Quote:
Originally Posted by Quiet_Ivy
One of the most frustrating things about dinos is the lack of an obvious cause. We have a list of 'risk factors' that are quite consistent among sufferers, but really there is no obvious difference in husbandry between dino-infested and dino-free tanks we can point to and say 'that's why dinos took over your tank'. As you mention, many people have ULNS tanks with all dry rock, carbon dose, skim heavily and use chemical media without having dinos get out of control.
Dinos are (in my opinion) much more like a multicellular pest organism than an algae. They are mixotrophic so reducing nutrients and light is not terribly effective. Many of us have genuinely undetectable N and P, have not done water changes in months, and do multiple blackouts without permanently killing off dinos. They can form cysts which can persist in the sandbed for years. I believe this is why nobody has had success using a single method of combating dinos, and "ecosystem" methods tend to work. (Possibly excepting DinoX but there have been several failures even with that). I sure wish 'taking away any ONE of them' worked, but this thread is really a testament that it doesn't.
As for methods which don't depend on trace element depletion or direct kill- I think the dirty method should count. We may be changing bacterial communities, growing allelopathic algae, increasing populations of microscopic/macro dino-predators, encouraging coral-mediated control of DOC/DIC and/or increasing direct competetion for nutrients. I'd love to know more about what exactly is going on.
Dosing phytoplankton and adding copepods are also effective for people using both dirty and clean methods. Phyto especially. Your article on raising pH certainly qualifies. 
ivy |
FWIW, I'm not talking about the reason to get it, which may be chance just like which people might get a particular infectious disease, but rather, once you have them, what works to get rid of them.
Undetectable N and P from a reefer doesn't mean none, and they definitely are getting them if they are growing. There is no question that without a source of N and P and all the trace elements they need, they will not thrive.