My tank doesn't like vinegar?

[d2mini]

I thought I'd give this carbon dosing thing a try.
I liked the idea of being able to support more sponges, and I had some cyano problems for at least a month. It was recommended to be by a fellow reefer to do a couple days lights out and to start vinegar dosing.
My tank is 200g plus around another 150g in sump, frag tank and refugium.
So I did two days lights out (plus another couple days of just my t5's while I was working on replacing my mh reflectors) and then I did the first week of vinegar dosing following the schedule outline here for a 300g tank...
http://reefkeeping.com/joomla/index...ar-dosing-methodology-for-the-marine-aquarium

Well after the two days lights out my cyano was completely gone. Hoorah!
A week into the vinegar dosing it was still gone. Hoorah!
Now two weeks later it is still gone. Hoorah!

Now the bad news.
My strawberry shortcake acro colony is now brown! It used to be gorgeous.
Many of my other acros are now duller in color than they used to be.
My frogspawn polyps used to be huge and are now small. A couple of heads aren't looking so good.
My aussie gold torch tentacles are all much thinner than they used to be.
All sps have less PE and it's especially noticeable on my Stylophora colonies. My purple stylo seemed to be shedding some white stuff, too.
What gives?!?!

Alk - 8.3
Calc - 420
Mag - 1540
pH - 7.7-8.0
po4 - .07
nitrates - 3
Temp - 80

The only other thing I did at the same time was some lighting changes.
I got rid of an all in one fixture and replaced it with a new light rack with 3 separate mh reflectors and retro T5. Same amount of bulbs of each. The mh are Radiums (same as before) but the T5's are different with less PAR overall because I got rid of a blue+ and coral+ in favor of two giesseman true actinics. And the MH lights were raised up 2" to a total of 10" off the water.

So to recap, i tried dosing vinegar for one week and my lights have a little less PAR.
But I would think that 3 mh and 4 t5 over a 24" deep tank should be plenty of light with the lights 8" and 10" off the water.

Any thoughts?

 

[saltyair]

The same thing happened to me
a few thoughts - change in light even though minor
I cut back on the vinegar and went half dose

how are you dosing? All at once or dosing pump.
If you dose at once I suggest doing it just as lights come on helps with ph changes

 

[d2mini]

The same thing happened to me
a few thoughts - change in light even though minor
I cut back on the vinegar and went half dose

how are you dosing? All at once or dosing pump.
If you dose at once I suggest doing it just as lights come on helps with ph changes

Well, I'm not dosing anymore.
Since I was only a week in and saw negative changes, I slammed on the brakes to prevent making it even worse.
But since I was still in the first week or two, I was doing a single dose in the evening. I was going to eventually start dosing with a doser throughout the day but I never made it that far.
It has been 6 days now since I stopped dosing the vinegar and I don't think things have gotten worse, but they haven't gotten better, either.

 

[BrentH]

U think the lights out Had anything to do with the browning and the issues with the corals? I've never done a lights out on my tank but have dosed. I vinegar and vodka without coral issues

 

[d2mini]

two days lights out shouldn't have done anything... but a change in par maybe? I dunno.
It just seems that overall, my corals have reacted in a negative way. More than just one or two sps losing color. Seemed more like a water quality issue to me.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Maybe I missed it, but how much vinegar?

Did it impact the pH?

 

[d2mini]

Randy, if u look at the chart in the link I posted in my OP, I was following the regimen for a 300g tank. My total volume is near 350. I only made it through the first week plus one day of the second week before I called it quits.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

IMO, that chart is odd in that it doesn't scale with volume, but that said, you were dosing something like 10 mL per day? I can hardly believe that caused a big problem in your size system unless it was added near a creature.

 

[d2mini]

Yes, 9.6 ml the first few days, then 19.2 for the rest of week one, then I did one day of week two which was 23.2.

It does scale with volume, unless I don't understand what you mean. But in other words the dose for 300g is more than the does for 250g and so on.

I was dosing into my sump where the drains from the tank are.

It does seem weird, doesn't it?

 

[Dapg8gt]

That does seem odd to me that it had such a negative effect with so little carbon. I don't really have much more to add as its not what I have experienced throughout the years with vinegar. Fwiw I dose at the end of my light cycle when pH is highest and all at one time downstream from my skimmer..

Did you ramp your lights back up slowly after the 3 day lights out? I usually associate brown with excess nutrients or light to an extent.

 

[d2mini]

Did you ramp your lights back up slowly after the 3 day lights out? I usually associate brown with excess nutrients or light to an extent.

It was 2 days with no light at all, then a couple more days with just T5 while i got my MH in order. Then one day with a single mh added in the center. Then the other two mh added in. So in a way I did sort of bring the light back gradually. Plus, I lowered my mh photoperiod by a couple hours, down to 6 hours total.
I'm bringing that back up an hour, to 7.
I was trying to avoid the cyano coming back.

But I still wouldn't think that this would be the cause of the poor polyp extension on the SPS, and the LPS not looking so hot either?

 

[BrentH]

I'm not sure if u read it yet but have things gotten better since stopping dosing vinegar ?

 

[d2mini]

I'm not sure if u read it yet but have things gotten better since stopping dosing vinegar ?

No, i mentioned above that it has been about a 6 days since I stopped and it hasn't gotten worse but I haven't seen improvement yet. Except the purple stylo doesn't seem to be shedding white stuff anymore. Still poor PE though.

 

[msderganc]

What kind of vinegar were you dosing?

 

[saltyair]

I agree witn Randy that small of a dose wouldn't create browning that quick - I got browning when I doubled up to quickly
Imo I think its light related or somthing else

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It does scale with volume, unless I don't understand what you mean

It doesn't scale linearly with volume, meaning a 50 gallon tank is not 1/5 of a 250 gallon tank. In fact, a 25 gallon tank only uses half as much as a 1000 gallon tank at long times. That just doesn't make sense to me.

Assuming the vinegar was adequately pure, and assuming the effect did relate to the vinegar, about the only thing I can think of is that it happened to drive a species of bacteria that was releasing toxins. Seems like a long shot, however, after only a week of dosing.

 

[billsreef]

There's a problem with making two changes to a tank at the same time. You don't know which change or if it's a combination of the changes that are causing the effect your seeing. The lighting change isn't just a change in par, but also a change in spectrum with that change in T5 bulbs. Quite frankly that change in par would quickly effect things in the manner your describing. As for loosing color, your corals are actually gaining color...the brown due increased zooxanthellae, which is often a reaction to reduced lighting.

 

[d2mini]

There's a problem with making two changes to a tank at the same time. You don't know which change or if it's a combination of the changes that are causing the effect your seeing. The lighting change isn't just a change in par, but also a change in spectrum with that change in T5 bulbs. Quite frankly that change in par would quickly effect things in the manner your describing. As for loosing color, your corals are actually gaining color...the brown due increased zooxanthellae, which is often a reaction to reduced lighting.

Yeah, in hindsight I agree that I shouldn't have done two things at once.
At the time, i figured I was just changing reflectors and even though I raised the lights 2", I figured the individual reflectors would have been more efficient than the one big reflector in the Cebu Sun fixture that I had before.
Changing out two of the four supplemental T5's didn't seem like it would be that big of a deal.

Early this year I went from 4 radions to 3 MH and 4 T5 with zero issues, only positive results, and in the form of growth and color.
A lot of what I'm seeing, just based on past experience, feels more like a chemical reaction or water quality issue, due to the poor PE and that shedding or sliming that I saw, not just the duller color. I could definitely be wrong, that's just what my gut is telling me.

Anyway, should I go ahead and increase the photoperiod then?

 

[reefwars]

Yeah, in hindsight I agree that I shouldn't have done two things at once.
At the time, i figured I was just changing reflectors and even though I raised the lights 2", I figured the individual reflectors would have been more efficient than the one big reflector in the Cebu Sun fixture that I had before.
Changing out two of the four supplemental T5's didn't seem like it would be that big of a deal.

Early this year I went from 4 radions to 3 MH and 4 T5 with zero issues, only positive results, and in the form of growth and color.
A lot of what I'm seeing, just based on past experience, feels more like a chemical reaction or water quality issue, due to the poor PE and that shedding or sliming that I saw, not just the duller color. I could definitely be wrong, that's just what my gut is telling me.

Anyway, should I go ahead and increase the photoperiod then?

Browning usually isn't harmful so I would thinnk in a short time if things are healthy water wise colors will come back in a short time.

Even a small change in spectrum can cause browning in acros and poor PE can also be expected, they bounce back quickly Though.

I agree with bill that changing two things at once makes it hard to nail down but I think your problem with browning is more light related than dosing vinegar ,or if the vinegar is contributing then its a small bit and not the actual whole cause.

Should be easy enough to fix though , simply stop the vinegar for a few weeks and once light acclimation happens for your acros then start slowly on the carbon dosing again and note its effects from small doses up to your target point.

 

[billsreef]

Anyway, should I go ahead and increase the photoperiod then?

I"d start ramping it back up to what it was originally, but slowly. You don't want to light shock them either