Carbon Dosing with Vinegar - Questions about Nutrient Export

[apb03]

For the past month or so I've been working on stabilizing my nutrients. My 9-month-old tank is admittedly quite overstocked, and I also feed quite heavily, so keeping nutrients in check has been a bit of a challenge. Nitrate particularly has been difficult to bring to a more manageable level. I currently sit at 50 ppm and perform weekly 15-20% water changes to keep it there. My Phosphates have been stable for a couple of weeks since introducing PhosGuard at 0.15, which I'm mostly happy with. I also run a refugium, although my Chaeto doesn't grow as well as I had hoped.

So with all of that above, I decided to implement Carbon dosing to reduce/stabilize my nitrates without having to do such heavy water changes. I am not as much concerned with a specific number, but more want to ensure whatever that number is, that it stays relatively stable.

So far I'm dosing 35ml of Vinegar per day spread out across two hours from lights on at 10 am until about 12 pm and increasing it by about 5ml per week and testing daily to track any trends. So far I haven't noticed much change in my Nitrates, although my corals are extremely happy.

While Vinegar is being added to my system, my skimmer level immediately begins to rise and continues until the Vinegar dosing is complete, resulting in an extremely wet (almost clear) skimmate. This leads me to wonder whether or not I should be turning my skimmer off and allowing the bacteria to consume the Vinegar or is this an indication that the Skimmer is picking up that bacteria right away?

I'm curious about this as I want to make sure I'm exporting the bacteria correctly and not adding more Vinegar to the system unnecessarily. Would love to hear from some experienced folks in this area to know if what I'm observing is expected.

 

[Dan_P]

For the past month or so I've been working on stabilizing my nutrients. My 9-month-old tank is admittedly quite overstocked, and I also feed quite heavily, so keeping nutrients in check has been a bit of a challenge. Nitrate particularly has been difficult to bring to a more manageable level. I currently sit at 50 ppm and perform weekly 15-20% water changes to keep it there. My Phosphates have been stable for a couple of weeks since introducing PhosGuard at 0.15, which I'm mostly happy with. I also run a refugium, although my Chaeto doesn't grow as well as I had hoped.

So with all of that above, I decided to implement Carbon dosing to reduce/stabilize my nitrates without having to do such heavy water changes. I am not as much concerned with a specific number, but more want to ensure whatever that number is, that it stays relatively stable.

So far I'm dosing 35ml of Vinegar per day spread out across two hours from lights on at 10 am until about 12 pm and increasing it by about 5ml per week and testing daily to track any trends. So far I haven't noticed much change in my Nitrates, although my corals are extremely happy.

While Vinegar is being added to my system, my skimmer level immediately begins to rise and continues until the Vinegar dosing is complete, resulting in an extremely wet (almost clear) skimmate. This leads me to wonder whether or not I should be turning my skimmer off and allowing the bacteria to consume the Vinegar or is this an indication that the Skimmer is picking up that bacteria right away?

I'm curious about this as I want to make sure I'm exporting the bacteria correctly and not adding more Vinegar to the system unnecessarily. Would love to hear from some experienced folks in this area to know if what I'm observing is expected.

1 mL vinegar per gallon can be considered a goal to shoot for. Typically this when bacteria slime becomes visible and nitrate reduction can happen quickly. Not always though. Phosphate depletion might be one reason, maybe a trace element is depleted also. It seems that the nitrate is consumed by surface bacteria. If this is correct, skimming will not remove bacteria. Current wisdom is to leave the skimmer on full time to aerate the system and remove any floating bacteria.

 

[apb03]

1 mL vinegar per gallon can be considered a goal to shoot for. Typically this when bacteria slime becomes visible and nitrate reduction can happen quickly. Not always though. Phosphate depletion might be one reason, maybe a trace element is depleted also. It seems that the nitrate is consumed by surface bacteria. If this is correct, skimming will not remove bacteria. Current wisdom is to leave the skimmer on full time to aerate the system and remove any floating bacteria.

Thank you for the reply, that helps me a lot to understand what to expect. Good to know that 1ml/gallon is the target. At 35ml I'm still a ways off, my total volume is around 130 gallons. Should I dose over the entire photoperiod and lower my skimmer level so that it doesn't overflow while dosing?

 

[Dan_P]

Thank you for the reply, that helps me a lot to understand what to expect. Good to know that 1ml/gallon is the target. At 35ml I'm still a ways off, my total volume is around 130 gallons. Should I dose over the entire photoperiod and lower my skimmer level so that it doesn't overflow while dosing?

When I was dosing vinegar, I dosed over the entire day. There seems to be something in vinegar that can cause a skimmer to foam excessively. Because I spread the dose over the entire day I did not have this problem.

I had a thought recently about the lag time between dosing and nitrate reduction. I was thinking that early in the dosing period, the nitrate production rate in the aquarium exceeds the the nitrate removal rate from carbon dosing and nothing seems to be happening. To achieve nitrate reduction, the bacteria population has to be large enough to consume the nitrate that has accumulated and the nitrate that is being produced. Another idea to keep in mind is that the bacteria might be consuming the ammonia before it is converted to nitrate, but the net result is the same In terms of whether the nitrate concentration is steady or declining. This model also predicts that bacteria population growth slows and reaches a limit ( a kind of carrying capacity) for every dose increase. Ramping up the dose too slowly just delays increasing the bacteria population and nitrate reduction. What’s lacking in this idea is figuring out how fast to raise the dose. I arbitrarily increased it every 3 days and watched the live stock for irritation. I am interested to hear when you finally get to the nitrate reduction point in dosing.

 

[apb03]

That's a great insight, I hadn't thought of the fact that you want the bacteria to outpace production to obtain the surface film, I'll document when this slime appears as I ramp up. I do recall when I tried Bacto Balance earlier that a clear slime appeared in my sump, but didn't know why at the time. I thought it was due to some environmental issue in the house, but this makes a ton of sense.

I'll update the thread once I find that number. I've switched to dosing during the entire photoperiod too, cleaning out my skimmer twice a day is getting really old.

 

[Miami Reef]

Your corals can directly consume the acetate for energy, so it’s another reason to dose vinegar as the carbon source.

 

[apb03]

Your corals can directly consume the acetate for energy, so it’s another reason to dose vinegar as the carbon source.

I wasn't aware of that, glad I went with Vinegar. I mostly chose it because I liked the simplicity, but that's a nice side benefit. I could do without the pH drop, but since Summer is on the way out, that's less of a concern for me since I can leave a window open most of the time.

When dosing 35ml over a 2 hour period, I would see a modest but notable .1 pH drop.

 

[Dan_P]

That's a great insight, I hadn't thought of the fact that you want the bacteria to outpace production to obtain the surface film, I'll document when this slime appears as I ramp up. I do recall when I tried Bacto Balance earlier that a clear slime appeared in my sump, but didn't know why at the time. I thought it was due to some environmental issue in the house, but this makes a ton of sense.

I'll update the thread once I find that number. I've switched to dosing during the entire photoperiod too, cleaning out my skimmer twice a day is getting really old.

Can you run a drain line from the skimmer to a bucket?

 

[apb03]

Can you run a drain line from the skimmer to a bucket?

Yep I could definitely do that. I have a hose on standby if the need arises. I generally get a full cup and then the skimmer calms down after that. Definitely was thinking "Am I just skimming out the Vinegar?"

 

[Miami Reef]

I could do without the pH drop, but since Summer is on the way out, that's less of a concern for me since I can leave a window open most of the time.

All organic carbon dosing will lower pH the same amount. Vinegar just front-loads it upon addition, while ethanol will lower it slower and later as organisms consume it. But the CO2 addition is the same: ethanol is about 8 times more potent, so you’ll need 8x less ethanol than vinegar.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

What sort of vinegar are you using? Acetic acid itself won’t cause a skimmer change, so it may be from something else in it.

Cheap distilled white vinegar is usually a good choice.

 

[Miami Reef]

What sort of vinegar are you using? Acetic acid itself won’t cause a skimmer change, so it may be from something else in it.

Cheap distilled white vinegar is usually a good choice.

My skimmer never changed with vinegar additions. I was puzzled with their observations.

 

[apb03]

What sort of vinegar are you using? Acetic acid itself won’t cause a skimmer change, so it may be from something else in it.

Cheap distilled white vinegar is usually a good choice.

I'm using this one, Allen's white vinegar.

Maybe this product has some additives? It is quite strange but I can say for certain that my skimmer only reacts during the dosing window. It runs normally otherwise. Tomorrow the dose will extended over 10hrs rather than 2, so I'm hoping that I won't see as much impact.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I recommend distilled while vinegar. This one is filtered, not distilled. That may or may not be the reason you detect a skimmer change, but it is easy enough to try distilled white vinegar.

White vs distilled vinegar - Sweet Living Magazine

White and distilled are types of vinegar. They differ fundamentally in their acetic acid content. So which one should you use for what?

www.sweetlivingmagazine.co.nz

Most people agree that the basic difference would be the level of purity. Simply put, distilled vinegar has been purified more than white vinegar.

 

[apb03]

Thank you, Randy. This is a major oversight on my part, I had assumed incorrectly that all white vinegar was distilled. Oddly enough around here in Canada, distilled isn't as readily available. I'll track some down and swap out.

 

[dpfriedman]

For the past month or so I've been working on stabilizing my nutrients. My 9-month-old tank is admittedly quite overstocked, and I also feed quite heavily, so keeping nutrients in check has been a bit of a challenge. Nitrate particularly has been difficult to bring to a more manageable level. I currently sit at 50 ppm and perform weekly 15-20% water changes to keep it there. My Phosphates have been stable for a couple of weeks since introducing PhosGuard at 0.15, which I'm mostly happy with. I also run a refugium, although my Chaeto doesn't grow as well as I had hoped.

So with all of that above, I decided to implement Carbon dosing to reduce/stabilize my nitrates without having to do such heavy water changes. I am not as much concerned with a specific number, but more want to ensure whatever that number is, that it stays relatively stable.

So far I'm dosing 35ml of Vinegar per day spread out across two hours from lights on at 10 am until about 12 pm and increasing it by about 5ml per week and testing daily to track any trends. So far I haven't noticed much change in my Nitrates, although my corals are extremely happy.

While Vinegar is being added to my system, my skimmer level immediately begins to rise and continues until the Vinegar dosing is complete, resulting in an extremely wet (almost clear) skimmate. This leads me to wonder whether or not I should be turning my skimmer off and allowing the bacteria to consume the Vinegar or is this an indication that the Skimmer is picking up that bacteria right away?

I'm curious about this as I want to make sure I'm exporting the bacteria correctly and not adding more Vinegar to the system unnecessarily. Would love to hear from some experienced folks in this area to know if what I'm observing is expected.

I make my own NoPox and dose once daily to keep mine in check.

DIY NoPo-x

How to make 1 liter

500 mls 5% vinegar

375 mls vodka (80 proof)

125 mls RO/DI

It depends on your nitrate levels....and I simply use the NOPOX instructions as far as dosing:

Measured Level (ppm) -Daily Dose ml/per 25 gal

NO3 above 10 -3ml per 25g

NO3 2.5 to 10 -2ml per 25g

NO3 > 1 to 2.5 -1ml per 25g

Note that NOPOX is carbon dosing and you need to have both nitrates and phosphates for it to work...and a skimmer to remove growing bacteria that multiply from consuming the NOPOX.

 

[apb03]

I make my own NoPox and dose once daily to keep mine in check.

DIY NoPo-x

How to make 1 liter

500 mls 5% vinegar

375 mls vodka (80 proof)

125 mls RO/DI

It depends on your nitrate levels....and I simply use the NOPOX instructions as far as dosing:

Measured Level (ppm) -Daily Dose ml/per 25 gal

NO3 above 10 -3ml per 25g

NO3 2.5 to 10 -2ml per 25g

NO3 > 1 to 2.5 -1ml per 25g

Note that NOPOX is carbon dosing and you need to have both nitrates and phosphates for it to work...and a skimmer to remove growing bacteria that multiply from consuming the NOPOX.

Thanks for sharing this recipe. I was considering perhaps adding Vodka, and good to have a defined plan to follow.

 

[JUSKIDN]

What is the importance of dosing with the vinegar in the daytime? Why wouldn’t a smaller dosage at different intervals spread out over 24 hours seem more productive ?

 

[Miami Reef]

What is the importance of dosing with the vinegar in the daytime? Why wouldn’t a smaller dosage at different intervals spread out over 24 hours seem more productive ?

Vinegar, as well as other carbon dosing, will lower pH and oxygen. Dosing at night, when pH and O2 are naturally already at their lowest, will suppress it more.

Bacteria don’t need to eat 24/7. It makes sense to only dose it during the daylight hours when oxygen and pH are at their highest.

 

[Belgian Anthias]

For the past month or so I've been working on stabilizing my nutrients. My 9-month-old tank is admittedly quite overstocked, and I also feed quite heavily, so keeping nutrients in check has been a bit of a challenge. Nitrate particularly has been difficult to bring to a more manageable level. I currently sit at 50 ppm and perform weekly 15-20% water changes to keep it there. My Phosphates have been stable for a couple of weeks since introducing PhosGuard at 0.15, which I'm mostly happy with. I also run a refugium, although my Chaeto doesn't grow as well as I had hoped.

So with all of that above, I decided to implement Carbon dosing to reduce/stabilize my nitrates without having to do such heavy water changes. I am not as much concerned with a specific number, but more want to ensure whatever that number is, that it stays relatively stable.

So far I'm dosing 35ml of Vinegar per day spread out across two hours from lights on at 10 am until about 12 pm and increasing it by about 5ml per week and testing daily to track any trends. So far I haven't noticed much change in my Nitrates, although my corals are extremely happy.

While Vinegar is being added to my system, my skimmer level immediately begins to rise and continues until the Vinegar dosing is complete, resulting in an extremely wet (almost clear) skimmate. This leads me to wonder whether or not I should be turning my skimmer off and allowing the bacteria to consume the Vinegar or is this an indication that the Skimmer is picking up that bacteria right away?

I'm curious about this as I want to make sure I'm exporting the bacteria correctly and not adding more Vinegar to the system unnecessarily. Would love to hear from some experienced folks in this area to know if what I'm observing is expected.