|
I am sure now.
After six months and five ostreopsis blooms the best strategy to fight these dinos is just foster other living forms.
A month ago I started dosing phytoplankton gel on a 120 ml/day basis (split in 24 doses with a peristaltic pump to avoid nutrient peaks and maintain a constant amount over time). Two weeks later I started to see thousands of pods, little snails, worms...and no algae at all. NO3 and PO4 tests keep at undetectable levels thought the heavy phytoplankton feeding (because all the new critters keep up with it and nothing is being accumulated). These pods and snails ate ostreopsis clumps like crazy and now my 600 gal system is dino and algae free, thousands of copepods, red planaria, collonista snails...even trochus snails are breeding (I have seen some baby trochus).
Other thing that helped me a lot was switching off the skimmer.
I have no doubt as well that the use of PO4 resins like Phosguard are one of the triggering factors when talking about dino blooms. Every time I have used it I have noticed an increase in ostreopsis and amphidinum.
My tanks sit in the sun, in Spain. I was concerned about the increase of light and rise of temperatures now in spring time. But I still don't see any dinoflagellates anywhere.
I will keep dosing phytoplankton but I will lower down the dose to 80 ml/day
|