Dinoflagellates.
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Kurt03
Active member
You can try overfeeding but I had to dose no3/po4
trmiv
Active member
What about this 24w internal? http://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcos...e-internal-uv-sterilizer-with-power-head-24w#
Would be nice to avoid any more plumbing. I'd love to have it right in the display since that's where all these little buggers tend to hang out.
Would be nice to avoid any more plumbing. I'd love to have it right in the display since that's where all these little buggers tend to hang out.
I suspect if we asked careful questions about people's UV application we'd find that in-tank UV is much more successful. It seems like the number/frequency of dinos passing through in-tank would be much bigger.
Regarding heat, running night-early morning only might be an option.
I'd guess (can't prove) that in-tank at night only would still be more effective than in sump 24/7.
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Regarding heat, running night-early morning only might be an option.
I'd guess (can't prove) that in-tank at night only would still be more effective than in sump 24/7.
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karimwassef
Active member
depends on your loop flow. If you have a 10 gallon tank and run 1000 gph... doesn't matter where your UV is.
I have a 380 and my loop is 6000gph.. with 4 powerheads generating 5000gph pulse flows all over... not quite as extreme, but still high enough that my sump and tank water are reasonably well mixed.
I have a 380 and my loop is 6000gph.. with 4 powerheads generating 5000gph pulse flows all over... not quite as extreme, but still high enough that my sump and tank water are reasonably well mixed.
...if the flow is high enough that concentration of dinos in the water column is evenly mixed between sump and tank, then why don't people's skimmers just solve the problem? dinos are terrible swimmers and live covered in mucus, how can they avoid being skimmed?
If UV is knocking back population of dinos that skimming isn't, I assumed it was because UV gets in the tank, and sees more dinos.
nah, he means add N (and maybe P) in some chemical form like KNO3. To grow algae, it didn't really take off with just heavy feeding for me either. I also added KNO3 and some high P liquid miracle grow fertilizer.
It seems like there's a lag of several weeks between heavy feeding and algae growth. I wonder if we could skip all that by going straight to dosing N + P and skipping dumping tons of food in the tank.
Mostly all the heavy feeding grew for me was an army of horrifying bristleworms.
karimwassef
Active member
Both the skimmer and UV were in the loop, not tank. Don't know why UV drove them into the skimmer. I assumed it cut their critical mass back that slowed their ability to reproduce. Otherwise, reproduction exceeds export.
jason2459
Well-known member
Skimmers are not very efficient mechanical filters. They will only remove what can attach to a bubble and still wont remove all of in a tank. GAC is much more efficient and a micron or diatom filter even more so.
Skimmers are great at aeration which I use to my benefit and I don't like heavy mechanical filtration.
Kurt03
Active member
Yep, kno3 and neophos from bright well but anything should work
When I had this problem a couple years it almost made me quit the hobby. I had to tear down the whole tank and start from scratch. I find it incredible in that short period of time it looks like there is a solution to the problem. Looks like UV and Fluconozole together are quite effective. If I get them again, i'll be sure to try that.
UV doesn't leak into the tank. That would be dangerous to the animals, and to the people when handling the unit.
Skimming is best at removing amphipathic compounds:
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-08/rhf/index.php
Dinoflagellates are too large to be taken up reliably by a skimmer. It's more like trying to skim a fish than trying to skim a single protein molecule, from the point of view of size, in some sense. Some might go into the skimmate, but dinoflagellates are highly mobile.
Yeah, that was really sloppy writing by me. Thanks for cleaning it up. I meant lots of people run UV in-tank, while very few run skimmer in-tank.
Good points and info all about why skimmers don't get enough dinos to make a dent.
Jason, wanted to pick your brain on something I thought I remembered you saying. When most people beat dinos and prevent them from taking over again, it's usually by finding a new more algae-involved equillibrium (some might say "dirtier").
I think in a previous discussion you said you've managed to keep dinos in check, and cause and end blooms at will - while running a pretty clean, low-ish nutrient system. Am I remembering right? and if so would you talk about your clean tank equillibrium that keeps dinos from taking over.
The only other low-nutrient system I can think of that had dinos present but never in bloom was a guy who ran peroxide on auto-doser every hour.
