Nitrate Reduction 101 with sugar!!!

and ive been reading thru past posts and followed that last link, but are you guys suggesting the autotrophic bacteria carry out this process?
 
Well I may have the smallest tank on here to try this, its 26 litres I started a week ago with a pinch every day, it came down from 40 to about 10, got a bit braver and added an extra half a teaspoon yesterday, woke up to the bacterial bloom and skimmer going crazy, tested an hour ago to have zero nitrates so back to a pinch of sugar every morning and just done half tank water change. Iam amazed as I've never had nitrates below 10 even on bigger tanks. All inhabitants are all healthy still. Will keep this updated over the next few weeks.

79ff78b959b6012bb3a3d2a69767ba76.jpg
 
slimytadpole said:
Adding sugar to the tank is a way to quickly reduce excess nitrate (quick-fix) without actually addressing the problem. It's a band-aid.

Good husbandry involves finding solutions to the problem, as opposed to using quick-fixes for the long-term.

Ultmately, the lack-of-good-husbandry comment is a result of this (which I missed the first time through):
Click to expand...

So would a GFO reactor be a temp fix or any reactor for that matter? All you're doing is increasing the bacteria to take care of nitrates. Is adding more sand or live rock not good husbandry? I had nitrate of 40 and added my first dose of sugar last night. I will keep you updated and you can follow my progress via blog at www.rottertube.com
thanks!
 
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Clouded said:
Rich...I have been around this board for a awhile just reading posts...and for the most part you bring up good points and make sense...

However...there has not been any long time success documented with this...and until then I consider this a short term fix...I guess I look at like this... In order to be not overwieght we must eat proper food and excercise...but instead people take pills and use lipo so they do not have to work as hard to acheive what seems to be the same result, but yet there is one major problem with this, you are not any heathlier, just masking the problem...

So yes I think not feeding as much and skimming more is a better solution, then adding sugar...at this point in time, until long term success has been proven...Again like I have said, adding sugar is like a basic "zeo" or "prodibio" so I do not completely disagree with adding this, but I think until there is proven results of long term success, I think it should be avioded for most people. And this is what I said from my first post, that I do not disagree with this method, however it should be highly researched and should only be attempted by people with lots of expeirence with this hobby...so I just want to post to let anyone who is new to the hobby that the posters statement is not gold and for most this should be avioded. Cause most people on boards that are new to them and new to the hobby, tend to take what one person says as gold and it ends up in catastrophic events...this same person could also be new to the hobby and have a tank that is cycling and notice that levels are high and figure the fix is just to add sugar instead of knowing that is a cycle and learn from the cycle.

Like I said, I added sugar to my tank in the begining to help speed up the cycle, did it? I think it help yes....But I did not add anymore and let my tank sit for a while to make sure everything was ok...I did not continue due to not knowing the long term effects...
Click to expand...
I have been battling high nitrates for a year now in my 55 gal. Obviously over feeding and bioload seems to be leading factor for one to have high nitrate. personally I assume I was overfeeding. I have only ever seen waterchanges being lead cure for nitarate. I also know the nitrifing bacteria that Is supposed to eat nitrates develope in areas of the tank where there is low water flow. Or low h2o. I've been waiting and waiting for something to happen and it just keeps getting worse.
In my 55 gal I only have some sheapshead minnows which will live in your toilet for the most part hehe hermit crabs and snails. So I haven't been really worried since I didn't want to put a lot of money into the tank.
Me and the boyfriend decided to get a 125 gal tank. Knowing how high the nitrates in the 55 gal are, I've been very particular with watching the big tank. My 125gal cycled nicely however the nitrates have slowly been rising. I went out and bought a protien skimmer in my efforts to keep nitrates stable. I know skimmers don't remove nitrate but it does help remove excess wastes in water. Thus helping with nitrate?.. so here I am with my 125gal at 80ppm and my 55 gal possibly off my testing scale. I've been watching my feedings. Cut them in half. My water is so clear I'm rather proud. I change 5 gal in the 55 gal every week and 15 gal in the 125 gal every week. Given I have sand and rock in both tanks so less water than their size.
I have been battling algea in both tanks but since I change water so often, I just suck up the algae with the hose I remove water with so I keep it under control. I've been told by the LFS that the nitrates is causing my algae. Ok so how do I get rid of nitrate.
I have been doing everything to lower and it's only rising so, I'm very interested in hearing if anything has now been proven with this whole sugar testing?

Along with verification on the sugar, I'd like to hear if anyone has natural pieces of rock, clam clusters, shells... in their tanks. All of mine has actually come from the ocean. I no I no that's not what you should do but, it's what I did before I knew not to. I think this is truly where my nitrates originated so I'd like to hear from others that had stuff from the ocean in they're tanks and how they have been.
 
Simple case of low nutrient export. And it the case of this thread, export would be carbon (sugar) dosing. This might help:

Nutrient Export

What do all algae (and cyano too) need to survive? Nutrients. What are nutrients? Ammonia/ammonium, nitrite, nitrate, phosphate and urea are the major ones. Which ones cause most of the algae in your tank? These same ones. Why can't you just remove these nutrients and eliminate all the algae in your tank? Because these nutrients are the result of the animals you keep.

So how do your animals "make" these nutrients? Well a large part the nutrients comes from pee (urea). Pee is very high in urea and ammonia, and these are a favorite food of algae and some bacteria. This is why your glass will always need cleaning; because the pee hits the glass before anything else, and algae on the glass consume the ammonia and urea immediately (using photosynthesis) and grow more. In the ocean and lakes, phytoplankton consume the ammonia and urea in open water, and seaweed consume it in shallow areas, but in a tank you don't have enough space or water volume for this, and, your other filters or animals often remove or kill the phytoplankton or seaweed anyway. So, the nutrients stay in your tank.

Then, the ammonia/ammonium hits your rocks, and the periphyton on the rocks consumes more ammonia and urea. Periphyton is both algae and animals, and is the reason your rocks change color after a few weeks from when they were new. Then the ammonia goes inside the rock, or hits your sand, and bacteria there convert it into nitrite and nitrate. However, the nutrients are still in your tank.

Also let's not forget phosphate, which comes from solid organic food particles. When these particles are eaten by microbes and clean up crews, the organic phosphorus in them is converted into phosphate. However, the nutrients are still in your tank.

So whenever you have algae or cyano "problems", you simply have not exported enough nutrients out of your tank compared to how much you have been feeding (note: live rock can absorb phosphate for up to a year, making it seem like there was never a problem. Then after a year, there is a problem).

So just increase your nutrient exports. You could also reduce feeding, and this has the same effect, but it's certainly not fun when you want to feed your animals :)
 
Read the first few post they will give directions and amounts to use for sugar dosing. As for if it works, since the day after the bacterial bloom my nitrates can't be detected by a normal test kit and I in 5 years have never had my nitrates this low. My water I don't think could get any clearer, just watch your ph and alk as my ph seems to have dropped and alk has gone up.
 
nelsonkearstin said:
I went out and bought a protien skimmer in my efforts to keep nitrates stable. I know skimmers don't remove nitrate but it does help remove excess wastes in water. Thus helping with nitrate?.. so here I am with my 125gal at 80ppm and my 55 gal possibly off my testing scale. I've been watching my feedings. Cut them in half. My water is so clear I'm rather proud. I change 5 gal in the 55 gal every week and 15 gal in the 125 gal every week.
Click to expand...

Santa Monica has this correct; in a saltwater tank, it's generally necessary to run an effective protein skimmer to remove some of the organic wastes up-front before they are processed by bacteria into inorganic nitrate and phosphate. The skimmer also removes some of this bacteria, and since the bacteria contain nitrogen and phosphate as part of their structure (both the cell wall and the cytoplasm), removing them with skimming controls nitrate and phosphate in the tank water on the back end. This is the essence of carbon dosing; adding a carbon source like ethanol (vodka), acetic acid (vinegar), or a sugar like sucrose or fructose allows the bacteria to grow more prolifically and be removed by the skimmer.

You will likely find, as many of us have, that no amount of tank cleanliness and/or reasonable water changes will successfully keep nitrates and phosphates low. There are several reasons for this, one of which is that the solid organic waste in the tank decays so rapidly that it's virtually impossible to remove without degradation by bacteria into inorganic nitrate and phosphate. Moreover, much of the waste produced in the tank from the fishes and other life isn't solid, so it can't be removed by mechanical filtration (skimming, filtration socks, siphoning, etc...). Once the inorganic nitrate/phosphate is produced, water changes aren't very effective at reducing their concentration to low levels - it would take very large (>50%), very frequent water changes to do this. This article goes into detail about the effect of water changes (they're still good to do, just not as an on-going way to reduce nitrates and phosphates in the water).

With respect to carbon dosing, I would encourage you to start with vinegar instead of vodka or sugar. This article will explain the "how" and "why". Addition of any form of easily metabolized carbon added to the aquarium water will definitely work to encourage bacterial growth that can then be removed by an effective skimmer. However, it's very easy to over-dose concentrated sources like vodka or sugar - it's even possible to cause enough of a bacterial bloom from an overdose to kill the fish or other forms of life in the tank by very rapid overgrowth of bacteria and depletion of oxygen levels in the tank water. In contrast, vinegar is a 5% solution of acetic acid. Because it's very dilute, it's a lot easier for the reefer to measure and add the very small amount of carbon that should be dosed.
 
dkeller_nc said:
Santa Monica has this correct; in a saltwater tank, it's generally necessary to run an effective protein skimmer to remove some of the organic wastes up-front before they are processed by bacteria into inorganic nitrate and phosphate. The skimmer also removes some of this bacteria, and since the bacteria contain nitrogen and phosphate as part of their structure (both the cell wall and the cytoplasm), removing them with skimming controls nitrate and phosphate in the tank water on the back end. This is the essence of carbon dosing; adding a carbon source like ethanol (vodka), acetic acid (vinegar), or a sugar like sucrose or fructose allows the bacteria to grow more prolifically and be removed by the skimmer.

You will likely find, as many of us have, that no amount of tank cleanliness and/or reasonable water changes will successfully keep nitrates and phosphates low. There are several reasons for this, one of which is that the solid organic waste in the tank decays so rapidly that it's virtually impossible to remove without degradation by bacteria into inorganic nitrate and phosphate. Moreover, much of the waste produced in the tank from the fishes and other life isn't solid, so it can't be removed by mechanical filtration (skimming, filtration socks, siphoning, etc...). Once the inorganic nitrate/phosphate is produced, water changes aren't very effective at reducing their concentration to low levels - it would take very large (>50%), very frequent water changes to do this. This article goes into detail about the effect of water changes (they're still good to do, just not as an on-going way to reduce nitrates and phosphates in the water).

With respect to carbon dosing, I would encourage you to start with vinegar instead of vodka or sugar. This article will explain the "how" and "why". Addition of any form of easily metabolized carbon added to the aquarium water will definitely work to encourage bacterial growth that can then be removed by an effective skimmer. However, it's very easy to over-dose concentrated sources like vodka or sugar - it's even possible to cause enough of a bacterial bloom from an overdose to kill the fish or other forms of life in the tank by very rapid overgrowth of bacteria and depletion of oxygen levels in the tank water. In contrast, vinegar is a 5% solution of acetic acid. Because it's very dilute, it's a lot easier for the reefer to measure and add the very small amount of carbon that should be dosed.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the response I will check out the vinager option. I do have to say I have added a lil sugar. Way lower than everyone's suggesting. I actually added a lil today cuz I'll be doing a 50% water change ;/
I can't even tell if my skimmer is working right. My bubbles are rarely dark. Normally white. The collection cup will get a bit nasty (green water with some algae chunks sometimes) but, I feel this think isn't doing a good enough job. My bubbles arw always more wet thus filling collection cup quicker. It's only been running for over a month. Tanks only 4 months old (how much gunk should it pull?)... I'm not too sure how to have its adjustments 100%. I haven't messed much with the flow of the pump, just the skimmer adjustment itself... I've basically just set it to where I feel it doesn't flood my room anymore!! ;/ I want it on 24/7
With my knowledge of skimmers which is 0, I feel it's not doing its best because I haven't messed with pump adjustment. I haven't tested it or seen any different results for myself. It's just to hard to deal with.
Is your pump flow set real low? I think mines barely on...
 
SantaMonica said:
Def hetero.
Click to expand...

I thought that, in general, the heterotophic bacteria used up the nitrates instead of oxygen, and prefer organic carbon like sugar. While the ones that create nitrates get carbon and oxygen from CO2 gas.

So I don't really get why adding organic carbon to the tank would cause oxygen depletion if it mostly feeds bacteria that don't rely on it? :o
 
Hetero uses oxygen. Autotrophic makes oxygen. Carbon dosing feed the hetero.

The whole point of hetero is that they need carbon. Autotrophic is the opposite, and releases carbon (mostly glucose). Thus, algae are putting carbs into the water, and are carbon dosing, in effect. The more algae that is growing in the system, the more glucose (carbs) are naturally put into the water.
 
SantaMonica said:
Hetero uses oxygen. Autotrophic makes oxygen. Carbon dosing feed the hetero.

The whole point of hetero is that they need carbon. Autotrophic is the opposite, and releases carbon (mostly glucose). Thus, algae are putting carbs into the water, and are carbon dosing, in effect. The more algae that is growing in the system, the more glucose (carbs) are naturally put into the water.
Click to expand...

Ok, I can't ever remember which is which. I wasn't really thinking about the algae. I guess Im confused cause I had always heard that the ones that get rid of nitrates need low oxygen areas, like deep sand beds or way inside the rocks, like how people say filters are nitrate factories cause they have a lot of oxygen?

I know it works, cause people's test results. I'm just trying to get clearer on how.
 
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