come about when there is a disruption in the microbe life of the tank (be that removing rock or having too little nitrogen/phosphorus for them to live). You can dose other bacteria to compete. Their food source However, most people find success with a good UV.

 

[Back where it all began]

My uv arrives this week, so willl be online soon. Fry them like bacon, ha.

 

[Back where it all began]

They seem to be photosynthetic, but what are the driving nutrients that they thrive on? Are higher levels of nitrate and phosphate toxic to them, or just out grown by algae.

 

[Spare time]

They seem to be photosynthetic, but what are the driving nutrients that they thrive on? Are higher levels of nitrate and phosphate toxic to them, or just out grown by algae.

From my understanding, higher nitrates and phosphates result in more microorganisms that compete for space, carbon, etc to use. These other microorganisms are not as good at surviving with scarce nitrogen and phosphorus as dinos. I'm fighting dinos now and am using a 24w green killing machine (cant afford an expensive one since I'm in college) but also dosed lots of bacteria types (and phyto) when I did not run it. So far the dinos have gotten better as i no longer have them on the sand but they are still on the coral and rocks. I am considering more bacteria since waste away is cheap on amazon. I am also going to ask brightwell which microbacter they recommend.