Could dosing vitamins make carbon dosing more efficient? Do denitrifying bacteria need vitamins?

[Jon_W79]

About two years ago I tried vinegar dosing, and I later tried vodka dosing, I could see white bacteria, but I couldn't get it to control the nitrate(I don't think that phosphate was limiting the bacteria). Is it possible that if I had dosed certain vitamins carbon dosing would have worked? Can dosing certain vitamins, at least in some cases, make carbon dosing work more efficiently?

I have read some papers that say at least some denitrifying bacteria (I think some of them could grow in reef tanks) need or benefit from vitamins.
Based on the papers below I think that the best vitamins someone could start experimenting with would be vitamins B1, B5, B6, biotin, B12, A, D, and E.

 

[elysics]

When you say you couldn't get it to control the nitrate, what do you mean? You kept raising the dose for weeks or months and the value didn't budge at all?

 

[Jon_W79]

When you say you couldn't get it to control the nitrate, what do you mean? You kept raising the dose for weeks or months and the value didn't budge at all?

I was dosing some large amounts of vinegar or vodka and I think denitrifying bacteria may not have been oxidizing nitrate/nitrite at all. Nitrate would keep rising without water changes.

FWIW, it looks like ZEOvit may believe that certain vitamins benefit denitrifying bacteria.

 

[elysics]

No harm in trying I guess. One cheap source of B vitamins would be yeast extract, I looked into this topic a long while ago but didn't pull the trigger because some other ingredients weren't all that cheap

I do feed regular yeast now and then though

 

[Dan_P]

About two years ago I tried vinegar dosing, and I later tried vodka dosing, I could see white bacteria, but I couldn't get it to control the nitrate(I don't think that phosphate was limiting the bacteria). Is it possible that if I had dosed certain vitamins carbon dosing would have worked? Can dosing certain vitamins, at least in some cases, make carbon dosing work more efficiently?

I have read some papers that say at least some denitrifying bacteria (I think some of them could grow in reef tanks) need or benefit from vitamins.
Based on the papers below I think that the best vitamins someone could start experimenting with would be vitamins B1, B5, B6, biotin, B12, A, D, and E.

What was the PO4 level during dosing? How long did you dose? How much were you dosing when you quit? Organic carbon dosing has a high rate of success.

Vitamin addition will more likely fuel algae growth which you will see and might benefit bacteria growth which you probably would not detect.

 

[Azedenkae]

About two years ago I tried vinegar dosing, and I later tried vodka dosing, I could see white bacteria, but I couldn't get it to control the nitrate(I don't think that phosphate was limiting the bacteria). Is it possible that if I had dosed certain vitamins carbon dosing would have worked? Can dosing certain vitamins, at least in some cases, make carbon dosing work more efficiently?

I have read some papers that say at least some denitrifying bacteria (I think some of them could grow in reef tanks) need or benefit from vitamins.
Based on the papers below I think that the best vitamins someone could start experimenting with would be vitamins B1, B5, B6, biotin, B12, A, D, and E.

Microorganisms do indeed need vitamins, though a lot can also synthesize their own. Not all though, and it all is dependent on their lifestyles. I'd hypothesize that there'd be plenty of denitrifiers that can synthesize most if not all of their vitamins, and others that can't. Hard to know though what may or may not work, unless you know exactly which strains of microbial species are in your aquarium and what they'd actually need.

It is possible to sequence environmental metagenomes and reconstruct genomes to evaluate whether they contain genes encoding vitamin biosynthesis pathways, but even then it is not necessarily 100% accurate, and of course will cost quite a bit of money.

 

[Jon_W79]

What was the PO4 level during dosing? How long did you dose? How much were you dosing when you quit? Organic carbon dosing has a high rate of success.

Vitamin addition will more likely fuel algae growth which you will see and might benefit bacteria growth which you probably would not detect.

I don't remember what the most vinegar or vodka I dosed was, or how much I was dosing before I stopped. For a long time I was dealing with the rock removing the phosphate. I don't remember the phosphate numbers. I was dosing phosphate, and at one point phosphate got too high. When the phosphate got too high, I think I was carbon dosing at that point.

 

[Jon_W79]

I dosed about 0.4ppm of thiamine in my reef tank a couple of days ago to see if it did anything. I think it made the water quite a bit clearer, and I am seeing some bacteria. I'm not carbon dosing, but I did stop using carbocalcium one to two weeks ago. I was dosing 10ml before I stopped for at least a week. I have dosed up to 30ml at least within the last two months. I think the thiamine stimulated bacteria growth, and I think the bacteria may be using organic carbon that comes from algae.

I have been trying to make a fishless frag tank. I plan to use snails, and maybe also use some urchins to control the algae. I'm using a 100 gallon Rubbermaid stock tank(I don't have a light on it now). I have the tank cycled, and I have been adding ammonium one or two times a week. On May 9 I started dosing vodka, nitrate has been rising until last weekend. Out of frustration I dosed a lot of vodka and then I dosed some Brightwell Koralle-VM, (it has vitamins, I also dosed some B vitamins a week or two ago) this caused a large bacteria bloom. I used a uv sterilizer to help clear the water, and two days later I measured nitrate, and it went from 20-25 nitrate to 0 nitrate. So now I guess I need to wait for the vodka to be consumed, and maybe some will evaporate(I may need to do water changes). I think the bacteria bloom may not have happened without some of the vitamins that I added.

Here is a video and a picture of the bacteria in my reef tank.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I personally think it unlikely that vitamins are an issue for organic carbon dosing. There are many, many species of bacteria that will consume acetate (vinegar dosing), and those that have needs that are not met in the tank won't thrive, but others will.