Edumacate me on carbon dosing ....

[ca1ore]

Wrestling with higher nitrate and phosphate levels than I’d deem ideal, mostly due to a chronic lack of won’t power when it comes to adding fish (125 in a 450). My historical approaches to nutrient control, ATS, DSB, and big skimmer aren’t enough this time around. For reasons that I cannot reasonably explain, my chaeto hasn’t been growing much for a while now.

I’m thinking about carbon dosing, but never done it before. A cursory search here on R2R and elsewhere just gave me a headache. Would appreciate some guidance from folks that have had success carbon dosing in a heavy SPS tank. Something like NoPox appears popular. Justifiably? Thanks in advance.

 

[ReefinItReal88]

Why dose carbon, just run a carbon and gfo or phosban reactor. If you use gfo don't use a ton

 

[Hemmdog]

Wrestling with higher nitrate and phosphate levels than I’d deem ideal, mostly due to a chronic lack of won’t power when it comes to adding fish (125 in a 450). My historical approaches to nutrient control, ATS, DSB, and big skimmer aren’t enough this time around. For reasons that I cannot reasonably explain, my chaeto hasn’t been growing much for a while now.

I’m thinking about carbon dosing, but never done it before. A cursory search here on R2R and elsewhere just gave me a headache. Would appreciate some guidance from folks that have had success carbon dosing in a heavy SPS tank. Something like NoPox appears popular. Justifiably? Thanks in advance.

I’ve had good luck so far with Nopox. No losses of acros or anything. I started off with a very small dose. 2ml in a 90g. Once a day. Now I’m up to 4ml. The tank looks fantastic compared to what it looked like before. Nutrients are much lower as well at 5-10. Before they were 40-50. Nitrate

 

[Dkeller_nc]

The two main articles that Randy's linked to before are:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/ and http://reefkeeping.com/joomla/index...ar-dosing-methodology-for-the-marine-aquarium

The first one explains a good bit of the theory on "why", while the other one details the "how" to accomplish carbon dosing with vinegar. The first article focuses on vodka, and while it certainly works (ethanol is rapidly converted to acetic acid (vinegar) in the aquarium), I don't favor it because it's an extremely concentrated source, and it's easy to make a mistake.

Since you're experienced, I wouldn't bother with NoPox, since it's mostly expensive vinegar.

I'd read the articles closely, and I'd strongly recommend halving the vinegar dose in the second article, and dosing that half-dose in two equal parts, once in the morning and once in the evening. There are three main worries with carbon dosing in an SPS aquarium; the first is that the alkalinity might be high enough to cause "burnt tips" (pictured in the first article), the second is inadvertently causing a bacterial bloom by dosing too much, and the third is that carbon dosing proves too effective, and the dissolved nutrients in the aquarium crash and need to be supplemented.

The first concern is fairly easy, simply adjust the alkalinity down into the 8ish range (slowly, of course). The second is taken care of by cutting the dose in the vinegar table in the 2nd article in half, and dosing that amount in two equal parts. Bacterial blooms sufficient to cloud the water seem to happen in tanks with really high nitrates and phosphates with an owner that's too aggressive with his/her dosing. The last concern really isn't all that much of a concern, since most of us with SPS tanks are pretty hands-on in the first place, and would far rather feed the fish more, add coral foods, or supplement nitrate and phosphate with chemical additions than deal with high nutrients that aren't actually under our control.

 

[lion king]

I run nopox and it works great and is easy to use, straight forward calculations on dosing amount and easy to calibrate. Take it slow and follow the red sea instructions and you'll be happy with the results. If you have higher phosphates you may get a cyano outbreak when you bring your nitrates down so low that it creates an imbalance. So you may need to still use gfo if your phosphates aren't coming down low enough. Wet skimming is advised, if you are dosing too much and not effectively skimming, you can get this pink slime substance. It;s more of a pita than anything else, cut back on your dosage and fine tuning your skimmer will control it, and just some manual removal. I like nopox because calculating the dosage is so easy, it's more expensive than other forms, but I'm willing to pay for the control. I get a 5l jug from saltwateraquarium.com. I actually prefer to use macro algae but this stuff dose work, and is just another tool to have in the tool box.

 

[norfolkgarden]

Sweet ! Thank you for this morning's reading. [emoji846]

 

[ca1ore]

The two main articles that Randy's linked to before are:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/ and http://reefkeeping.com/joomla/index...ar-dosing-methodology-for-the-marine-aquarium

The first one explains a good bit of the theory on "why", while the other one details the "how" to accomplish carbon dosing with vinegar. The first article focuses on vodka, and while it certainly works (ethanol is rapidly converted to acetic acid (vinegar) in the aquarium), I don't favor it because it's an extremely concentrated source, and it's easy to make a mistake.

Since you're experienced, I wouldn't bother with NoPox, since it's mostly expensive vinegar.

I'd read the articles closely, and I'd strongly recommend halving the vinegar dose in the second article, and dosing that half-dose in two equal parts, once in the morning and once in the evening. There are three main worries with carbon dosing in an SPS aquarium; the first is that the alkalinity might be high enough to cause "burnt tips" (pictured in the first article), the second is inadvertently causing a bacterial bloom by dosing too much, and the third is that carbon dosing proves too effective, and the dissolved nutrients in the aquarium crash and need to be supplemented.

The first concern is fairly easy, simply adjust the alkalinity down into the 8ish range (slowly, of course). The second is taken care of by cutting the dose in the vinegar table in the 2nd article in half, and dosing that amount in two equal parts. Bacterial blooms sufficient to cloud the water seem to happen in tanks with really high nitrates and phosphates with an owner that's too aggressive with his/her dosing. The last concern really isn't all that much of a concern, since most of us with SPS tanks are pretty hands-on in the first place, and would far rather feed the fish more, add coral foods, or supplement nitrate and phosphate with chemical additions than deal with high nutrients that aren't actually under our control.

Thanks mate, very helpful. Should have occurred to me to search out RHF linked articles. I keep my alk right at 8 anyhow.

 

[Dkeller_nc]

I use carbon dosing on a regular basis, and it's extremely effective with plain 'ole household white vinegar. But I really, really would caution you to start slow. The "burnt tips" syndrome is very real, and since I've encountered it several times in my own tanks when I got a bit lackadaisical about watching nutrients, I have to believe that it's not at all uncommon.

One possibility that you might consider is purchasing the coral food of your choice to have on hand in case your fish load isn't enough to overcome the reduction in nitrate and/or phosphate. Another consideration is whether you want to have a bottle of Flourish (or sodium phosphate) on hand, since for carbon dosing to work, the tank needs to have some amount of all three - a readily available carbon source (i.e., vinegar), nitrate and phosphate.