Carbon Dosing Solution Help

brayden2980 · Oct 25, 2023

Hello,
I run a large 500 gallon system and have been having high nutrient problems. Right now I have them down to nitrates:30ppm and phosphate 0.2. I have no issues with algae blooms or anything like that and all coral/fish are happy and healthy but need to lower the levels. I installed a refugium and started carbon dosing but the primary product I trust is becoming hard to find and I need to find an alternative. I was thinking of running Red Sea no3

o4 x and reef actif in parallel. This way I have one source feeding bacteria that directly consume the phosphates and nitrates (Red Sea) and one that is simply feeding the beneficial bacteria which will consume phosphates and then the coral will eat those and consume more nitrates out of the water in turn. (Reef actif) I don’t want to dose anything diy like vinegar or vodka, as that will feed everything and these products claim to only feed beneficial organisms. Let me know if this thought process works or if I’m way off.

TheSheff · Oct 26, 2023

To start, there is no reason to try to change these parameters if you notice no negative effects. If you do want to carbon dose I would recommend NOPOx as they give good instructions and it works pretty well. IDK anything about reef actif so I can't speak on that. You shouldn't be scared to do DIY, especially for a tank that big. NOPOX is literally just a mixture of vinegar and vodka BTW. I believe someone on here actually made a thread of how to combine those to get the exact same proportions that NOPOx has.

brayden2980 · Oct 26, 2023

Alright thank you! When I was researching NOPOX they made it seem like it was a specific formula of things that target very certain bacteria only lol. I only have a few “beginner” coral like Euphyllia, mushrooms, and an elegance, I wanted to get into harder coral like sps, you’re probably right though and I might use a very gentle approach and lower dosage since nothing is wrong.

Dbichler · Oct 26, 2023

DIY nopox is much cheaper and just as effective some use just vinegar and some use just vodka. Nopox is essentially just a blend of the two and rodi water 600ml vinegar 300ml vodka and 150 rodi. Not sure exactly on the numbers but that’s what I use and works well.