One fish... almost doubled vinegar dose?!

RacingTiger03

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Is this possible? I went from 23ml dose for my tank, to now at 38 (just upped today from 35 that was CLOSE to balancing things out) in a week after adding a new fish to my display! It's a candied hogfish.. so apparently a pretty dirty guy? I was just amazed and didn't realize one fish could require that much upping to compete nitrates out. It never got over 0, but I was getting brown/green film algae I hate trying to "measure" nitrates, lol.


Also the cyano problem from after the move is long gone with upped flow and a good cleaning this weekend! :) Never stopped off on vinegar dosing, so no co-relation :D
 
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RacingTiger03

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only very slightly randy. I did initially feed more and heavier (shrimp pellets chopped up for the little guy) because he was a bit skinny when I got him. Now he's in the DT with the normal amount of food + 2 extra cyclopeeze pellets than I had been feeding. Granted now every pellet appears to be getting eating vs a few making it to the bottom before. He loves to chew up, spit out, and re-eat. I dunno if this has anything to do with it... but I also cut down how much I was feeding the coral since adding him to let the tank adjust a bit more slowly. Upon getting to 35ML I started getting a white film on the glass, I'm hoping 38 is the balance, but we'll see in a few days time on that I suppose.
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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Hard to say. I didn't reduce mine, but I also didn't arrive at it by nitrate testing.

Not wanting to go too low would suggest the halving plan is a good idea.
 

mike007

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Randy I have been dosing vinegar on my new tank as per your recommendations now for 2 months. I am still having some green hair algae and some of it is turning a brownish color. I have noticed the brownish stuff is starting to grow on power heads etc. What might be the issue?
 
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RacingTiger03

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dosing into the DT mike? Mine did the same thing. I picked up a pack of astrea snails and they cleaned it all up in short order. Moved over to the 55, not a trace of brown in site, and coralline is starting to take a rather strong hold. Already my snails are purple, the hermit's shells, and some of the dry rock is starting to color up :). You have to remove the dying algae, or you're introducing more nitrates back into the system that way. Ideally the vinegar boosted bacteria will eat up that nitrate as it comes free faster than the algae can. I ran into a slight problem seeing hair algae starting to form in my 55 after adding the hogfish and thus upped the dose. Much like randy I base my movements more on how the tank re-acts.. but I test as well just to confirm as I'm no chemistry expert (I've ALWAYS found N and P tests to be a waste personally. even when my tanks have been covered in algae tests always returned ~0 for me.), and haven't been doing this a very long time :). Much easier to determine nutrient levels by bacterial/algal blooms and growths IMO. dKH on the other hand.. I test rather often, LOL.

I think rather than halving the new dose (38 appears to be perfect) I'm going back to 28 as my base after a week or so. Thats 5ML above my maintenance dose before adding the hogfish, so I think that's a proper level to account for feeding the coral regularly again + the new fish and his waste :)
 
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Randy Holmes-Farley

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Randy I have been dosing vinegar on my new tank as per your recommendations now for 2 months. I am still having some green hair algae and some of it is turning a brownish color. I have noticed the brownish stuff is starting to grow on power heads etc. What might be the issue?

I'm not sure what it is (cyano, turf algae, etc.), but vinegar even at very high doses did not deter algae growth on my glass.
 

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