A red tide organism, Amphidinium carterae was incubated under different iron/chelator and nitrate concentrations to investigate the factors controlling the growth. The chelation capacity played a critical role in regulating the nitrate reductase (NR) activity and in vivo fluorescence of this organism. However, there was a significant difference between the NR activity and in vivo fluorescence in response to trace metals and chelator treatments. In vivo fluorescence was the highest in FeEDTA 10 ${mu}$M treatments and the lowest in DTPA 10 ${mu}$M treatments. This indicates that the availability of the trace metal is important in regulating the in vivo fluorescence of this photosynthetic microalgae In contrast, NR activity showed the highest values in trace metal enriched treatments, and trace metal + DTPA treatments showed fairly high NR activities. This suggests that DTPA treatment did not hinder the NR activity as much as it did in vivo fluorescence. In vivo fluorescence and NR activity increased with nitrate concentration of up to 50 ${mu}$M and remained relatively constant or the rate of increase decreased above that concentration, indicating that initial nitrate concentration of higher than a certain level would not accelerate the growth of A. carterae. Further investigation is needed to elucidate the reason for the difference in timing sequence between the NR and in vivo fluorescence in response to different metal treatments and chelation capacity.