Sorry guys,
Seriously. . .. I don't even have am LFS. I have been googling for hours and can't even find a hint of info on vs mixtures. I've used vinegar in the past with ok results. However, my nitrates have crept back up due to a lack of po4. I have since been dosing po4 and the fuge is growing with SLOW results on the no3. I dose to 25~ppb phosphorous nightly and it is 0 by the next afternoon. I also change 20% weekly. N03 has dropped from 30 to 25 in the past 4 months of this regiment. Time to do something else.. I always try to do all the research I can, but some guidance on this would be nice, since you seem to have it figured out and accomplished it successfully. An article, link, something. Do I need to calculate the carbon content of each and the total dose of carbon in the mixture?
I really don’t understand this. I fully agree that a thriving LFS is integral to keeping the hobby going. But hobbyists sharing their knowledge, diy successes, and livestock are just as (if not more) important. The threat to local LFSs isn’t hobbyists sharing info and diy ideas/recipes, it’s online retailers undercutting them on dry goods and livestock (both in price and convenience).
I don’t really understand using these products to dose carbon. I would just use vinegar or vodka, the titration of dosages is much more precise and slow compared to most commercial carbon sources. Starting at 0.25mil and working up to 1.25 is a lot to start with and the steps up are large. Whereas with vodka or vinegar you start with tiny dose and raise it just a little each week (i dose vinegar and started with 0.6ml and worked up to 24mils over 8 weeks). No bacteria blooms, no cyano, and a massive reduction in nitrates and slight reduction in phosphates.
How many gallons are you treating at this dose “tank size”
It’s a 28 gallon tank, roughly 20 gallons of water. It’s important to note that vodka is 8 times a more concentrated carbon source compared to vinegar, so dosing vinegar you’re going to have larger doses, if I was dosing vodka, it’d be 4ml. The dosing chart for vinegar is kind of weird though, it isn’t completely linear, the ratio of vinegar to tank volume is much higher at smaller tank volumes. So for instance, at the highest dosage (week 16), you’d dose 61.6ml for a 25g tanks and 69.6 for a 150g tank. I’ve plateaued at 24ml, and will be going down to a maintenance dose of (I’m guessing) 15-18ml.
How much of an impact does that have on ph? Seems it would cause an adverse reaction
It’s got a very slight impact on PH (just as an example, at most it’ll go from like 8.15 to 8.14) but I dose it in the morning a couple hours after the lights have turned on and after a few hours it’s not an issue. I also dose part two with it (and part one a few minutes before), so that helps balance it out. I’m not too concerned with maximizing coral growth so to me a very slight drop in PH is a non-issue.
Sorry to just jump on this old thread but what do you recommend vinegar/ sugar or alcohol for a new system only about 4 months old but I’m experiencing no3/po4 at the higher levels even after weekly wcs and even did a large wc last week I have a skimmer and I’m running chemi pure elite, my Duncan coral isn’t opening fully and I’m almost certain it’s because of the high levels of no3/po4FWIW, these are some of the experiences that sugar users have had (aside from my own) that make me shy away from sugar dosing relative to other forms. That is not to say that there are not people with problems from other organic carbon sources too, just seemingly more from sugar relative to the number of people who use it.
"Sugar was a problem for my lps, vodka and vinegar work well for me. "
"Anecdotally, sugar even in small amounts occasioned recission and darkening in a number of my lps , all three times I tried it. "
"Having dosed Sugar, Vodka, vinegar and combinations of the three I have found Vinegar the best source of carbon. Sugar created issues, not sure why. "
"Sugar dosing, in my experience with it, works amazingly well. However, it is not believed to be one of the better ways of carbon dosing. People, including myself, find that it may have some side effects such as cyano growth and a decrease in polyp extension with soft corals."
"I've been sugar dosing a 250g mixed reef, solely ramping up from a safe start at 0.5tsp sugar /day. I finally reached what I consider the optimal dose of 2tsp /day (just enough to cloud the water slightly at the end of the day). Unfortunately my RBTA and SPS really seem to dislike it, retracting their tentacles/polyps."
"my tank is 2 months old with medium load, I started sugar dosing 2 weeks ago, the tank is 80 gallons and I dose 1 tea spoon at night, I started seeing brown algae at the sand and live rock and I cannot tell the reason, "
"I found corals to be sensitive to sugar. When i tried with sugar, I found most of my corals and even clam started expelling their zoox within a week. I've been using Vodka for a while now without issue. I just started adding vinegar to the mix and it seems good so far but it's only been about 2 weeks"
"I have dosed sugar to control nitrate in my tank in the past. It did work to reduce nitrate, but the amount you use is very touchy and can be easily overdosed. I switched back to vinegar and see better coral growth results IMHO using vinegar. Vinegar also has a much more tolerant dosing level, where I was able to dose vinegar at quite high levels without any noticable problems in coral."
Man, I fricking LOVE this response!
Do you prefer vinegar over Red Sea nopox ? Why ? Other than obvious costs?I'm not a fan of sugar as opposed to other organic carbon sources, such as vinegar or vodka. I've just heard of more problems with it. In my case, it browned corals, although that was just a one time experiment. I prefer vinegar dosing in my aquarium.
I debated for a while whether or not to reply to this but it hit me so hard I couldn't keep my mouth shut.
Big thank you for this one. To be a bit out of place and brutally honest, I found GlennF’s comment really hate keeping, out of touch and as someone that literally works in an LFS (albeit a freshwater) to suggest that anyone an talk to any staff memeber and get 100% reliable advice that suits them to a T is really naive and goes against everything I try to push to the public. We have language to pass on information, not only that but it’s definitely online chains that are killing the LFS…not home made alternatives to common, sometimes expensive ongoing issues. Just recently, literally a last week my Saltwater LFS closed down for exactly the reason I stated above. Not only that but locally, people were buying their corals from hobbyists selling on Facebook. Pages like this, communities whether online or in store are equally integral to the hobby and no one should be restricted to just the one. PULL EACH OTHER UP, PUSH THE POSITIVE MESSAGE, THINK OF THE HOBBY AND NOT THE MONEY.
Fellow Oregonian here! I agree with what you said. And the nearest LFS to me is almost 3 hours away. I come here for almost all my questions and reading this thread was one of the first times I've seen someone not sharing something like that. Kinda weird cuz I thought this whole site was for sharing info and helping and etc etc. just wanted to say I agree with what you said!I debated for a while whether or not to reply to this but it hit me so hard I couldn't keep my mouth shut.
Like others, I DO respect your right not to share your recipe.
However, here are my thoughts on your response:
You're making a big assumption here. If you're lucky enough to have a LFS (Local Fish Store, for anyone new to the hobby) that you trust and can rely on to get good info from then I'm happy for you. In my neck of the woods (Oregon) that's not the case. We used to have a few stores to choose from that were pretty good. Now the ones we still have are often staffed by people that either don't know or feel like they need to make up an answer. Maybe I've just had really bad luck. That's totally possible. But at some point you get to a place where you need to research things for yourself. That's how I found R2R. I've been involved with this hobby since the 1990's and I still run into things I haven't encountered before.
All that being said, I agree with other's comments that saying "go to your LFS" sounds off somehow. Perhaps you're more concerned about people using the recipe wrong?
Do I think everything on R2R is 100% correct ALL the time? No I do not. That's why I look at several postings on the same subject. I do not carbon dose but I've been considering doing so for years. However, I want to see as many answers as I can and then decide for myself. If after all that, things go wrong, then it's on me. I made the decision to follow the advice or not. If it doesn't work out it's on me. Anyone who follows advice on here and doesn't take the blame themselves when it goes wrong is lying to themselves (your tank your decisions).
And when things do go wrong share your story on R2R so we can all learn from that experience. Don't call someone out. Just share YOUR EXPERIENCE and learn from it. EVERY TANK IS DIFFERENT. What works for someone else won't necessarily work for you. It doesn't matter if that advice came from here or your local LFS.
If you won't share because you're worried that you'll share the recipe and get flamed by someone on R2R when it goes wrong, DON'T. All you can do is try your best to provide accurate info. If you do that then you're good in my book (for what it's worth). We are all human. Sometimes we ALL make errors or forget things. That's why I say don't finger point. If you do, you'll likely find them pointed in your direction at some point.
That's my 10 cents
