Vinegar Dosing HELP

Mindi · Apr 15, 2018

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
That's what I chose to do, but I started with manual dosing, and in that case, one can saturate it with calcium hydroxide to eliminate the pH drop when it is added.

Randy....I have looked but cant find any information on how to use the calcium hydroxide to prevent the pH drop...ie..whats the saturation process..?. I have recently switched from NOPOX to straight vodka but am considering switching to vinegar over time. Avoiding pH drop is of interest. Got it that dosing slow and across day appropriate.

Aliasger · Mar 20, 2019

Hi guys,

I just wanted to know whether dosing vinegar via a dosing pump would fluctuate my tank pH? I dose vinegar for 2hrs daily via a doser and then keep it off for the rest of the day. I check my pH before and after and i don’t see any fluctuation. Nor anything on nitrates. So i was thinking of dosing it for the whole day. Slowly and steadily.. will this work to bring nitrates down from 30ppm in my 3000gallon marine tank?

rob safron · Mar 20, 2019

It did not do any favors for my pH but can’t really prove it was the Vinegar that kept it lower than I liked. I dosed over the day hours every hour, nothing at night. Best to do during lights on when pH is highest anyway. Yes, once you hit the right dosage it will reduce nitrates. I went for algae all over and nitrates at 40-50 to almost 0. I have since quit vinegar. Went through some mini cycle thing with cyno and other nucience algae’s that would not stay away. Went to refugium and that has kept measured nitrate and phosphate very low. Actually converting over to Zeovit now, I just love tinkering and trying new things.

Aliasger · Mar 20, 2019

Ok i will check again tomorrow. I have 2 tanks of 3000 gallons each. Both are running on refugium but in one tank the macro algae isn’t grow well. And in the other i have rodophyte and a chaeto growing along with hairy algae. Hairy algae doesn’t enter in the main tank. It is sort of becoming brown and dying off. So i am assuming it is lowering my nitrates.. but still want the reading below 5ppm.

rob safron · Mar 20, 2019

My cheato does not grow much either but my nitrate is 2 and phosphate .01 all the time so it’s working. The H380 light stopped the macro from melting away but still don’t get much growth. I feed as heavy as I can keep up with and dosing iron maybe helped.