Quote:
Originally Posted by karimwassef
I'll make a few claims here - and see what you think
"Dinos explode when the majority of rock in the system is artificial or decimated through bleaching/baking, etc..."
Another claim:
"The lack of biofauna creates an environment like the ancient oceans, where dinos were prevalent without predators or sufficient competitors"
Final claim:
"Systems with stablished bio rich rocks are not susceptible unless chemicals are used to kill the biofauna on the rocks (like algae or bacteria killers) or starve them."
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I agree 100% with these statements.
I am presently helping a fellow reefer battle a dino problem, his is a new system that he started with dead rock and 2 inches of caribsea seaflor special that he seeded with some live rock , he let the tank cycle for a few months then added some fish and a cuc. He thought he had a persistent diatom bloom and asked what I thought, I put a sample under the microscope and saw Ostreopsis Ovata. He has no coraline algae to speak of, no green micro algae on the glass and half of his sand bed has turned solid. We started slowly removing the sand bed and began the dirty method, his po4 and no3 are not detectable, began dosing phyto and pods and running 10uM filter socks, stopped skimming and water changes and only running 1/4 the carbon.
It's been about 3 weeks now and things are looking much better.
My problem started after decimating my micro fauna with algae x.
I am now 22 weeks dino free, back to my 200uM filter socks, doing regular weekly water changes, still dosing 400ml phyto daily and culturing and adding pods regularly. Po4 is .04 and no3 is 6ppm, coraline algae is growing strong, tank and inhabitants look great.
I had Ostreopsis Ovata, battled for a year, dirty method is what worked for me.