Is vinegar different then Vodka?

Nate,

Too many variables for me to say. I did not have any cyano problems while dosing vinegar. I did develope agal problems though. Go figure. IMHO, my algal problems were a result of overfeeding. IMHO, the amount of food that hobbyists add to their system, has a big effect on both cyano and algal problems and trying to take this out of the equation is difficult when comparing systems. I have read so many articles regarding algae and cyano my head is swimming now. :lol: I have concluded the type of DOM plays a big role also. Vitamines, amino acids, fatty acids ...............etc, all have shown to have a significant increasing effect on algal, dino and cyano populations, especially when they reach higher levels, which is not impossible in our tank system. Many of the articles have stated the nitrate levels (within reason) have little effect on the pest problems. I have a nitrate level around 15 ppm now and no pest problems. Some of the articles state that limiting phosphate significantly decreases bacterial populations as well as many algal populations. There seems to be a direct correlation between phosphate levels and DOM levels on the populations of bacteria. High DOM lowers bacterial populations. Low phosate decreases bacterial populations.

How this all plays in limiting pest populations, I have not figured out. :lol:

I have read this article three times and can't seem to grasp what I want from it. Perhaps you can provide some input from it that may be helpful in my understanding. :)

Consumption of dissolved organic carbon by marine bacteria and demand for inorganic nutrients.

http://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/101/m101p023.pdf

From this article:

ABSTRACT: Seawater cultures were used to study seasonal and diel variations in bacterial growth and
nutrient availability. In both the Baltic Sea and the Northeast Mediterranean, the least available
component for bacterial growth was phosphorus. In the Baltic Sea, carbon was available in excess for
bacterial growth on all sampling occasions. Compared to the controls, additions of nonlimiting concentrations
of inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus increased the yield of bacteria compared to the control
with 156% and the degradation of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) by 64 % (as determined by high
temperature catalytic oxidation). Analogous, bacterial growth yield increased along with an accumulation
of inorganic nutrients in diel experiments with an intact foodweb (microcosm). The concentration
of uthzable carbon (UC) was determined from bacterial consumption of DOC in seawater cultures during
non-limiting nutrient conditions. Utilizable phosphorus (UP) and utilizable nitrogen (UN) were calculated
by converting the bacterial biomass in the cultures into phosphorus and nitrogen equivalents.
In the Baltic the average concentrations of UC, UN and UP were found to be 23 FM C. 0.6 pM N and
0.03 pM P respectively. Heterotrophic bacteria preferentially utilized inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus
to support growth on a short time scale (days). Bacterial carbon content decreased as a result of
nutrient additions from 51 k 7 to 32 f 5 fg C cell-' Growth efficiencies varied from 11 to 54 % in
untreated cultures compared to 14 to 58% in cultures supplemented with nitrogen and phosphorus.
 
I don't actually dose kalk. Can you just dose vinegar w/o the kalk or does it need to be buffered in some way?

Dosing vinegar in kalk will help to offset any lowering pH effect that the vinegar may have. That said, I don't believe at the levels that vinegar is properly dosed, should have any significant effect on pH. So dosing vinegar by itself is OK. If you are concerned about the possible pH lowering effect that vinegar may have, then you can use sodium carbonate (baked baking soda) to supplement your alk with. ;)
 
I don't actually dose kalk. Can you just dose vinegar w/o the kalk or does it need to be buffered in some way?

:fish1: I use kalk for calcium and carbonate supplementation . However, I dose the vinegar directly to high flow areas in the the sump now. I dosed the same amount of kalk before increasing the vinegar and there has been no change in ph levels.
 
Thanks Cliff for the link from Bingman in 1999. Just proves there are people in the hobby ahead of the curve.

This is interesting to hear about. I know some people have little to no cyano with vodka and then others complain about plague proportions. Switching to vsv help the latter population but could it be as simple as just adding more vinegar?
Perhaps , just varying(vodak , vinegar,ascorbic acid, sugar,etc.) the carbon source a bit , system by system, and not the vinegar per se enocourage a more diverse population of heterotrophs to the disadvantage of the cyano. I didn't have very much cyano but enough to notice in one integrated frag tank with a sand bed.

Anecdotaly,first I substituted some sucrose for some of the vodka I was dosing and the cyano decreased. But with only 1/4 tsp of sugar per day on 550g , my scolymia began closing after a few weeks. Stopped the sugar and they recovered. May try again , maybe glucose . PO4 and nitrate levels hold steady at .05/.06ppm and 2.5 to 5 ppm, respectively.
 
This whole thing amazes me. It's now conventional wisdom among aquarists that some combination of vodka/sugar/vinegar has a dramatic downward effect on nitrates and perhaps phosphates as well. I wonder when someone will package it, call it nitrate down or something and sell it for five times the cost of vodka or sugar or whatever. Also, this has to have practical applications for water treatment technology and pollution control. Or is vodka dosing just our little secret???
 
This whole thing amazes me. It's now conventional wisdom among aquarists that some combination of vodka/sugar/vinegar has a dramatic downward effect on nitrates and perhaps phosphates as well. I wonder when someone will package it, call it nitrate down or something and sell it for five times the cost of vodka or sugar or whatever. Also, this has to have practical applications for water treatment technology and pollution control. Or is vodka dosing just our little secret???

It is packaged by companies. Brightwell, Elos, ect......

It is also used in the water treatment industry. IIRC they use ethonal for the carbon source.
 
Carbon sources have already been packaged in various proprietary mixtures( that means they won't tell you what's in it) such as AZNO3,et alia.
 
Tom, I think you are correct. Finding a dosing regimen that works for each individual tank would be the most ideal.

Cliff, I read through the paper. Interesting read. There has been a few papers on this subject that I have read through over the past few years. The authors set out to investigate how nutrient conditions affect bacterial growth. Results show growth of bacteria in filtered DOC rich water while a decreasing concentration of DOCs. Growth times varied between samples but doubled every 12-32hrs. They found enriching the DOC water with inorganic P or N+P resulted in more bacteria. Seasonal patterns as well as day/night cycles influences bacterial growth. Go figure.

I would take from this paper that inorganic N and P were potentially more readily utilized than organic N and P but remember that this needs to be shown by a few more papers before quoting. In their experiments the bacteria did not completely eliminate DOCs and this may be more meaningful in that it hints at the requirement of "good organics" for utilization in bacterial growth. Taken together adding organics such as vinegar or vodka could potentially be enhanced by adding other nutrients that are depleted. So if you have a tank that N limited but P is present adding nitrate/ammonia may help in larger bacterial populations which would lower the extraneous P.
 
Thanks Nate for the wonderful summary. :)

Perhaps, when dosing carbon sources at just the right amounts (certainly not too high) and phosphate is severely limited, and ample nitrate is present, bacteria can out-compete the algae and cyano.

The amount & type of organic P present may be the final deciding factor in the competition between cyano and bacteria.

The type of carbon source may play a role in which bacterial populations increase and which bacteria can compete with cyano and algae best.

If these assumptions are correct, there are certainly quite a few factors to get correct before one can achieve control of algae and cyano. :lol:
 
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