Is carbon dosing right for me?

[verojeremy]

So im going through a little rough patch in my tank with aptasia and ich, well the ich is clear now, but anyway I am noticing a lot more algae on my sand and on my glass, like I have to clean my glass daily if not it is covered in green.

I am running a skimmer, and I have a thriving fuge. I am planning to make my tank an sps dominate with a few lps. That being said I am thinking of the best things I can do on for my tank while I am away from home and fixing other problems. After my birthday, which is in July, I plan on adding an ato system with a kalk stirrer, and run carbon and either GFO or carbon dose in some way be it vinegar or carbon.I understand that there are many factors that can also play into color and growth of my SPS which is what I hope to attain with carbon dosing and regular fish and coral feeding.

I know lighting and flow are important in this to but I have an mp40 and a koralia 1050 along with my mag 9.5 I just got for flow and 2 razr maxspects (the ones with 2 squares not 3). So I believe it is my parameters.

I havent tested nitrates or phosphate in a while but I have a hanna phosphate checker and an api test for nitrate. My alk is about 9-10 my ca is 440 and my mag is around 1400. I will test for things mentioned above when I get back to the tank. Also any questions on my tank to help me make the right decision just ask if I left out any information.

So anybody in insight on their experiences or what they suggest me to do, thank you in advance,
Jeremy

 

[tmz]

This thread may be helpful in your decision and understanding of organic carbon dosing. I would not start organic cabon dosing uless I was there to monitor it carefully, though:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2134105&highlight=organic+carbon+dosing

 

[verojeremy]

OK I read it along with all of the reefkeeper articles on it that were collected from this forum but my only worry is the cyano outbreaks and my ph dropping too much with vodka.
But it seems like as long as I go slow and watch carefully that I will be ok. Am i right?

 

[Peter Eichler]

There are a lot of things that can go wrong. If you don't know exactly how to spot signs of stress in SPS and don't have a good grasp on the negatives I'd suggest other means of lowering nutrients.

You say you have a "skimmer", but what kind of protein skimmer and on what size tank? A good protein skimmer and careful use of GFO can yield spectacular results in an SPS tank without some of the negatives and scary unknowns that can come with carbon dosing.

 

[verojeremy]

I understand SPS pretty well and my skimmer is plenty well for my tank.
Sorry I forgot to mention I have a 75 gallon tank.
I understand also that there are different ways to approach getting phosphate and nitrate down. It just seems like GFO is pretty expensive and if carbon dosing is a good approach I would like to try it.
Thanks Tom those articles helped, now I am deciding wether or not to do it and to use vinegar or vodka

 

[tmz]

There ae some risks if you overdose or go to fast but there are also alot of things that can go right with organic carbon dosing .

I've been using vokda and vinegar for over five years with excellent results and no nasties or scaries in my mixed reef .
You need to understand it and have some goals in mind before deciding to use it. It's not a plug and play method.

Two beast skimmers, chaeto, refugia and ,cryptic refugia and gfo didn't get it in my heavily stocked system.
Adding organic carbon dosing gives me very good color and growth for sps, lps, and some non photosyntehtics, particulary sponges.and virtually no nuisance algae or cyano. PO4 at .02 to .05ppm and NO3 at 0.2 wit h only very minimal gfo use.

 

[verojeremy]

I understand that things differ from tank to tank and it isn't guaranteed, but if it is doing well for other people and it achieves what i want done with my tank less money and less work once you get it "tuned", I think I will try it. Now you said you use vinegar and vodka, what is the difference from this or just using vodka or vinegar.
Thanks again Tom for all of your help.

 

[tmz]

It's all in the thread cited in post #2. I'll summarize it here for you:

Vodka is ethanol (C2H6 O). 80 proof vodka is 40% ethanol and 60% water.
Vinegar is acetic acid (C2H4O2).5% vinegar( the typical supermarket white vinegar ) is 95% water.

Ethanol oxidizes to acetic acid in water, ie, vodka becomes the same as vinegar . Both then are acetate . So, Vodka and vinegar are pretty much the same and end up the same, as acetate but the reactions as they enter the tank water are different.

When dosed initially vinegar releases H+ right away which drops pH precipitously if a significant amount is dosed at once. PH recovers as the reaction completes . This characteristic makes it imprudent to dose vinegar in large amounts at one time( bolus dose) . It should be slow dosed during periods of photosynthesis to avoid a precipitous short term drop in pH.

Vodka can be bolus dosed without a downward spike in pH.

Bolus dosing likely encourages spurts of bacterial activity which are likely to effect more anaerobic activity. I prefer bolus dosing because it suits my daily routine.

Either vodka or vinegar or any other carbon source will have a long term relatively equal pH reducing effect from the CO2 produced by bacterial activity. In my system I lost .10 pH which I recovered with a CO2 scrubber.

Accounting for the water , vodka is about 8xs stronger than vinegar in terms of the carbon dose. So, one ml of vodka equal 8 mls of vinegar.
Neither vodka nor vinegar can be diluted very much for automated dosing without opening the door to bacterial activity before it's dosed. . The alcohol level in the vodka keeps bacteria at bay and the pH level in 5% vinegar does the same. Diluting them let's bacteria start to consume them before dosing them. Since very little vodka is dosed typically ,some folks prefer vinegar and /or a combination of the two with a greater volume of solution which is easier to use for automated dosing.

 

[verojeremy]

So vodka doses change little in ph? Also thought your name was tom not tmz lol, sorry.

 

[verojeremy]

I mean it will be low in my system since I am going to start kalk dosing especially considering it will be an sps system meaning more kalk and higher in PH right?

 

[tmz]

Vodka and vinegar bot hdrop pH a little, in my case.1 over time . There is bactrial activity which raises CVO2 which lowers pH. Vinegar has but the same effect over time but drops it alot when you fist dose it an thern oputs some back evening out to the same level as vodka.

Klak dosing for carbonate alkalinity and calcium will use CO2 to make carbonate alkalinity(CO3 and HCO3) and thus raise pH.

 

[verojeremy]

So doing vodka dosing or vinegar and doing kalk will either lower the ph a little, stay the same, or raise a little right?
Also I know tht vinegar is a little bit safer because if you dose a little too much like 3ml it has very little effect rathe then vodka where it can kill everything, but besides that is there any benefits or cons to vodka or vinegar?

 

[Peter Eichler]

Cons are you could kill a lot of corals if you drive nutrients too low or allow alkalinity to get too high in conjunction with low nutrients. I saw a lot of negatives when I experimented with vodka dosing and had SPS display major stress after a few months of dosing. I couldn't contribute the stress to anything other than the carbon dosing and the problems I was having with SPS losing flesh at the tips, showing messentarial filaments regularly (especially after dosing the carbon source). I can't help but think that the crabon source can and will mess with bacterial colonies on the corals themsleves.

Lastly, cyanobacteria problems are also fairly common. One example of how the carbon source is not going to feed just the bacteria you want it to.