[karimwassef]

There was no algae in the tank from the point I used LaCl and had the dino bloom. At that time, I had a chaeto mass that was growing, but as soon as the dinos came in, the chaeto started to die. After the UV, my chaeto rebounded and started absorbing again. The sand (small particles host more bacteria), the skimmer and the chaeto were my exports. So I never had algae except on my front glass. I also had a dozen ravenous tangs that ate any hint of algae in the DT... Turning it into organic waste that was consumed or exported by the sand or skimmer.

Whatever they didn't grab fast enough, my chaeto captured as N and P. Then I installed my ATS. Now both are working, and I think the ATS is winning.

A C change means an immediate change into the opposite direction. I was losing the battle and the UV had an immediate effect that reversed the tide...

UV will not kill everything immediately. I have a 660gal system and I was circulating at 200gph through it... There's a lot of phyto that never saw my UV reactor, at least not for many hours. They were like kamikaze - they fought all night and then were eventually sacrificed and turned into food for the coral.

Dinos are like an alien alternative to the normal algae based food chain. Once they were stunned hard enough by UV, other normal life started to win. The critical difference here is in the dino's reaction to dark. Unlike hair algae or chaeto or pods, dinos will disseminate into the water column by dark to hunt. This mixotrophic behavior is exactly why UV kills them preferentially. There are spores and some pods that are zapped too, but the vast majority of them are benthic. They're not suspended free floaters in the water column.

So- if all your enemy behaves in a way that is uniquely different than all your friends- use it! Most of the good guys are safe. All the bad guys are nuked over the darkness hours. By morning, the dinos try to come back, but they can't breed fast enough to compete with a tank's worth of benthic competitors or a chaeto mass that now feeds on their dead waste to grow even bigger!

This is why feeding started to work... As did all the other methods. I made it an unfair fight by preferentially zapping the free floating dinos.