Carbon Dosing A Newly Cycled Tank

[sbash]

Hi Everybody!

I just cycled a large tank (about 150 gallons) using ammonia. As a (predictable) result, the nitrates are not sky high (80-100ppm). Given the size of the tank, a water change large enough to drop the nitrates is not practical. I have a large skimmer in the system, as well as a small cluster of macro algae. Nothing else is living in there.

Basically, my question is: what is the risk of adding a significant amount of vinegar? Or perhaps increase the dosing to full by the end of the week rather than take 8-12 weeks. Sudden oxygen depletion seems to be less of an issue without and fish or corals in the system.

Thoughts?

Thanks!

 

[newfly]

Check your nitrites . Your nitrate results is likely inaccurate if you have nitrites in the system. If not, you must have dose total of 20ppm if ammonia to get that amount of nitrates.

 

[sbash]

Check your nitrites . Your nitrate results is likely inaccurate if you have nitrites in the system. If not, you must have dose total of 20ppm if ammonia to get that amount of nitrates.

That doesn't really address my question. But yes, I guarantee I have dosed over 20ppm of ammonia over the course of the cycle.

 

[DE FISH]

The only quick fix would be a large WC. Dosing big volumes of carbon will bottom out your nutrients in a young system and invite cyano, Dino or both. I would deal with it with a large wc personally I wouldn’t carbon dose you don’t even have livestock yet to provide the waste to feed the bacteria you would grow from carbon dosing. I would assume you over did the ammonia during the cycle which has caused your elevated nitrates.

 

[brandon429]

Have you imported dinos into the system

they don’t come in bagged sand or dry rock

this sounds like a creative idea. We used single dose ammonia to cycle big tanks in our cycling threads / already known amount of acceptable nitrates given nitrification / but I struggle to think why this won’t work.

maybe cloudy a while, but if you strip too low you can add back with loudwolf dosers it seems

 

[brandon429]

The macro could be a vector for them, just re read.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

That doesn't really address my question. But yes, I guarantee I have dosed over 20ppm of ammonia over the course of the cycle.

Why so much?

Have you measured phosphate?

 

[sbash]

The only quick fix would be a large WC. Dosing big volumes of carbon will bottom out your nutrients in a young system and invite cyano, Dino or both. I would deal with it with a large wc personally I wouldn’t carbon dose you don’t even have livestock yet to provide the waste to feed the bacteria you would grow from carbon dosing. I would assume you over did the ammonia during the cycle which has caused your elevated nitrates.

Yeah, I didn't believe the initial cycle happened so quickly, so I kept trying to spike the ammonia, lol. And as I said in the original post, a large water change isn't practical. I only have enough water storage for about 30 gallons, maybe I could have bumped that up to 50 temporarily, but still, a 50 gallon water change wouldn't have been good enough, haha.

Anyway, that was a month ago. Through aggressive carbon dosing, I was able to drop the nitrates from 100+ to 50 in a week, then it took another week to half it again. When I got it down to 50, I planted some more macros. When I got it down to 25, I started to ease up on the carbon dosing (I don't really want to do it all the time).

In regards to cyano, there is a tiny bit forming in more stagnant corners. It will be another couple months, but I'll be down to a proper Redfield ratio soon.

Have you imported dinos into the system

they don’t come in bagged sand or dry rock

this sounds like a creative idea. We used single dose ammonia to cycle big tanks in our cycling threads / already known amount of acceptable nitrates given nitrification / but I struggle to think why this won’t work.

maybe cloudy a while, but if you strip too low you can add back with loudwolf dosers it seems

I did put in a seed rock, and since then some macros, so dinos and other beneficial life would have been imported with those.

Another note, the main rock was only "dry" for a couple months. My live rock tank burst (LOL), so I just let the rocks sit there until I was ready to use them. Point being, there may have been some bio-diversity tucked into the wee pockets of the rock.

Seeing how this turned out, I should have taken notes. I don't recall dosing ammonia until after the initial ammonia spike was resolved. I assumed there was enough die off on the rocks to kick off the cycle, which there was. I then overdosed ammonia to try to get a significant spike again (I couldn't push it over 1ppm).

Then, I tested nitrates. Which were through the roof.

Then posted this thread; didn't get a related response, so I proceeded on my own.

I did install a protein skimmer before dosing any vinegar. I ramped up from 1:10 to 2:1 (vinegar : gallons of water) in two weeks. As mentioned above, this dramatically reduced the nitrates but reduction seemed to taper off around 50ppm down to 25 (which I thought was interesting).

Now that I am down to 25ppm, I have started to taper off the dosing. So I am doing 2:1 every two days. I'll scale that down to a lower daily dose next week.

I also have a reasonable sized refugium going with macros and a 24x7 light which I added more around the 50ppm reading.

In conclusion, it more or less did work. However, I didn't test regularly or thoroughly. If I were to apply the scientific method, I should have done more phosphate tests, and I should have tested oxygen at defined points as well as documented it properly.

 

[sbash]

Why so much?

Have you measured phosphate?

lol, just basic disbelief the initial cycle was completed... The disbelief was fueled by doubt, not foresight.

Yeah, I checked the phosphates, but don't remember now what the reading was, that was a month ago.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

lol, just basic disbelief the initial cycle was completed... The disbelief was fueled by doubt, not foresight.

Yeah, I checked the phosphates, but don't remember now what the reading was, that was a month ago.

But it is important now. If phosphate is low to none, and you try organic carbon to reduce nitrate, it will fail.

 

[sbash]

But it is important now. If phosphate is low to none, and you try organic carbon to reduce nitrate, it will fail.

That could be why efficacy seemed to drop around 50ppm. I'll test later today, thanks for the insight!

 

[sbash]

But it is important now. If phosphate is low to none, and you try organic carbon to reduce nitrate, it will fail.

Okay, I checked the test kit, took less than a minute to run. haha.

So my phosphate is reading either .25 or .5ppm and the nitrate is 25pmm. What is considered low phosphate?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Okay, I checked the test kit, took less than a minute to run. haha.

So my phosphate is reading either .25 or .5ppm and the nitrate is 25pmm. What is considered low phosphate?

Much lower than that. lol

0.01 ppm or less would be a concern.

 

[Nazar]

Hi I’ve been cycling using dr Tim’s method for over two months and then added Fritz turbo start did ghost feeding for 5 days 80 ppm notate did a 25-30% water change now 20-40 ppm nitrate and added blue damsel fish now after 3 days of my fish being in the tank my nitrate are going back up to 80 ppm like before the water change can I start doing carbon dosing and add a skimmer or not?

 

[gbroadbridge]

Hi I’ve been cycling using dr Tim’s method for over two months and then added Fritz turbo start did ghost feeding for 5 days 80 ppm notate did a 25-30% water change now 20-40 ppm nitrate and added blue damsel fish now after 3 days of my fish being in the tank my nitrate are going back up to 80 ppm like before the water change can I start doing carbon dosing and add a skimmer or not?

I'd simply perform water changes.

Carbon dosing a new tank is almost always a bad idea.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Hi I’ve been cycling using dr Tim’s method for over two months and then added Fritz turbo start did ghost feeding for 5 days 80 ppm notate did a 25-30% water change now 20-40 ppm nitrate and added blue damsel fish now after 3 days of my fish being in the tank my nitrate are going back up to 80 ppm like before the water change can I start doing carbon dosing and add a skimmer or not?

I also think it likely you did not really have that much nitrate, unless you added a lot of ammonia several times.

Bear in mind that a little nitrite falsely reads as a lot of nitrate.