Carbon Dosing (Vinegar only) and skimmate

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Adding vinegar or any other carbohydrate, has it improved the health of your corals, considering it was used to lower the nitrate and phosphate level to keep your corals happy? And why? Based on my information about increased organic carbon availability, I do not think so.
Maby it was also used to control algae growth without having thought about what could be the effect on corral health? Or used to improve kalkwasser addition by which vinegar is added to the system based on the evaporation rate without taking into account any other parameter or side effect of organic carbon addition.

On first reading it certainly did mess up your system , it did not add much stability.

Maintaining a high C:N ratio is a very effective method for removing ammonium very fast, to prevent nitrification and algae growth, but not advisable for to support the bio-load in a reef aquarium in which corals try to manage their own private carbon cycle.

I’d have to say, your entire argument is weakened by the false assertion that vinegar or acetic acid is a carbohydrate. It isn’t. It’s like saying “a yellow tang or any other tuna”. Different beasts. Yellow tangs are fine in reef tanks. Tuna are not. But that lack of tuna suitability says nothing about tang suitability.

You are reading the effect of experimental and intentional overdose in my tank. Not normal dosing.

To answer your question, I did not add vinegar to improve coral health. When I did add it, I saw no effects good or bad on corals at appropriate doses. I added it to spur filter feeders such as sponges, and as a less expensive alternative for nutrient export relative to the many watts of lit refugia that I used immediately prior to switching to vinegar. I was happy with all aspects of the apparent results of vinegar dosing except the vermitid worms which may have expanded due to more available particulate food.

 

[Belgian Anthias]

I do not recommend dosing carbohydrates.

Would there be any difference in coral health when using amino acids of unknown origin? To install a high C/N ratio why not just use a low protein food?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Would there be any difference in coral health when using amino acids of unknown origin? To install a high C/N ratio why not just use a low protein food?

Amino acids compared to acetic acid? Huge difference. Amino acids all add nitrogen and some crude formulations may also add phosphate. Vinegar adds neither of those in significant amounts.

Low protein foods for what purpose? To lower nitrate? Sounds like a tricky balance between inadequate nutrition and nitrate. Low protein foods fail in people as a way to reduce phosphate. People can’t get enough nutrition without getting too much phosphate when they have kidney disease.

 

[Belgian Anthias]

I’d have to say, your entire argument is weakened by the false assertion that vinegar or acetic acid is a carbohydrate. It isn’t. It’s like saying “a yellow tang or any other tuna”. Different beasts. Yellow tangs are fine in reef tanks. Tuna are not. But that lack of tuna suitability says nothing about tang suitability.

You are reading the effect of experimental and intentional overdose in my tank. Not normal dosing.

To answer your question, I did not add vinegar to improve coral health. When I did add it, I saw no effects good or bad on corals at appropriate doses. I added it to spur filter feeders such as sponges, and as a less expensive alternative for nutrient export relative to the many watts of lit refugia that I used immediately prior to switching to vinegar. I was happy with all aspects of the apparent results of vinegar dosing except the vermitid worms which may have expanded due to more available particulate food.

Ok, you are the chemist, but it still is carbon + hydrogen + oxygen which for me are carbohydrates and which does not make a difference in the discussion if carbon dosing improves the health of corals by removing nitrate and phosphate, knowing often doses are based on the nitrate level only, without taking in account essential parameters. If one can not answer that question one should not use it in a reef aquarium.
If you did not use it to lower nitrate and phosphate to improve corral health, there are much better controllable and safe ways to feed filter-feeders .

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Ok, you are the chemist, but it still is carbon + hydrogen + oxygen which for me are carbohydrates and which does not make a difference in the discussion if carbon dosing improves the health of corals by removing nitrate and phosphate, knowing often doses are based on the nitrate level only, without taking in account essential parameters. If one can not answer that question one should not use it in a reef aquarium.
If you did not use it to lower nitrate and phosphate to improve corral health, there are much better controllable and safe ways to feed filter-feeders .

Thats a fine opinion, but I don’t agree that there are better and cheaper ways to export nutrients and feed filter feeders than appropriate doses of vinegar in a reef tank, at least a reef tank like mine which never suffered from excessively low nutrients.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

For reference, that 410 mL dose was using 5% acetic acid vinegar, and was to a 120 gallon display tank with a total system volume of 250-300 gallons.

For what it’s worth I have an acropora tank and I have been dosing 200ml of vinegar daily by hand not saturated with kalk into maybe 80 gallons of water. It’s a 100 gallon Rubbermaid. I feel like this is about the same dose as you were attempting. I worked my way up to it but still. Nothing bad happening to anything in the tank. I add nitrate a few times a week to make sure things are balanced and also to lower po4 slowly.
I was dosing more but cut back a few weeks ago. And no I don’t use nitrate as my guide. While I do make sure to have nitrate in the water for periods of time during the week I don’t cut back my dose until po4 is where I want it. Then I have to make sure it stays there and once it does I will finally back the dose down a little.

And to answer the big question, a lot of people think the benifit to corals with carbon dosing is that the corals eat the bacteria and when carbon dosing the bacteria has the nutrients in it so the coral is fed. I am not sure this makes much of a difference but it makes sense I guess.

 

[chimbo84]

I was very happy with how organisms were thriving.
I have detailed in many, many threads my experiences in dosing vinegar, and did not think another repetition was required. But since you asked, here is a copy and paste from a 10 year old thread;

OK, I've been experimenting with upping and upping the vinegar dose for my tank. Hoping to stop any green algae on the glass and kill off some macroalgae and maybe bryopsis (which has not worked).

I've been adding more and more vinegar and less and less vodka.

Well, at the recent limit of 410 mL of lime-saturated vinegar, the tank really was noticeably poorer.

Most particularly, the RBTAs browned up (still orange, but darker and the white parts are now brown) and they expanded less and less, and the H. crispa also expanded less. Some soft corals were also shrunken.

Cyano also started to grow faster again.

Also, the green algae on the glass seemed to grow faster! Bryopsis is also out of control, although that may not be related.

So I’ve decided to cut way back and try 150 ml of lime-saturated vinegar with no vodka for a bit and see if things go back to normal.

Did you ever notice an impact on nuisance algae during your experiment?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Did you ever notice an impact on nuisance algae during your experiment?

I mostly noticed that in my system, the main thing that altered main tank algae was a one spot foxface (a fish). A yellow tang ate green hair algae, but not other forms as much.

At super high doses of vinegar (maybe 2 mL per total system gallon per day) where the water was becoming cloudy, caulerpa racemosa in the display tank seemed to actually grow faster.