Dinoflagellates.

[pdiehm]

So if you have no nitrates, no phosphates (in my case no corals), how is it possible that Dino's can survive?

 

[jweist]

So if you have no nitrates, no phosphates (in my case no corals), how is it possible that Dino's can survive?

You don't have zero if they are growing... you need something to fight with them for the available nutrients.

 

[taricha]

"Zero" nutrients isn't zero. It's a small amount constantly going into the water column from biological processes, coupled with that small amount being taken up by other biological processes almost as soon as it enters.

In your case, dinos are doing the uptake maybe directly, or maybe through some bacterial friends of theirs.

 

[pdiehm]

You don't have zero if they are growing... you need something to fight with them for the available nutrients.

ok, it's been said you need to replace them with something, such as?

Essentially what I'm asking is, if you go into a low nutrient system, such as a zeovit, or prodibio, or whatever, the thinking is there's such low nutrients in the water, that "in theory" no nuisance algae can grow, let alone survive.

In zeovit for example, they say to remove the PO4 reactor, and take the refugium out because once the system takes hold, there's no nutrients to grow the macro-algae.

In the thread, I've seen you remove the dino's, but you need to replace them with something else, but haven't seen anyone say, these are what you can replace the dino's with?

Having said that, i looked on the reefcleaners website, and the fuzz growing on my rocks, may not have been dino's, but looks a lot like Calothrix. The stuff only grew on my rocks, looked very much like peach fuzz. Not once did it grow on the sand or substrate.

 

[jweist]

ok, it's been said you need to replace them with something, such as?

algae

Essentially what I'm asking is, if you go into a low nutrient system, such as a zeovit, or prodibio, or whatever, the thinking is there's such low nutrients in the water, that "in theory" no nuisance algae can grow, let alone survive.

Yeah, this is the problem. When we artificially take the nutrients out of the water we are starving the bottom of the food chain and it isn't able thrive. If you look at a trophic pyramid of the ocean, aglae and phyto are at the bottom and are the biggest portion of the model. In the conditions like your describing the model gets flipped upside down because proportionally you have very little algae compared to the top of the pyramid. We know that if dinos are growing then is safe to say you have some sort of nutrients in the water. Under low nutrient conditions (not zero) algae is not able to grow in the tank because light, flow, and attachment is not used to its full potential. When there is low nutrients and no algae anywhere in the system dinos are able to thrive like green hair algae in a high nutrient tank.

In the thread, I've seen you remove the dino's, but you need to replace them with something else, but haven't seen anyone say, these are what you can replace the dino's with?

I have, algae. I'm saying that in order to do this using the "clean method" you need to maximize the conditions that grow algae. These are light, flow, and attachment and without a scrubber this can not be done.

 

[koral_lover]

Lots of the above resonates with my experience. I dosed nitrates to drop my P, killed off my GHA and poof....dinos.

Blackouts and dino-cidal chemicals...
So you remove dinos. Great. What did you replace them with?
I think we need this as a slogan, to remove dinos you must first decide what to replace them with. We need something catchy in the form of a bumper sticker or kung fu proverb.
"In dinos, there is no remove. There is only replace." Hopefully someone else can do better.

Cyano is a no no. Dinos and cyano are BFFs and joined at the hip. It's not a candidate for replacing dinos.

Just throwing food in the tank does not automatically ensure you'll have elevated N and P. Quite often they are out of balance and one is elevated while the other is limiting factor for growth. Test and adjust.

It is not possible for me to test and adjust - Hanna and Nitrate readings always show 0. The dinos are taking them up too quickly to test and adjust. What should I throw in the tank to ensure I am achieving a balance in elevating both N and P appropriately to stimulate GHA? Is there an ideal food or amino acid? Btw - noticed a little bit of GHA growing on my powerhead today...how can I make it spread...hmmm

 

[jweist]

Here is what I did once I got my scrubber up and running. I took this advise directly from Floyd R Turbo on the algae scrubber site and I think he got it from Santa Monica originally. I only slightly deviate from this advise but all the main principles are followed. Many people have successfully used this method, some even more than once.

In my experience, it stays in the scrubber as long as you have surface skimming i.e. overflow in the display tank. There are many methods that are suggested to keep it under control, I know there are a few articles out there, here's a few from googling "dinoflagellates reef"

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/rhf/index.php

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog...ons-i-learned/

Most involve raising the pH to 8.4 (especially at night - scrubber can help this) but that can be difficult to do, so at least keep your alk high enough to maintain proper pH and run your scrubber lights all night if you can.

Many solutions mention cutting back the DT lights (even a 3-day total blackout in extreme cases, but this doesn't solve the root problem), but SM told me to do the opposite and it actually worked. I think the idea is that if you provide the coral a lot of light, they will consume the nutrients and starve out the dinos. Of course you need a lot of photosynthetic corals for that to work I would think. But cutting the lights out completely will generally cause more die-off which then feeds the dinos, so I guess I hate to go against the recommendations of Randy Holmes-Farley, but it seemed to work for me, so it's up to you.

Cut feeding drastically in any case, only feed a small amount right before lights out is what I did, and every other day or every 3 days if your fish can take it.

Basically you're keeping the fish alive and letting the corals and CUC (and scrubber) drain the nutrients out of the tank and starving out the dinos.

Keep the scrubber running, if they're still wanting to grow, they'll grow there and that's where to want them - where you can control them.

If you have a place for filter floss, a sock, or a pad, put that there too to keep the dinos from recirculating in the system, or to catch them if they detach from the scrubber. I had tons of dinos in my UAS until it started growing green, but very little signs of detachment. In the top-of-tank waterfall scrubber, I had much more detachment, most of which snagged on a block of bio-balls that I had set up as a bubble-blocker. So do what you have to do to trap them.

Also I take a piece of airline tubing and siphon off the dinos out of the DT when I see them. They come back pretty quick so this is something you need to stay on top of on a daily basis. Using this method and pinching the airline hose when not sucking the dinos I was able to only empty out about 1/4-1/2 gallon in a 120g system, and I had dinos everywhere. Also get all the dinos off the top surface in low-flow areas (if you have them)

The hardest coral to keep happy was my ORA Green Birdsnest, you can drop those things on the ground and step on them and they'll survive but dinos take them out because they're 'snaggy' - they are a dino magnet.

 

[Billybatz9]

One thing I have noticed is that dinos don't like coraline algae. I think I am going to start raising calcium and magnesium to start increasing my coraline growth. They don't attach to coraline rocks.

As for the other dinos... Does dosing mb7, dr tims one and only, and etc... help promoto biodiversity? Or do we need biodiversity from live rocks?

 

[bertoni]

If you want to add fixed nitrogen and phosphate to the water column, sodium nitrate and some form of sodium phosphate should be fine, if you get a food-grade mixture. Sodium nitrate can be a bit hard to find, but I think it's possible.

 

[nvladik]

Dyno scrubber update day 3. Don't see a single spot on rock or sand anymore.

Guys what should I aim for Phosphates? Got Nitrates now for sure as I miss dosed!

 

[karimwassef]

It's important to have facts before asserting opinions:

I added an ATS many many months after I had used UV and been dino-free and clear.

So.. I tried many things. Each worked a little.. Then I tried UV and it was a C change. It won the battle for me. The war was won when the dinos were knocked off balance and then the other approaches started to show benefit.

Each attack achieved something different.

As far as phyto, enough of it stays alive long enough and competes with any "pathogenic" elements... Then it becomes food. That's the plan.

As far as export: ATS is, by far, the best mechanism for export and nutrient control. It kicks in after a powerful skimmer and a healthy open surface sandbed. They are not in opposition... They're allies. Each can deliver a unique export capability.

I have almost no rocks on my 3' x 8' x 3" sandbed. That's my bacteria and detritus cleanup zone.

The monster skimmer removes organics

The scrubber and chaeto removes inorganics.

 

[jweist]

It's important to have facts before asserting opinions:I added an ATS many many months after I had used UV and been dino-free and clear.

Just going off of what you told me. "First UV, then wet skimming + carbon + new chaeto + new live rock + blackout + thousands of pods + phyto. Then I cranked up my feeding and installed an ATS..."

At the time you got rid of the dinos did you have any algae in your display tank?

Then I tried UV and it was a C change. It won the battle for me.

What do you mean by this?

As far as phyto, enough of it stays alive long enough and competes with any "pathogenic" elements... Then it becomes food. That's the plan.

If it's dying it's not competing with dinos it's just providing N & P for the bottom of the food chain. Dinos would eat this up if something else wasn't gobbling up these nutrients first.

As far as export: ATS is, by far, the best mechanism for export and nutrient control. It kicks in after a powerful skimmer and a healthy open surface sandbed. They are not in opposition... They're allies. Each can deliver a unique export capability.

I'm aware that they have different export capabilities. We need to focus on the things a skimmer can't touch, N & P. So even though a skimmer can help maintain low nutrients it can not physically lower either N or P.

I have almost no rocks on my 3' x 8' x 3" sandbed. That's my bacteria and detritus cleanup zone.

Bacteria grows everywhere.

The monster skimmer removes organics
The scrubber and chaeto removes inorganics.

Organics are food but not the kind of food dinos are using to grow... inorganics (N & P) are.

 

[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.

 

[karimwassef]

By the way, when I say thousands of pods... I mean it. I probably added close to 20,000 pods. At night, the rocks were nearly crawling with them. They were in everything. I'm sure the free floating babies were zapped but there were such large masses of pods that it was like a near inexhaustible source. As long as I fed phyto, they were all over.

I also added close to 200 glass shrimp. They're still in my tank, breeding.

I even got some massive pieces of live rock encrusted with huge rhodactis and sponges and life.

I created an explosion of life and diversity to compete constantly with the dinos while I was nuking them. I also expected that in the mix, there would be elements that would b predatory to the dinos.

 

[karimwassef]

http://youtu.be/q4XY7U4ddwo

 

[taricha]

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.

 

[jweist]

At that time, I had a chaeto mass that was growing, but as soon as the dinos came in, the chaeto started to die.

Couldn't this just mean you had too little nutrients in the water and then dinos were able to become the dominant species. Allowing any nutrients to be sucked up instantly by the dinos and because of this the chaeto had no food.

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.

Sand is not an export mechanism unless it's over 4 inches deep and then it would only be a nitrate export filter. Sand just has more surface area so proportionally there is more in that area but bacteria grow on every surface. The UV idea has merit but it in its self is not a fix at all. I do think that if your dinos go into the water column at night (mine don't) this can be a helpful tool but is not the addressing the root of the problem. The problem is you have dinos dominating the bottom of the food chain. There needs to be competition in the same section of the food chain. Meaning that something besides dinos need to be there to out compete them for the excess inorganics. In your case you had chaeto... the problem though is that most people come to find that dinos are tougher than chaeto, especially in ultra low nutrient environments like yours after dosing LaCI.

A C change means an immediate change into the opposite direction.

So does C stand for complete or carbon?

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.

What makes you assume your corals are the ones eating it? If something eats the phyto then they poop creating N & P. Any addition of food will break down into N & P eventually if it's not sucked out by mechanical filtration. It's about having other things in the tank besides the dinos competing for this food.

Dinos are like an alien alternative to the normal algae based food chain.

No there not... they are in the same category as phyto, diatoms and algae. Just because they grow fast and can thrive under low nutrient conditions doesn't make them some alien species.

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.

Like I said, I think a UV can has value but is not the not the cure itself. And if your dinos don't go into the water column then it useless at best and counterproductive a worst.

 

[DNA]

Apologies for long post,

Seeing white sandbed for a whole day is a wonderful feeling.

I've had enough Chetomorpha in the tank to fill two stuffed shopping bags, but it didn't have any impact.
A few times the thought has occurred to me to move it to the display, but looking at the dinos that migrate every night to the sump changed my mind.
Scientists working in the field have often mentioned the dinos hanging on to algae, but I've never witnessed that.

One could speculate the rise in Nitrates and Phosphates could be the effect rather than the cause of the dinos crashing and this instant signs of better tank health is something I've witnessed several times and reported in this thread.

You had some success here, but as usual it's difficult to explain and somehow, no matter what methods are used dinos will find a way to show up soon after.

 

[karimwassef]

Couldn't this just mean you had too little nutrients in the water and then dinos were able to become the dominant species. Allowing any nutrients to be sucked up instantly by the dinos and because of this the chaeto had no food.
Sand is not an export mechanism unless it's over 4 inches deep and then it would only be a nitrate export filter. Sand just has more surface area so proportionally there is more in that area but bacteria grow on every surface. The UV idea has merit but it in its self is not a fix at all. I do think that if your dinos go into the water column at night (mine don't) this can be a helpful tool but is not the addressing the root of the problem. The problem is you have dinos dominating the bottom of the food chain. There needs to be competition in the same section of the food chain. Meaning that something besides dinos need to be there to out compete them for the excess inorganics. In your case you had chaeto... the problem though is that most people come to find that dinos are tougher than chaeto, especially in ultra low nutrient environments like yours after dosing LaCI.
So does C stand for complete or carbon?
What makes you assume your corals are the ones eating it? If something eats the phyto then they poop creating N & P. Any addition of food will break down into N & P eventually if it's not sucked out by mechanical filtration. It's about having other things in the tank besides the dinos competing for this food.
No there not... they are in the same category as phyto, diatoms and algae. Just because they grow fast and can thrive under low nutrient conditions doesn't make them some alien species.
Like I said, I think a UV can has value but is not the not the cure itself. And if your dinos don't go into the water column then it useless at best and counterproductive a worst.

Chaeto died when dinos came in.
Others with ATS had the ATS die when dinos came in.
Dinos can thrive at lower nutrient levels that either. So, when the ATS cannot survive, it dies and the decomposition quickly feeds the dinos. That is simple enough. The cure, then, is to raise the level of nutrients to where the ATS or chaeto can begin to fight back by consuming the nutrients. Unfortunately, you could also just be feeding the dinos. In my case, the UV stopped that. The non-free floating algae started to feed and the dinos died.

Sand is key to the nitrogen cycle, ammonia-nitrite-nitrate-N2 gas... etc... I have a lot of sand in dedicated containers in my sump. Each is over 4" thick and they're stacked. It is a nitrogen machine... nitrogen escapes = export.

Sand is also in my sand bed. The detritus eaters consume animal waste that would become rank in the tank. Their waste is smaller and easier to extract with flow. That's where the skimmer picks it up... export again.

Hair algae is competition for dinos. Chaeto too. The trick is to raise the N and P level up to where those competitors have a fighting chance while knocking the dinos down.

C change = "sea change" = we have come to refer to a sea change as being a profound transformation caused by any agency
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-sea1.htm

Everything in my tank eats everything. My corals eat, my worms and pods eat, my phyto eats... who cares as long as I provide a source of food? If it serves a purpose beforehand, so much the better. I feed 4 leaves of Kale, 4 sheets of Nori, 2 raw shrimp, 2 cubes of mysis, 3 cubes of cyclopese, reef roids and reef chilli along with 60ml of phyto and 60ml of restor + selcon + garlic X... with NO algae and corals growing so fast I have to give them away.

Alien species is meant to explain that they're incompatible with the other food chain... that begins with normal algae. They are not algae.

If your dinos don't go into the water column, then the UV is ineffective. Mine did and UV was the most significant critical tool to getting rid of them.

 

[jweist]

Chetomorpha.....didn't have any impact.

I'm trying to come up with reasons why algae outcompetes dinos so well and why so much chaeto does nothing...
The first thing I'm thinking is that GHA prefers urea/ammonia much more than nitrate. I don't know the dinos uptake of ammonia compared to nitrate is but maybe the GHA can outcompete dinos because it gets the first grab.
The second thing is that the GHA might be putting chemicals in the water to hinder the growth of other species at the bottom of the food chain in order to keep themselves the dominant species in the system. These chemicals might work on the dinos too.
The last thing I can think of and I've said it before is that GHA grown on a scrubber screen maximizes the conditions for growing GHA. These conditions are not as favorable to the dinos and the algae wins.
I think it could be a combination of all these things and probably something else I can't think of right now too.

no matter what methods are used dinos will find a way to show up soon after.

What makes you think this? I have no signs of dinos in my system.