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Unread 04/16/2009, 05:40 PM   #14
redfishsc
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Location: Wake Forest, NC
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Quote:
Originally posted by rynon
I think what caused the dianoflagellates to die was they ran out of what they were feeding on, which was the "minerals" in your salt.

Plancton did mention this a post or three above:

Quote:
Originally posted by plancton
The water quality was always good, there was nothing they could feed on, basically they feed on light and trace elements in the salt, they are photosinthetic but they ain´t algae.


I am skeptical that "minerals" of any sort from the salt mix were "feeding" the dinos, although they probably do require some trace minerals.

All living organisms (if I understand correctly) require nitrogen and phosphorus. Neither of which are supposed to be in our salt mixes in any useable amount (although it happens by accident).

The dinos were most certainly getting nitrogen and phosphorus from somewhere--- without them they would have died. But as Plancton rightly noted, dinos aren't a simple algae. Perhaps they can assimilate nitrogen and phosphorus at a higher trophic level than algae (ie, they can "feed" directly off of larger components like detritus).


It's quite possible that the dinos did deplete some necessary trace element from the water. Sprung, in his book on algae, suggests ending all water changes until the dinos are gone.



My guess is that when Plancton started dosing nitrate, it actually (for a brief amount of time) "superchaged" the dino metabolism so much that it quickly petered out some trace element that it required.




Lol, if you do a water change any time soon, you might want to leave the lights off for a few days just in case they "wake up"!


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