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taricha · 03/17/2016, 07:45 AM

Apologies for long post, but I want to give enough info so that other eyeballs can look at the data and maybe come to different conclusions, or catch something I've missed.
Short version: Dinos (90% amphidinium and a little coolia) and cyano simultaneously retreated to verge of disappearance over the course of 3 days in a tank with high NO3 (30ppm), high PO4 (0.50 ppm), high lighting (including 3 hours of sunlight), no UV or algaecides - in association with growing large amounts of macroalgae (chaeto and caulerpa) on the sandbed. Dosing trace elements and vitamins caused dinos/cyano to reverse and begin increasing again.

Original goal was to kill dinos by growing algae, or at least see if I could grow lots of algae and still be dino infested, because that would be interesting. And I didn't want to do blackouts because I'm trying to grow maximum algae and because I know dinos need light, I'd like to find out what else they need - that's more interesting. No UV, because I don't have one, and I found out my amphidinium don't leave the sand anyway.

So, dirty method+light+no skimming+trace elements: 5 times the food, only 2hrs light to the fuge (less nutrient uptake there - more for the DT), trace elements to boost algae growth and basically make sure nothing was nutrient limited. Green film algae, coraline on glass, bits of macros on rocks, cyano, and dinos all grew well - no GHA or diatoms.
Test kits however revealed that just dumping food in wasn't enough. PO4 was elevated 0.20, but NO3 was undetectable. So I began dosing KNO3 in addition to heavy feeding, a week or so later testing showed my NO3 was between 10-20ppm, but my PO4 had dropped to new lows for my tank 0.04.
So in addition to elevated feeding I began simultaneously dosing both N and P daily - KNO3 for N, and a high P miracle grow fertilizer 4-12-4 (N-P-K) derived from only ammonium phosphate, potassium phosphate and urea - no metals. I also had stopped trace elements, with the idea that I wanted to give everything N, P, and light in excess and have them fight it out for anything else they needed, hopefully find a trace element limitation.
At this point Feb 12, green film ruled the glass and dinos/cyano ruled the sand.
These pics are 1-2 weeks after I had siphoned everything.
https://goo.gl/photos/n4fLAy29SQSyxPqh7
https://goo.gl/photos/KKbHGZv3x2XryKLc9
https://goo.gl/photos/iRzDpv5y5K2t4QAZA

So I decided to move some algae in directly. I pulled two big hunks of Chaetomorpha and Caulerpa from the fuge onto the front and back trouble spots right on the sand bed.
Feb 12th
https://goo.gl/photos/CYnGvADZJk5yVqX38

I worked my way up to N and P dosing that looked like this
March 1 measured: NO3 10+, PO4 0.23
March 1,2,&3rd I added 10ppm NO3 and 0.20ppm PO4 every day
March 4th measured: NO3 15, PO4 0.21 so I kept dosing at those levels.

Chaeto and Caulerpa grew well, many many more pods, worms, and general critters took up residence in the sandbed. Dinos directly under the chaeto started to disappear. Maybe it was chemical competition, or predation from the critters living in the chaeto, or reduced light under chaeto, or a combination. Other than directly below chaeto, cyano and dinos continued to grow, even right next to the macros.
Feb 29
https://goo.gl/photos/9wtRn8pkMxQ9BZUh7
https://goo.gl/photos/yiAiUGL9uoHBmFkh6

I also tried to see if I could deplete trace elements by not feeding the fish for a 2 days, and just dosing N & P, and cranking fuge lights back up. No luck there. Cyano and Dinos still growing.

My miracle grow has a small amount of ammonia and urea (2% each) and there's some reason to believe ammonia might encourage cyano, so on March 5th I changed my P source to an industrial cleaner I got at the hardware store - Trisodium Phosphate (80% Trisodium phosphate dodecahydrate, 20% Sodium Sesquicarbonate). I continued dosing 10ppm NO3 and 0.20ppm PO4 daily.

I siphoned all dinos/cyano out again on March 7th, and it began growing back as usual in all the usual spots. After a few days, one of the halimeda started looking bad and died a few days later, the other halimeda sprigs stopped new growth, my skimmate had slowed down for the past few days, and the green film on the glass was very slow growing. I'm only connecting these observations to what happened next - after the fact.

For two days I didn't have time to look at the tank or dose N or P. Just throw in a pinch of food. Then, March 14thpm, I looked at the tank and saw gorgeous white sand. Dinos had disappeared, cyano was gone too from all the spots where it normally stayed. My monti cap that I had been 100% convinced was dead, extended its polyps for the first time since the end of January when Dinos first appeared in my tank. I figured that two days without dosing, my hungry tank must have eaten up the N or P and crashed the cyano/dino population. So I tested: NO3 between 30-50ppm, PO4 0.50ppm. I checked the numbers with multiple kits because I didn't believe it. No mistake - high N and P.
https://goo.gl/photos/Sg4W1mwizRPTEbif6
https://goo.gl/photos/LfcBY249h1pt636d8

Apparently a trace element shortage must have limited cyano/dino growth rate so the tons of benthic fauna was consuming it faster than the replacement rate.
Only one small spot of cyano/dino remained. I wanted to see if I could get it growing again by changing nothing except adding back trace elements, so I left everything else in place, kept all the macro with its predators on the sandbed, and put in a week's dose of a couple of trace element mixes:
Kent Iron and Manganese: K2O,Fe,Mn,Mo,Zn,Co
Aqueon FW plant food:K2O,Ca,Mg,S,B,Fe,Mn,Mo,Zn
and finally, for vitamins I added a days dose Kent Microvert: I,Vit A,B12,B6,B1,C
I followed those doses up the next day with half of what I had added the day before.
Over the next 2 days, In some spots dinos/cyano returned. The last remaining brown sand patch stopped its rapid decline and slowly started to spread again. In other spots only cyano made a comeback. These are pics of 3/14,15pm and 3/16am
https://goo.gl/photos/hSj6x3VNQXwxWWNFA
https://goo.gl/photos/UqMRbfNxtCuVrKf59
https://goo.gl/photos/XwWYmf5rPuGBT8ih7

Other possible effects of trace element dosing: the halimeda started new green shoots, and finally after months, a couple of new tufts of GHA on rocks.

If I had to guess, I don't think the reversal is sustainable at this point. Even with continued trace element dosing, sand samples from all over the tank show way too many sanddwelling critters for dinos to reassert dominance.

If I had to guess which trace element is responsible, I'd lean towards Iron, as it has the most documented effects in limiting the growth of the things that seemed to decline over the past week. On the other hand, it has the most documented effects across the widest range of organisms because it's the most studied trace element. It could be any number of other things, there's nothing I've observed that excludes, for instance the Cobalt-B12-Cyano-Dino connection.

Correlation, causation and coincidence can be hard to tease apart, but here are key observations that (to me) point to trace element limitation and are consistent with Iron.

reduced skimmate production
reduced green film growth
halimeda slowdown/decline
then cyano/dino simultaneous decline
significant reduced uptake of N and P from water, though present in excess
caulerpa still grew daily (lower trace element threshold?)
adding trace elements reversed decline for cyano,dinos,halimeda
reversed effects of others: green film, skimmate, I can't say for sure.

03/17/2016, 07:45 AM	#3356
taricha Registered Member Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: NE Miss Posts: 608	Apologies for long post, but I want to give enough info so that other eyeballs can look at the data and maybe come to different conclusions, or catch something I've missed. Short version: Dinos (90% amphidinium and a little coolia) and cyano simultaneously retreated to verge of disappearance over the course of 3 days in a tank with high NO3 (30ppm), high PO4 (0.50 ppm), high lighting (including 3 hours of sunlight), no UV or algaecides - in association with growing large amounts of macroalgae (chaeto and caulerpa) on the sandbed. Dosing trace elements and vitamins caused dinos/cyano to reverse and begin increasing again. Original goal was to kill dinos by growing algae, or at least see if I could grow lots of algae and still be dino infested, because that would be interesting. And I didn't want to do blackouts because I'm trying to grow maximum algae and because I know dinos need light, I'd like to find out what else they need - that's more interesting. No UV, because I don't have one, and I found out my amphidinium don't leave the sand anyway. So, dirty method+light+no skimming+trace elements: 5 times the food, only 2hrs light to the fuge (less nutrient uptake there - more for the DT), trace elements to boost algae growth and basically make sure nothing was nutrient limited. Green film algae, coraline on glass, bits of macros on rocks, cyano, and dinos all grew well - no GHA or diatoms. Test kits however revealed that just dumping food in wasn't enough. PO4 was elevated 0.20, but NO3 was undetectable. So I began dosing KNO3 in addition to heavy feeding, a week or so later testing showed my NO3 was between 10-20ppm, but my PO4 had dropped to new lows for my tank 0.04. So in addition to elevated feeding I began simultaneously dosing both N and P daily - KNO3 for N, and a high P miracle grow fertilizer 4-12-4 (N-P-K) derived from only ammonium phosphate, potassium phosphate and urea - no metals. I also had stopped trace elements, with the idea that I wanted to give everything N, P, and light in excess and have them fight it out for anything else they needed, hopefully find a trace element limitation. At this point Feb 12, green film ruled the glass and dinos/cyano ruled the sand. These pics are 1-2 weeks after I had siphoned everything. https://goo.gl/photos/n4fLAy29SQSyxPqh7 https://goo.gl/photos/KKbHGZv3x2XryKLc9 https://goo.gl/photos/iRzDpv5y5K2t4QAZA So I decided to move some algae in directly. I pulled two big hunks of Chaetomorpha and Caulerpa from the fuge onto the front and back trouble spots right on the sand bed. Feb 12th https://goo.gl/photos/CYnGvADZJk5yVqX38 I worked my way up to N and P dosing that looked like this March 1 measured: NO3 10+, PO4 0.23 March 1,2,&3rd I added 10ppm NO3 and 0.20ppm PO4 every day March 4th measured: NO3 15, PO4 0.21 so I kept dosing at those levels. Chaeto and Caulerpa grew well, many many more pods, worms, and general critters took up residence in the sandbed. Dinos directly under the chaeto started to disappear. Maybe it was chemical competition, or predation from the critters living in the chaeto, or reduced light under chaeto, or a combination. Other than directly below chaeto, cyano and dinos continued to grow, even right next to the macros. Feb 29 https://goo.gl/photos/9wtRn8pkMxQ9BZUh7 https://goo.gl/photos/yiAiUGL9uoHBmFkh6 I also tried to see if I could deplete trace elements by not feeding the fish for a 2 days, and just dosing N & P, and cranking fuge lights back up. No luck there. Cyano and Dinos still growing. My miracle grow has a small amount of ammonia and urea (2% each) and there's some reason to believe ammonia might encourage cyano, so on March 5th I changed my P source to an industrial cleaner I got at the hardware store - Trisodium Phosphate (80% Trisodium phosphate dodecahydrate, 20% Sodium Sesquicarbonate). I continued dosing 10ppm NO3 and 0.20ppm PO4 daily. I siphoned all dinos/cyano out again on March 7th, and it began growing back as usual in all the usual spots. After a few days, one of the halimeda started looking bad and died a few days later, the other halimeda sprigs stopped new growth, my skimmate had slowed down for the past few days, and the green film on the glass was very slow growing. I'm only connecting these observations to what happened next - after the fact. For two days I didn't have time to look at the tank or dose N or P. Just throw in a pinch of food. Then, March 14thpm, I looked at the tank and saw gorgeous white sand. Dinos had disappeared, cyano was gone too from all the spots where it normally stayed. My monti cap that I had been 100% convinced was dead, extended its polyps for the first time since the end of January when Dinos first appeared in my tank. I figured that two days without dosing, my hungry tank must have eaten up the N or P and crashed the cyano/dino population. So I tested: NO3 between 30-50ppm, PO4 0.50ppm. I checked the numbers with multiple kits because I didn't believe it. No mistake - high N and P. https://goo.gl/photos/Sg4W1mwizRPTEbif6 https://goo.gl/photos/LfcBY249h1pt636d8 Apparently a trace element shortage must have limited cyano/dino growth rate so the tons of benthic fauna was consuming it faster than the replacement rate. Only one small spot of cyano/dino remained. I wanted to see if I could get it growing again by changing nothing except adding back trace elements, so I left everything else in place, kept all the macro with its predators on the sandbed, and put in a week's dose of a couple of trace element mixes: Kent Iron and Manganese: K2O,Fe,Mn,Mo,Zn,Co Aqueon FW plant food:K2O,Ca,Mg,S,B,Fe,Mn,Mo,Zn and finally, for vitamins I added a days dose Kent Microvert: I,Vit A,B12,B6,B1,C I followed those doses up the next day with half of what I had added the day before. Over the next 2 days, In some spots dinos/cyano returned. The last remaining brown sand patch stopped its rapid decline and slowly started to spread again. In other spots only cyano made a comeback. These are pics of 3/14,15pm and 3/16am https://goo.gl/photos/hSj6x3VNQXwxWWNFA https://goo.gl/photos/UqMRbfNxtCuVrKf59 https://goo.gl/photos/XwWYmf5rPuGBT8ih7 Other possible effects of trace element dosing: the halimeda started new green shoots, and finally after months, a couple of new tufts of GHA on rocks. If I had to guess, I don't think the reversal is sustainable at this point. Even with continued trace element dosing, sand samples from all over the tank show way too many sanddwelling critters for dinos to reassert dominance. If I had to guess which trace element is responsible, I'd lean towards Iron, as it has the most documented effects in limiting the growth of the things that seemed to decline over the past week. On the other hand, it has the most documented effects across the widest range of organisms because it's the most studied trace element. It could be any number of other things, there's nothing I've observed that excludes, for instance the Cobalt-B12-Cyano-Dino connection. Correlation, causation and coincidence can be hard to tease apart, but here are key observations that (to me) point to trace element limitation and are consistent with Iron. reduced skimmate production reduced green film growth halimeda slowdown/decline then cyano/dino simultaneous decline significant reduced uptake of N and P from water, though present in excess caulerpa still grew daily (lower trace element threshold?) adding trace elements reversed decline for cyano,dinos,halimeda reversed effects of others: green film, skimmate, I can't say for sure.