Question to Randy Holmes No3 issue

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Randy would kalkwasser dissolve in 1.025 salt water. Could it be a useful method to recirculate aquarium water through a vessel/canister containing kalk and slowly dripping it in a sump? Perhaps,mixing periodically and allowing to settle? Kind of like a calcium reactor uses recirculated aquarium water. Is this possible?

No, if you mix it into seawater you get a mess of precipitated calcium carbonate and magnesium hydroxide.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

First, have you used this kit on some new salt water to confirm it reads low levels OK?

What type if water do you use for top off?

How long did you dose the vodka?

 

[Volpone]

Yes , i test the fresh salt mix and po4 and no3 zero.
Im using RO/di water and tds zero.
I used for for almost amonth and that what i get on my back glass when i stop vodka dosing .

 

[tigerdragon]

If that appears when you stop vodka dosing i would say thats an algae bloom not precip. Precip would like a snowstorm in your tank

 

[Volpone]

No I get this while I'm dosing vodka

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

A month isn't very long.

Where in the system were you dosing?

 

[Volpone]

I was dosing vodka in sump , if that what u mean .i know it's not long time when I decide to stop vodka dosing , but it was almost crushing the system when I see all the algea and cyano outbreak during vodka dosing . It wasn't good experience with vodka dose and I know I did mistake when I stop it immediately I think it should go for half of that dose and continue .

 

[Volpone]

I try to do most of the advice of an expert reefers , and I get so funny advice that light cause nitrate ,or I have to change the plumping and PVC ,I have to restart the system again and start new cycle to solve this problem . But till now I don't figure out what cause nitrate in my system with all this trick I tried .
I get doubt that my falling hair of my cat maybe cause that :xd: or because I'm smoker really it's so annoyed . And my reefer friends call mr Dr nitrate and most of lfs know that name lol

 

[Volpone]

Also what i know if i have brown algea on glass that mean there is po4 in my tank , so this pic in my sump and the brown algea start to cover cheato also , and i notice cheato start to stop growing probably not same before .

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

The cause of nitrate is nearly always more nitrogen in via food relative to the export. So unless you want to change feeding, increasing export somehow seems in order. There are many ways.

 

[Dan1789]

What negative effects are you having fro nitrates? Do you have a massive algae problem? Corals declining? If not don't worry about it lol. Good luck.

 

[Volpone]

The cause of nitrate is nearly always more nitrogen in via food relative to the export. So unless you want to change feeding, increasing export somehow seems in order. There are many ways.

Thx Randy , but i want to figure out why any of this method work with my tank , so if we say that bp need to tune it very carefully and im using very famous brand ehich succeed with alot ecobak plus .and other methods dont leave any difference in my tank , i tried no3 po4 x from red sea and finished 1000 ml bottle with no effect and i go full dose which is 12 ml every day .
And my bio filtration is super good im using more than 80 kilo good quality live rock +filter socks +over rated skimmer up to 200 galon heavy stock and my tank 100 galon .
Refugium as i sent in pic with micro algea and my fishes not that heavy load for 100 galon .and i think still the feeding is normal as i feed only 2 cubes frozen food per day .

 

[Volpone]

What negative effects are you having fro nitrates? Do you have a massive algae problem? Corals declining? If not don't worry about it lol. Good luck.

Its true i dont have any massive algea problem expect brown algea on glass which is standard for any tank and easly remove .second yes i get some declining coral like zoa melting and brain coral lost skin but now recover again and i notice slow growing and color feed away for sps but really its annoyed and im in battke field with nitrate and wanna win

 

[Volpone]

So lets say nothing work with nitrate because i have zero po4 , how suppose i increase it if any know any method to do that because that product from seachem phosphorus floursh do nothing till now and im dosing 10 ml daily .

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I don't know if you phosphate is low enough to limit bacterial growth, but it is easy to test by adding some while you are organic carbon dosing.

 

[Volpone]

I have good news guys , finally my po4 is reading 0.07

 

[Volpone]

And here is the no3 test yesterday morning, so really i cant read it well is it 10 ppm or more ?

 

[Volpone]

Here is the pic again for no3 test

 

[saltyhog]

Yes , i test the fresh salt mix and po4 and no3 zero.
Im using RO/di water and tds zero.
I used for for almost amonth and that what i get on my back glass when i stop vodka dosing .

That looks like a bacterial bloom in the picture of your tank after vodka dosing. If so phosphorous certainly wasn't limiting your bacterial growth. I would have reduced the carbon dosing and continued. One month is not nearly long enough to impact nitrates .....at least it wasn't for me. Took twice that before it started to decrease.

 

[UK_Pete]

That ratio of nitrate to phosphate is good, normally you expect to see about 16 times more nitrate than phosphate very roughly. So you are about right. If you add organic carbon like vodka to your water now, the bacteria will be able to use the carbon, plus the nitrate and phosphate in your tank, to build biomass out of the nutrients. Biomass is skimmed or removed with GAC, and hey presto your nutrients go down.

Either read one of the vodka articles, or if you don't want to (many of them are a bit flawed IMO), I would suggest a dosing schedule something like this. Start with 0.2 ml vodka for 4 days, then double it to 0.4 ml for 4 days, then double it to 0.8 ml for another 4 days, then double it to 1.6 ml for 4 days, then double it to 3.2 ml for 4 days, and stick with that for say 3 weeks, and see if your nutrients change. If you get no drop in nutrients with 3.2 ml for 3 weeks then come back here to discuss going a bit more heavy on the vodka.

Very little will happen until you are dosing at least a couple of ml of vodka a day probably. If you want to be more aggressive you can add a final 'doubling' to the above, so rather than sticking with 3.2 ml, raise it to 6.4 ml for the 3 week period. If you want to be very careful, instead of using 4 days between changes to the schedule, leave it 5 or 6 days, or even 7 if you want. The slower you go the longer it will take to get nutrients down but the more safe you are taking it.

Thing with vodka dosing is you should take it easy at first but once your bacteria have built up to a few billion in the tank, which takes maybe a week or two, then the bacterial population rapidly increases if you increase food (vodka). If you rip your nutrients down too quick you might annoy sensitive SPS so test all the time and get a feel for how your tank is responding.

Its hard for generalised advise about vodka dosing because different tanks will have different amounts of nutrients in the sand bed - one tank might have clean sand or no sand, so not need much vodka, another tank might be heavily fed and have a sand bed which is constantly leaching high levels of nitrate (IE an old sand bed), so this tank will need more vodka to start seeing nutrients come down.

The most important thing though is to understand you are feeding a biological system which has to grow from a seed. You will see absolutely nothing at first. It will take at least 2 or 3 weeks to start to see an effect on nutrients probably, maybe longer but I doubt it (I think the people who report longer are taking the later stages of increasing the dose too slow personally). If you go too fast you will make the pH in your tank drop, the oxygen drop, and that will annoy your tank occupants, maybe kill them. This is to some degree the long haul, you have to be committed to it, its very easy but patience and trust that it will work is essential. Sounds like you have tended to flit around with different things expecting instant effects, vodka dosing is not suitable for that approach. A dosing pump is highly recommended IMO. Just set it, leave it, and adjust it once per 4 days / per week etc, other than that forget it, just do a bit of testing.

Edit: As salty said, it took 2 months for him. And a month might not be long enough for you, although I think that many of the guides out there go too slow at increasing the dose. I think the dose must be increased slow at first, but after you are up to 2 ml or so, you can increase faster. I think this is why many people find it slower to see effects. But thats just my opinion, maybe see what Randy says about how fast to ramp up.