Vinegar dosing

[scotty333]

Guys
My water params are po4 is .47 and no3 75
So, I’ve never vinegar dosed before and there’s so much different opinions on quantity to dose i thought better I ask

My aquarium is 700ltr or 185g

Going of the chart I see on here I should add 44ml for a week then increase

With 44ml dosed how long will it take to reduce my po4 and no3 ?

I have a huge DSB which for some reason has only reduced nitrates by 5ppm over 2 weeks , the reason for the nigh readings are that I rescaled the tank and hoovered the DSB and both chucked out loads of detritus.

Also, what about ph drop ? Will I expect that, obviously I’ll dose at midday and I have much surface agitation and a decent skimmer

Look forward to your comments and sorry if this post belongs somewhere else?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

This article has most of what you need to know:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/new-vodka-and-vinegar-dosing-charts.1024056/

 

[scotty333]

Thanks
I read it , that’s where I got the dosage from but the dose should be adjusted based on the params no? I mean if your params are I.e .10 po4 and

 

[scotty333]

I don’t know what happened to the rest of my reply but I was saying

And your no3 is 50 is the same dose applied to a params of say .05 and 30 no3

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thanks
I read it , that’s where I got the dosage from but the dose should be adjusted based on the params no? I mean if your params are I.e .10 po4 and

I would not try to second guess the dosing rate based on nitrate, unless it is very close to your target. Don't expect much impact on phosphate.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The rate of nitrate reduction is generally much slower than you'd prefer. So be patient.

 

[scotty333]

I don’t understand that answer if I’m honest, can you elaborate on that please

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I don’t understand that answer if I’m honest, can you elaborate on that please

Sure. The effect on nitrate reduction is slow. Surprisingly slow. If you scale the dose down to less than recommended, it will be even slower. Scaling up might lead to a bacterial bloom clouding the water.

The effect on phosphate is generally minimal for well known reasons (organisms use far less P than N, and lots of P is bound to rocks and sand that needs to be stripped away to lower phosphate appreciably), so if lowering phosphate is the main goal, use a different method, such as GFO.


here's a thread where we discuss why it might be so slow, and dosing too little too slowly is a leading contender:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/looking-for-thoughts-on-organic-carbon-dosing-and-nitrate.971856/

 

[scotty333]

Update,
So I dosed vinegar for 7 days and absolutely no change in nitrate , still 75ppm
Now I’ve read about underdosing will take some time but the thing is that I was overdosing for 6 of the days following a volume check
It transpires it’s 400ltr inc sump whereas I thought for no apparent reason it was 700ltrso I was adding 44ml as per the dosing chart, which is almost double so why no change? I’ve even got a large DSB that apparently isn’t doing its job either
It is 7-8 years old now and I’ve recently learned this buzzword “ old tank syndrome “
So tomorrow I’m getting the nopox and see if I can get my levels down to a reasonable level

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Update,
So I dosed vinegar for 7 days and absolutely no change in nitrate , still 75ppm
Now I’ve read about underdosing will take some time but the thing is that I was overdosing for 6 of the days following a volume check
It transpires it’s 400ltr inc sump whereas I thought for no apparent reason it was 700ltrso I was adding 44ml as per the dosing chart, which is almost double so why no change? I’ve even got a large DSB that apparently isn’t doing its job either
It is 7-8 years old now and I’ve recently learned this buzzword “ old tank syndrome “
So tomorrow I’m getting the nopox and see if I can get my levels down to a reasonable level

There’s no apparent correlation that some organic types move faster and 1 week is not very long to wait.

I’d personally just up the dose.

 

[scotty333]

So
I’ve been carbon dosing a month now, vinegar for a week then/ now nopox
I had some drop in po4 in the first few days with the nopox but it shot back up the following day

I’ve been on the nopox 3 weeks and still my po4 is .50 and no3 75 and it’s not lowering
I’ve done a 20% water change Monday and I’m going again today but why is the nopox not working?

 

[scotty333]

Oh, I’m dosing 20ml in 525ltr tank so 4ml per litre

 

[lmfbs]

Oh, I’m dosing 20ml in 525ltr tank so 4ml per litre

To give you some perspective, I've been dosing for almost 3 months and am only now seeing a reduction in no3. Be patient, my friend.

 

[gbroadbridge]

It may take months to have effect.
When it does kick in, Nitrate drops quite quickly.

You need to be patient and stop messing with the dosing.

 

[Reefering1]

And re read this thread from the beginning

 

[scotty333]

ok guys thanks, it’s just frustrating you know

 

[juannnn]

My aquarium keeps filling up with mulm and clogging the pumps. Adding vinegar is a problem; does anyone know how to fix it?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

My aquarium keeps filling up with mulm and clogging the pumps. Adding vinegar is a problem; does anyone know how to fix it?

You might have to dose it elsewhere in your system to get bacteria to grow elsewhere, or switch to a different organic, such as vodka.

 

[juannnn]

You might have to dose it elsewhere in your system to get bacteria to grow elsewhere, or switch to a different organic, such as vodka.

If using vodka solves the problem, I'll try it because when I dose it in the sump, the return pump loses all power. I don't have anywhere else to dose the vinegar.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

If using vodka solves the problem, I'll try it because when I dose it in the sump, the return pump loses all power. I don't have anywhere else to dose the vinegar.

I would not say it "will" solve the problem. It may drive a different species of bacteria that "may" grow elsewhere in your system.