Increased algae on glass from vinegar?

[Crackem]

I started adding 3ml of vinegar per gallon of RO water mixed with 2 tsp of mrs wages about 2 months ago. It lasts roughly 4-5 days because im dripping it very slowly 30 min per hour 24/7. My nitrates were always in the 15-25ppm range and my ph was dropping into the 7.7 range and only reaching 7.9. About a month later my nitrates tested <10 for the 1st time ever. I've been slowly increasing vinegar 1 ml at a time and now I just started 8ml per gallon of RO/kalk. I've noticed a lot more and more frequent brown algae on the glass and it seems to be thicker as well. I have a xlarge algae magnet and I noticed some very liitle green hair algae on it as well. I've been changing the floss more frequently and cleaning the skimmer more as well. About once a week. I've been changing about 20-25 gallons every 2 weeks as well. Tested alk 9.12 and ca at 460. Haven't tested nitrates or po4 for a month or so. Last checked was nitrates less than 10 and po4 was 0.06.
Anyone have any suggestions or advice on what I should do?

 

[NeilFox]

First test your nitrates and PO4? It's possible they are higher than you think.

 

[Crusinjimbo]

That seems like a lot of vinegar to me for a 70+ gallon system. I have been carbon dosing for a year at never more than 1ml per gallon. At this level I have zero green algae and a light white film on the glass.

 

[bertoni]

Those nutrient levels are high enough to support a lot of growth. Personally, I'd cut the water changes back to about 10%. They might be adding trace elements that fuel the growth of various pests, including dinoflagellates.

I might add some GFO at this point, depending on the nitrate level. I agree that some new measurements might be useful.

 

[hoaglanddiver]

could be bacterial bloom from too much vinegar (happened to me).. would plug a filter sock in under 24 hrs and would get "algae" on the glass w/in 24 hrs.. might want to cut back (I cut mine back DRASTICALLY) and it fixed the issue

 

[Crackem]

I thought 12ml per gallon of RO was the recommended amount to start with, so I started with 3 ml. My tank evaporates about 1 gallon every 48 hours but I still top off with RO water separately from the kalk container with vinegar, which lasts 4-5 days. Ill cut back on vinegar and test today but I thought I was only dosing a small amount and spreading it out over 4-5 days. I do run a gfo reactor.

 

[Crackem]

Just tested nitrates and I've never seen them this low. Used salifert and looking from top down I saw no color. Looking thru the side it looks like its between 10-25 and divide that by 10 equals 1-2.5 ppm nitrates. I will test p04 later.

 

[insomniac2k2]

If your nitrates dropped that fast, you are overdosing vinegar. No matter what is recommended for a baseline, every tank is different.

I think that bertoni nailed it. Not only are your water changes possibly adding back in unwanted trace elements (FOR NOW), but you are also removing nitrates manually. Thus allowing your vinegar to feed bacterial blooms, instead of working towards a healthy balance.

If it were me, I'd cut out water changes entirely, and even possibly step my vinegar dose back a touch until your tank normalizes. Then step up the vinegar again.

At one point in my dosing, I was somewhere near 27ml a day in a 120g water volume. I have been able to ween that down to 13.2 ml a day.

What I found was that the more vinegar that I added, the more my nitrates dropped, BUT the more cyano and other nuisance stuff grew in my tank. By slowing my dosage a lot, I allowed for my tank's beneficial bacterial levels out compete cyano (with the help of a little manual removal now and then). After My tank normalized a bit more over 4-5 months, then I no longer grew the nuisance stuff much anymore.

Don't get me wrong. I also feel that cyano is beneficial. It is eating up the bad stuff in your water column, just the same as other bacteria is. But it has the tendency to envelope coral, etc. Causing a host of issues.

 

[Crackem]

How much and how often should I change my water? Right now I estimate my total volume to be about 60 gallons and I've been changing a little over 20 gallons every 2 weeks. I haven't tested po4 recently cause those Hanna packets are a pain.

 

[bertoni]

I would do two changes a month, 10-15% each. That should be fine.

 

[Crackem]

Sounds good thx again

 

[bertoni]

You're welcome! Good luck!

 

[Crackem]

I haven't done a water change in 4 weeks. I usually do it every 2 weeks but got lazy this month. The algae on the glass has reduced by a little, but its getting worse on my live rock. I changed my kalk container from 1 gallon to 5 gallons. I tested nitrates and they were approximately 10 ppm. I haven't tested my po4 since the last time I changed my gfo media which was 0.11 on 5/25/13. I'm assuming its gone down and I will test it tomorrow.

I'm doing a water change tomorrow, a little over 20 gallons for my 72bowfront which I estimate to be 50-60 total volume. I plan on stirring up the sand, using a turkey baster on rocks, and using a toothbrush anywhere I can reach that has the dark green algae.

I've already cut my metal halides down from 8 hours to 5 hours, increased my flow on my tunzes. I've already cut the vinegar almost all out, and next refill I'm going to stop dosing it with kalk.

Is there anything else I can do? The algae is starting to grow on some of my Zoa's.

 

[bertoni]

If the phosphate reading is accurate, you might need to change the phosphate media every few days for a bit. The media can be exhausted within hours if the phosphate level is high enough.

 

[Crackem]

Thx Jonathan I really hate testing po4 because of those media packets even tho I dump the contents onto an old deck of playing cards. I will start testing more often. I also bought a much bigger container of gfo so I will change it out as needed.

 

[bertoni]

Okay, that sounds like a reasonable approach to try. The GFO might (or might not) get rid of the cyanobacteria, but it's easy to to try, and can help.

 

[tmz]

I started adding 3ml of vinegar per gallon of RO water mixed with 2 tsp of mrs wages about 2 months ago
I'm not really clear abut how much vinegar you are dosing daily to your 72 gallon tank

 

[Crackem]

I started adding 3ml of vinegar per gallon of RO water mixed with 2 tsp of mrs wages about 2 months ago
I'm not really clear abut how much vinegar you are dosing daily to your 72 gallon tank

Sorry just saw your reply. I'm also not clear on how much I'm dosing. I was slowly increasing the amount of vinegar that I was adding to 1 gallon of RO. I started at 3ml and every 2 to 3 times that I refilled the container I would increase by 1 ml. Eventually I was up to about 8ml per gallon.

Before I started dosing I tried to determine how much evaporation I was having. I was only able to estimate this because of the way my topoff is setup. I have a line connected to my RO and the other end is connected to a horizontal float that is drilled a little to low in my sump/ wet dry filter.

To figure out the evap rate I turned the water off to see how long it would take for my low float switch to be activated and it took approximately 48hours.
I really wanted to start out slow so instead of dosing 1 gallon every 48 hours I set it up to dose 1 gallon every 4-5 days. I didn't want to have to make new kalk every 2 days and I'm also dripping calc and alk as well.

I started seeing a lot more algae growth on the glass and eventually started getting a dark green algae on my rocks. I decided to cut the amount of vinegar down. My nitrates had dropped significantly from around 25ppm to under 10ppm.

Recently I changed my 1 gallon container out for a 5 gallon container and I only put 5 ml of vinegar in it. I was going to cut it out completely.

So as you can see I don't know how much vinegar I'm dosing but it definitely had a lowering effect on my nitrates.

My last tests showed nitrates at 10ppm and po4 at 0.08 a week ago.

 

[Crackem]

I've cut my vinegar dose down to 5 ml in 5gallons of RO water mixed with 10 tbl spoons of kalk. The algae on my rocks is getting worse. I will try and take a few pics and upload them. My halides run for 6.5 hours per day and I turned my flow up. The algae is dark green and it looks like hair algae to me. I'm not sure if it is tho because when I used a toothbrush on the rocks the algae came off pretty easily. I recently changed my gfo and my po4 was at 0.08 last week when I tested it. Some of my zoanthids are also getting covered in algae.

Does anyone have any other recommendations?

 

[Big E]

Crackem,
My main suggestions to you are to use a specific water change/maintenace schedule and stick to it. What's most important is that it's consistent more than how much or often. I doubt once a week or every other week matters....pick a percentage of water you're comfortable with.

If you're going to dose vinegar, do it by hand so you can get an exact handle of how much you're dosing. Your tank is small enough to handle it that way. It can all be done when you're home.

I dose 8 ml a day on a 100g system. 4mls in the sump each time.

If you're going to commit to vinegar dosing, than do that..........forget about the GFO, chemicals or commercial products that reduce PO4/NO3 and also macro/chaeto or algae scrubbers.

Only use GFO to knock down high levels……..above .20 and use it short term.

You have to have snails to consume the film algaes on the rocks..........they poop and allow the waste to get to the corals and the skimmer. That will in turn allow coralline to cover the rocks. Eventually you'll get to a steady state where there is enough algae to grow and sustain the snail population and yet be low enough nutrients to let corals thrive.

If the snails aren't there the algae is very adept at catching debris and and processing those nutrients at the rock surfaces. That's how detritus accumulates..........the snails break the cycle.