can you guys elaborate on your amino regime, or did i miss it in earlier posts? i read this thread front to back, but it's been several months. thanks.
I basically had given up on fighting dinos but my internet searches revealed a large number of people for whom insane nutrient reduction schemes hadn't worked. It just wasn't possible to get nutrients out well enough to kill the dinos. I would literally remove or blow off as many as I could every day. I tried everything. Lots of carbon, GFO, the aluminum version of phosphate media, lanthanum chloride, hydrogen peroxide, extended pH raising, periods of intense water changing, periods of no water changing (which worked better btw), reduced feeding, lights out. I tried a UV sterilizer. I had macroalgae. Etc. Basically I tried it all using "traditional" methods. Measurements never showed nutrients. I got the more precise kits and the phosphate test showed nada even then. (ah, yes, but everyone would declare. "Your dinos are just using them up too fast!"... which is odd... even during lights out period I didn't get any nutrients "released").
During this time, I noticed two things:
1) When I once moved a dino covered rock into a holding tank that is not well-maintained and has no nutrient reduction scheme (it is covered with green algae), the dinos vanished with like 12 hours. Not a spec to be seen anywhere or ever again.
2) Feeling confident I then gave a zoa to a friend who runs basically a soft coral tank. He had no dino outbreak whatsoever. He had measurable nitrates and phosphates always. His only mechanism of nutrient reduction is a protein skimmer. I was so jealous. This guy who works 1/10th as hard on his tank as mind had a beautiful tank that looked healthier than mine.
So, being desperate and already having dead corals, I tried a different strategy -- to actually raise my nutrients a bit. I unplugged all filtration except for my protein skimmer and I trimmed back my macroalgae to a very small amount. I had a large 5 or 6 day blackout period, except during this period I turned on the lights for 5 minutes each morning and fed the tank and fish every day. And at night a couple of times a week I dosed some nutritive supplement like aminos or plankton. I turned on resumed normal tank maintenance except this time I was not super scared about feeding my fish or tank too much. I used food like it was actually a good thing to be putting in my tank.
I did get some green film algae eventually. And no dinos.
So now what I do is that I just sort of want the green film algae around and ONLY PERIODICALLY use things like GFO to keep things I check or from getting to ugly in that direction. I do not aggressively attempt to manage my nutrients like a control freak anymore.
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Now I want to make it very clear this is an anecdote. It is not scientific. It could be something else entirely that threw my tank into balance. And I am not challenging the consensus that limiting nutrients is generally your best bet for fighting problem algae. Just that, for whatever reason, I couldn't do it.