betaine dosing

[dimis]

I have started dosing betaine citrate to an anemone tank (300 liters) with very good results so far in terms of water clarity, rock is much cleaner, slime on sand has receded, i only have to clean the tank twice a week max etc. I am using a human supplement which contains also Mannitol Citric acid Sodium bicarbonate Raspberry flavour Sodium saccharin Sodium benzoate Polyethylene glycol 6000 Starch pregelatinized (could do without some of those but haven't noticed any ill effects yet ). I dose approaximately 500 mg 1-2 per week.
I haven't found anything on dosing betaine to a tank in R2R and I would appreciate any suggestions, estimates or even educated guesses on the matter like dosage frequency etc . I dose because I like feeding my fishes more than I should and so far it has helped with me not having to do serious maintenance.
Maybe i should stop dosing it cause in the long run it may cause problems?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Where did the idea of such dosing come from?

 

[dimis]

Where did the idea of such dosing come from?

Because of my setup I have low nutrients in my tank. I m also very lazy and very bad at keeping a dosing schedule, maintance, cleaning sand and rock. All my equipment is repurposed from my old reef tank I had yeeears ago but couldn’t fit a skimmer in the tank. I didnt have a problem at first but I suddenly got some weird slime on the sand. I tried almost everything I could find here for 1,5 years, including better maintenance. It always came back. So I did a bit of diy on the tank and removed the lid. I installed a skimmer and decided to dose some form of carbon in the specified quantities. Didnt work, changed carbon type, didnt work, so I decided maybe I should dose something different all together. I knew that glycine betaine is very abundant in low nutrient areas in the ocean so I thought why dont I give it a try. Used it first in a small macroalgae tank I keep to feed the tang and noticed accelerated growth. For now it works. Plus it s easy to keep up with dropping a piece of tablet twice per week. BUT not finding much info online on this, I though I d ask if there is some further info, and longterm experiences with it. My guess is it acts as a carbon source but could be anything in the tablet that does that.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Betaine citrate can certainly be a source of N and can drive bacterial growth. Some of the effects may be from other ingredients, are coincidence, or may be for reasons I do not understand.

The starch polymer, for example, may aggregate organics and pull them down in a settling glob.