← Glossary · 💧 Water & chemistry

Dinoflagellates

Also called: dinos

Dinoflagellates ("dinos") are a slimy, stringy, often brown pest microorganism — frequently toxic to snails and corals — that blooms when nutrients are stripped too low.

Dinos are the classic penalty for chasing zero nitrate and phosphate. The counter-intuitive fix is usually to raise nutrients back into a healthy low-but-not-zero range, plus flow, UV and competition from other life.

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