Carbon source for denitrifying bacteria

this is not husbandy, but a result of tons of fish! 5 tangs in 100gal volume of water is rediculus.my girlfriends fault. a dog face, boxfish. Those fish are huge producers with a huge appatite.

Any suggestions? My husbandry is ok I guess. clean filter bags daily. Skimmer cup cleaned every second day. I have 16 fish :lol: not my fault.

I have a refugium with 400 watts of metal halide! The chaeto doubles in size every 5days-10days. I dose iron.

My feeding is rediculous though. I will admit. I go through 1pack of nori,1 large pack mysid , and a can flake food every month.
Cost me about 50bucks a month.

If I could I would do water changes every 4 days. But we all know that is not a good way to reduce N compounds.and P.

So im trying sugar. :D
 
To be honest, I do not remember which corals browned with sugar and which with iodate addition, but between them there was 1 SPS browning, 1 tan polyp, and one additional coral. I'd have to search through really threads to recall exactly.
 
well, ill update of what i noticed so far.

Phophate appears to have gone down a little, from 3ppm to maybee 1ppm.

Nitrate does not look any different. Maybee whent down a little. its hard to tell.

What i did notice was an increase in bubble production in the sandbed.

The skimmer is still foaming like crazy.The foam comes out so dry that I have to add some oil into the cup to collapse the foam as it drains over the top.Otherwise the skimmer foams out the breather holes all over the carpet!

Im still dosing 2tsp a day approx.

Some of the fish have strange bruises on them, possibly from fighting. I dont know if its sugar releated.

The water always has a little fog to it.

Some of the rocks appear to turn white in spots. Almost as if the hair algae is dissapearing in spots. But it could be my starfish or diadema sea urchin mowing it down.

Im getting an increased growth of hair algae in spots, especially higher flow areas.

One night my yellow tang was hovering near the surface. I suspect O2 depletion. I turned the lights on 1 hour early for O2. I cut my dose back because of this.

star polyps and mushrooms appear the same. Actually i think the mushrooms are reproducing. The color has not changed.

Other than that its not a miricle cure to my tank.

Im now contemplating as to add a larger refugium (300gallons) so I can grow some serious macro algae.
 
what do you think, 300gallon refugium with a 400 watt halide? You think I could keep nutrients low with that? That would also up my total water volume!

You think I could get to zero?
 
2x sheets of nori(2"x1")

about 2-3grams of mysis shrimp

2 grams of flake food

somtimes some supermarket shrimp(1 a day)

little clump of chaeto to the tangs.

all this daily. Its a lot?




Edited the grams.
 
Thx Randy. I add some flourish iron yesterday, and put in 2tsp of sugar to the auto top off. I also put in some iron into the top off.

I had the foggiest bloom i have seen. I wonder if those bacteria can become iron deficient?
 
just to jump in here... is there any benefit to dosing vodka or other source of carbon...if your tank is running fine and has no nitrate levels or extremly low levels...undetactble on standard test kit. and bottom on low range test kit?
 
The only purpose that most folks dose carbon sources is to drive bacterial growth to reduce nutrients. The bacteria may also be useful foods for some organisms, but may also have drawbacks, and I personally wouldn't recommend it as a food only activity.

Have you measured phosphate? How low is bottom on your nitrate kit?
 
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