Nitrate Reduction 101 with sugar!!!

[jmpearso]

Wow there are tooo many threads to read here. But I was on the first two pages and people were saying its bad and they dont know the long term affects. So has this changed? Do people still think this?
I havent tried this but I would if my levels were high. I figure kelp has glucose in it (glucose is formed by Photosynthesis) So with that wouldnt that mean there is sugar in the ocean?
Or am i totally off base??

 

[JakStat]

it's risky; but done properly, it works beautifully.

one should understand what one is doing thoroughly before trying it though.

 

[Zoom]

Otogi

Otogi

You need a good N03 test kit you need to test the water often .
I will start with 1/4 Tsp sugar directly in to the sump every day . Wait a week and keep checking the N03 if starts to go down just keep it at that dose if nothing change on the N03 # go to 1/2 Tsp a day for one week to see if you get lower reading on the N03 if not i will not go any higher dose than that .
You keep it at that till you see a decreasing # on you N03 .
When you see the N03 # start to go down some, start to decrease the dose some .
Take your time it will take some time maybe over a month to see a good thing on your test kit.
good luck .

 

[Otogi]

Thanks very much for the advice Zoom. I will be doing a 30g water change either tonight or tomorrow and then I will start my first dose Saturday morning, I just like to give my system a few days to adjust from doing a large water change like that. I will post updates with my exact numbers and such once I start dosing. Thanks again

 

[JakStat]

i would caution against that approach, it sounds like anoxic niches might be limiting in Otogi's tank; he doesn't have a particularly large amount of LR, and i'm not clear on sandbed depth.

if there isn't sufficient anoxic environment for denitrifiers then he'll get a bloom of aerobic bacteria and a subsequent die-off when dosing is scaled back to cure the bloom.

 

[Otogi]

I have 120lbs of LR in the Display, 30lbs LR in the fuge and 100lbs roughly 2" LS in display with 10lbs 2" LS in the fuge. 90g display with 40g fuge/sump. Fuge/sump has roughly 25-30g of water in it. So I assume that after displacment I have roughly a true 90 to 100 gallon total volume. But I could be off. Should I try the sugar route or not? what advice can you offer me?

 

[Zoom]

I started dosing my tank with 1 Tsp a day total 230G with about 300Lbs of 14 years old Live Rock.
I had a No3 reading of 5 yes five when i started.
It took the 1 Tsp of sugar three days to get the N03 down to 0 .
but i know i was leaching out alat of N03 /P04 out of my old rock .
Like i said the reason for my Sugar dosing was that I have good nuisance algae growth all over the tank .
I saw no bacteria bloom or any other bad effects in my tank if you read my post before , the only thing i did not like was the lower ORP and PH not in any dangerous levels but it when down some but in my case i just cut back my sugar dosing some and everything was back to normal .
I hope you get some more advice from Reefers that had use this method for some time before you try. But so far for me no problems yet .

 

[JakStat]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12169428#post12169428 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Otogi
I have 120lbs of LR in the Display, 30lbs LR in the fuge and 100lbs roughly 2" LS in display with 10lbs 2" LS in the fuge. 90g display with 40g fuge/sump. Fuge/sump has roughly 25-30g of water in it. So I assume that after displacment I have roughly a true 90 to 100 gallon total volume. But I could be off. Should I try the sugar route or not? what advice can you offer me?

personally i would do alcohol (reagent-grade methanol, preferably) instead of sugar, in conjunction with a denitrator of some sort.

your nitrate levels are higher than Zoom's tank when he started off... He had only 5 ppm, you have 10 times that. that's a very large difference in systems, a full order of magnitude. when he dosed, nitrates were likely the limiting reactant, particularly with such low nitrates to begin with. with your system, nitrates are abundant, and the anaerobic environment is likely to be limiting.

honestly, with all those fish i'd be very wary of dumping in tablespoons of sugar. your high levels of nitrates tells me there's plenty of decaying matter. ammonia isn't spontaneously produced from detritus, bacteria secrete exoenzymes to "digest" detritus extracellularly. adding a sugar source to the entire system will boost all components of the nitrogen cycle, including ammonia production. in a tank like Zoom's where there wasn't much decay indicated to begin with, it's not much of a worry. in yours, it's a significant factor.

with a nitrate level like yours, whatever you do, go slow.

 

[Zoom]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12170403#post12170403 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by JakStat
.



honestly, with all those fish i'd be very wary of dumping in tablespoons of sugar. .

JakStat Not TBS i said Tsp.


But he can even try lower dosing than me 1/4 Tsp even 1/8 Tsp and see if you think One Tsp will harm his tank .
JakStat Did you ever use Sugar dosing in your tank seems like you know much about it.

 

[JakStat]

i've only done alcohol dosing to a remote sandbed/denitrator.

personally i prefer adding pure carbon in the form of reagent grade alcohol rather than food-grade sugar, which is far from pure or uniform in composition.

 

[Zoom]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12170940#post12170940 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by JakStat
i've only done alcohol dosing to a remote sandbed/denitrator.

personally i prefer adding pure carbon in the form of reagent grade alcohol rather than food-grade sugar, which is far from pure or uniform in composition.

So you use ethanol .

 

[JakStat]

methanol, because it's the closest thing to the ideal, CO2, i.e., a single carbon-containing molecule. ethanol has 2 Cs, the bacteria need to expend more energy metabolizing ethanol.

when you dose "sugar", you're dosing a mixture of longer carbon-chained molecules, which are even further down the scale of metabolic efficiency.

believe it or not, it does make a difference. it's all about the deltaG!

 

[MonkeyKeeper911]

so whats the protocol when doing alchohol and what exactley are you dosing

 

[Otogi]

Well last night when I got home I did some test to my water and discovered that my tank has some problems, or at least I think. I haven't done a test in 2 days, and 2 days ago I was still dosing Amquel+ to try to lower my nitrates. When I did the test 2 days ago my levels where Nitrites 0, PH 8.2, Ammonia 0, Nitrates 50+.

When I did the test last night 2 days after stopping the Amquel+ dose my levels are really out of wack. Nitrites 1ppm, Ph 7.8, Ammonia 1ppm, Nitrates 50+ppm. I have no idea what the is going on. I know the Amquel+ will mess with the ammonia test but not sure what is going on with the rest of my chemistry. Before using the Amquel+ my levels where all great aside from Nitrates. My water is super clear and all my inhabitants seem perfectly happy and doing great, actively swimming, no labored breathing, all eating like pigs, even my inverts are all ok.

I have no idea what is up with my system but I am not to happy atm. I can’t find anything out of the ordinary so I am leaning to the Amquel+ has thrown off all my chemistry test or my test kit is self has been contaminated or something. After work today I am going to pick up a new test kit and do a 30g water change and probably another 30g change 2 days from now. Like I said everything looks perfect clear water no deaths, healthy inhabitants, I really have no idea what is going on as everything seems fine outside the chemistry colors. I guess until I get a new test kit and do some water changes I really won't know what is truly going on.

With my current situation would it even be wise to try the sugar or alcohol dosing? Any thoughts on what I could do?

Thanks in advance

 

[JakStat]

i wouldn't dose carbon until you sort out the ammonia.

 

[Zoom]

With my current situation would it even be wise to try the sugar or alcohol dosing?

No.... Find out what drove your parameters out off whack first.

 

[miwoodar]

Otogi - Frankie's DIY Sulfur Denitrator thread has some discussion by people who were witnessing elevated nitrites out of the reactor. I would be curious to know if your situation and theirs would be related in some way. Maybe a bacteria that can use the nitrogen in differing ways in varying conditions (nitrate to nitrogen gas in one situation and nitrate to ammonia in another). That thread has been right at the top of the DIY forum for a while, you might check it out.

JakStat - Thanks for the information. :beer: So you don't use a mixture at all? I'm curious to know more. I've been thinking that most people who have been following these threads for a while seem to end up eventually choosing to dose a mixture for their long term solutions. Did you choose pure methanol due to what you learned in school, experience, and/or research? Is it just because of the deltaG?

 

[BreefMe]

I just used a high grade of non-phosphate releasing activated charcol and 1 ml of vodka for every 100 gal (so in my case 2 mls total), plus aggressive protein skimming. In 36 hours, my nitrates were near zero down from a 20 and it has been easy to maintain ever since.

 

[JakStat]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12173384#post12173384 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by miwoodar
Otogi - Frankie's DIY Sulfur Denitrator thread has some discussion by people who were witnessing elevated nitrites out of the reactor.

that's not an uncommon complication. sulfur reactors are even trickier to tune, and not worth the risk in my opinion.

the redox potential of using sulfur as an electron acceptor means that a concentration of only 50ppm nitrates can be reduced. anything over this reverses the metabolic pathway, which is amphibolic, and will instead produce amines. any excess amines (i.e. non-assimilated) will get converted to ammonia. couple this with a lack of mechanical filtering at the input of a sulfur reactor, and you'll get elevated n-cycle intermediates in the effluent. that's just one scenario...

there are too many considerations that might be in play to note here since it's not on topic, but i just thought i'd throw that out there.

oh, the reason i know this stuff is because i'm a microbiologist (the study of bacteria and viruses). i teach undergrad general micro.

 

[Otogi]

I have been following that thread as well. I have been confused by the post were things like that have been said. But what I am assuming of what is being said and what you might be thinking, is that I might have one of the cases where instead on my Nitrates being converted to nitrogen gas and being removed, they are instead possibly being used by a different bacteria where they may be being converted to ammonia and nitrite (hhence my sudden increase of those elements)? If this is the case I would assume that dosing a carbon soruce like sugar and alchol would only help to increase my ammonia and nitrite problem at this point.

If this is the case which I hope it is not, what can I do to get my system back on track and corrected? Like I said I plan to do some large water changes but will that be enough? 50ppm Nitrate was only my guess as on the color chart it is difficult for me to differentiate the color from 40+ppm and everything higher. So it is possible that my Nitrates could be higher then I originally thought. What I don't understand is how in a 2 day period my nitrite and ammonia could have elevated so much with no signs of die off or and other change in the system other then dosing Amquel+. But even with that the change in chemistry it only happened after I stopped use of Amquel+. I am very confused. There is a lot more involved with this, over keeping snakes and lizards lol. Any thoughts on what could be going on and how I could fix it?