[karimwassef]

The water column isn't pristine. I have more plankton in this tank than I've had in any other. At night, I shine a flashlight into the water and I see a cloud of reflective creatures wriggling towards the light source. I have multiple videos of broods of shrimp nauplii, pods and fish fry.

It has nothing to do with the UV. Dinos are free floating at night and I zap enough of them that they cannot win. I zap others too but it's slow enough that the rest of the plankton that's alive feeds on the dead. It's no different than adding one big plankton predator... It just keeps them in check without destroying the population.

Most of my plankton is likely juvenile stages of benthic adults. So, the parents continue to pump babies and some don't make it. It doesn't kill the chain. More babies keep coming.

What did the most damage to the dinos was the three days of dark with UV. They had nowhere to be safe. They were exterminated along with some good guys. But the base of plankton didn't die. It just got a massive advantage.

By the way, the single biggest reason I have so much plankton is the absence of mechanical filters - no socks, no sponges, no bags. These are the real plankton killers. They destroy the mid tier plankton base and turn their bodies into local waste for bacteria and dinos to feed on. If you clean them often, that's good housekeeping and avoids bigger problems but it's just another way to throw plankton away.

Just my view based on what I've experienced.