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Yeah. Apologies for being unclear. I Absolutely think it does work - by which I mean the final results will be in line with most people's expectations: bacterial growth, consumption of nutrients, maybe local nitrogen stores depleted and nuisances growth less prominent. But it's the mechanism for HOW that is not what people expect.Really curious.......had a bad case of dinoflagellates. On Reefdudes youtube there was a protocol to follow that was very specific that involved Dr. Tim's and ATM, plus vodka dosing and some hydrogen peroxide. Worked perfectly....... so it really makes this so confusing. It works, it doesn't work and everyone is clueless. But the tests above was great to see and much appreciated.....
I tested this same protocol you mentioned and made a thread to try to dissect it and analyze if and why it works (to figure out what tricks can be portable to other treatment protocols.)
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/analyzing-a-bacterial-method-for-dinoflagellates-and-cyano.635165/
That's what Dan was referencing here...
And the answer is yes, there is a re-interpretation that makes sense in light of what's been said here. Put these two threads together and my conclusion is this:I believe all this started with your investigation of a substrate cleaning protocol. Does this protocol which is based on WasteAway and carbon dosing need a reinterpretation in light of these findings?
The way the bacterial method works is to add huge carbon dose of multiple types (vodka+WA).
Bacteria (that are already in the aquarium system) multiply rapidly and consume N and P to go along with their C uptake.
Much of this Carbon consumption happens at the substrate, and therefore large quantities of nutrients (especially N) in the substrate get consumed by the bacterial bloom.
[In addition to the nutrients, there is likely a low O2 effect that also disrupts the nuisances at the substrate. You can aerate water, but massive consumption of organics at the sand surface layers will push moderate oxygen layers low, and push low O2 layers toward anoxic conditions. And yes, though dinos make a lot of oxygen in the day, low oxygen levels at night probably affect them negatively.]
I believe that the nitrogen stores in the substrate that drive nuisance growth are consumed by bacteria that are exported, and are denitrified out of the system, and changed in form away from the preferable types for nuisances, and simply redistributed elsewhere in the tank by bacterial uptake and activity.
That last sentence hasn't been demonstrated yet...