Carbon Dosing and Nems: Affect on zooxan?

[jonwright]

OK, so I've been carbon dosing in my 155 for a quite a while. Was also carbon dosing to keep N and P in check prior to rehoming my nem in the 155. Was doing fine.

N and P are at 0 and have been for a while. I have reduced, slowly, my carbon dosing regimen (1/4 vin, 1/4 vodka, 1/2 RO mixture). Over the course of many weeks I've decreased my dosing by a few mL/day. I was at 30 mL/day for a while and began to reduce the dose to 24 mL on 6-15. Reduced by half, then to 8. 6-24 I reduced from 6 mL to 4. Then reduced to 2 mL (so actually .5 vin, .5 vodka) on July 4. Then Saturday turned off the last VV mixure since N and P were still 0.

Sunday AM with few other tweaks to my tank's chemistry my crispa had shrunked and balled up.

Alk had decreased from 10 to 9.1 from Saturday, however.

I see where folks might dose vodka to stimulate zoo. Would the stopping of the VV mixture make my nem angry for any reason???? He's still green and has color so he hasn't released any zoox that I can see.

I'm aware of carbon dosing and it's effect on N and P, and also general bacteria load in the tank. Skimmer is getting awfully busy these days as well. But carbon and it's effects on the zoo of nems is rather new to me (never would have considered the carbon feeding zoox although it does make sense). That's also probably the reason some corals turn brown I'd say, from carbon dosing.

Yeah, I am wringing my hands because I haven't seen him do this. I also fed him a really large piece of shrimp Saturday soooooo...that?

I've since turned the 2mL VinVod solution back online.

Is there more interaction with the VV dose and the nem than I've accounted for?

 

[ThRoewer]

I just recently started dosing vodka in my 200 gallon system and so far nothing acts strange at 1.7 ml.
My NO3 and PO4 are off the charts right now and I likely have to go a good deal higher in the dosage.
Though once I find the right dosage, I rather increase bio load and feeding instead of stopping to dose altogether.

As for the crispa, I found mine to be very sensitive to temperatures above 27 °C. Every time my tank temperature would go above that, the crispa would start deflating. On some particularly hot days it looked so terrible that I thought it was on its way out, but every morning it looked better again. It took a few days until I made the connection to the temperature. I now lowered the heater setting to 24 °C and added a fan chiller and the anemone is doing much better now.

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[nemguy]

I'm actually vodka dosing to try and help recover a batch of 3 bleached magnifica anemones I also herd that it can stimulate zoox growth I currently dose 7 drops of vodka a day in a 35 gallon tank for the one bleached and 5ml in a 130 tank to see if the dosing will help the nems regain zoo quicker


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[jonwright]

I'm actually vodka dosing to try and help recover a batch of 3 bleached magnifica anemones I also herd that it can stimulate zoox growth I currently dose 7 drops of vodka a day in a 35 gallon tank for the one bleached and 5ml in a 130 tank to see if the dosing will help the nems regain zoo quicker


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Your post is what got me to thinking about it, nemguy. And I'll of course be curious as to how that turns out.

Thanks for the tip on temperature, I'll double check my readings. My tank has been at 78F and up to 80F. Crispa has looked fine through that (doesn't go past 80 typically, but again I'll double check).

I put the 2mL VV back online yesterday and I have NO idea if it's related or just correlated, but nem looks much better today. Almost back to normal.

Do you expect the Zooxan to get dependant on the VV dosage? I recall reading that there are other interactions with bacteria and Zoo that we really haven't explored much so I'm wondering if there's more to the VV dosage than what we think.

However, I also counter that with the 50 wasn't carbon dosed at all, then when I put the nem in my 155 I was already carbon dosing - he settled right in with almost no acclimation at all (lights, salt etc. were all the same from teh small tank, save carbon). So although I ask I'm still a bit skeptical.

 

[nemguy]

They might become dependent we will have to wait and see for now I'm hoping to see improvement from the carbon dosing maybe we can start an experiment


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[ThRoewer]

They might become dependent we will have to wait and see for now I'm hoping to see improvement from the carbon dosing maybe we can start an experiment


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Are you telling me that due to vodka dosing I may have to bring my fish and anemones to AA meetings :facepalm:

 

[jonwright]

That's funny right there.

I'm going to wait another week or so and not change ANYTHING on this tank. Probably won't feed him, either, to keep things the same. I'll stop the VV mixture and see what he does.

If I just had to guess I'd think the dKh drop of .9 in a day was a bit much. PH didn't change much more than the usual swings. He's not used to that at all methinks. However, he was in a 50 gal that was kept up with kalk so he may have experienced swings like that in the past, but not at all in the current tank.

So it went like this:

7-9: dKh @10. Little high, reduced 2 part. Also dosed 25mL (1/2 dosage as indicated) Iron supplement (just found this in my notes). Ceased 2 mL day of VV dosing.
7-10: dKh 9.1, nem shriveled up into little ball (pic above). Increased 2 part dosage from 12mL to 15mL.
7-11: dKh 8.7, nem not in little ball but still less than 1/2 of where he usually is, increased 2 part to 24 mL. Resumed 2mL VV carbon.
7-12: nem looks much improved. Certainly not quite where he was, but almost back.
7-13: Almost back. dKh 8.7