Nitrate Reduction 101 with sugar!!!

[PatrickJ]

People should be cynical when they invest thousands into a fish tanks!

People's reef tanks are not test tubes for radical idea's.

I dont trust liquid chemicals, except cacium and alk products. I am very sceptical to believe the phrase "this product works wounders" unless, I hear 20,000 other people say it. Not those here and there people on RC.


I swithced to bare bottom, and IT SUCKED, I lost fish and I lost a 9 inch neon green montipora, and a RTN'ed a colony of acropora.

Therefore, the things I hear on RC, I take it for a grain of salt.

Nice info on the GE Silicone II, by the way.

 

[wds21921]

I'm with you on that one Patrick.

I'm skeptical (for good reason) about miracle cures and I add this (sugar/vodka cure) to that list.

Those that believe in it and want to continue to use it more power to you. I know that with good maintanence and proper animal husbandry I can maintain my system without having to resort to experiments simply because"thats what they do in Germany".

I agree with another poster about making sure you let people know that this treatment is still in it's infancy. It may pan out and be what it's described as, over time.

I know one person who took the vodka idea to the extreme and wound up wiping out her whole tank. The bacterial bloom was so huge you couldn't even see into the tank.

 

[xtrstangx]

PatrickJ, I respect that you don't take everyone's word as gold.. in fact, everyone should. So many people hear one person say that this product is great and they go ahead and buy it.

BB may or may not be right for you. Sorry to hear about the losses. Some people do excellent with it, while some people hate it. You just have to find what works for you.

wds21921, people have been dosing carbon sources for years now. But I don't think it should be regarded as a miracle cure, if you use it correctly it can be very effective, but in ignorant/misguided hands it can also be very dangerous. I do however agree with you about following the German trends, while there are a few good things (Tunze ), they have a lot of wacky ideas like we have here in the US.

 

[xcreonx]

I did the Vodka/sugar thing a while back on a new tank I had just set up with Nitrates around 25ppm. After 3 weeks, they were down to 10 and wouldn't move, even with bi-monthly 25% water changes and daily vodka dosing (albeit on the small dose-side). Also got two bacterial blooms (cloudy water) and 3 small phytoplankton blooms.

Two 50% water changes the next week brought the nitrates to <5, and increased skimming with ozone, controlled feeding and regular, weekly 10% water changes has rendered them undetectable (salifert kit).

So it would appear the vodka did it's thing to a point, but getting my arms wet dealt the final blow.

You can't beat regular maintenance.

 

[iamwhatiam52]

Wow!
I had not intended to start such a ruckus with my flippant remarks.
Some of us would do well to be less critical, or maybe perform a little more maintaince on a sense of humor.
Read my post again with a less judgmental frame of mind and you'll see I'm agreeing that quick fixes are not the best way to solve problems. I'm acknowledging that they are tempting, and that I lack diligence and discipline
____________________________________________________________________
Also, we are admonished that "it's best to find the source of your excess nitrates rather than use quick fix solutions" and we all know this is true. BUT............. I know the source of my nitrates. I overstock, overfeed, underskim, hardly waterchange.

So.

Untill I get a little self control, or get a 3,985,983,757 gallon tank to keep all the creatures I love, I may resort to a quick fix from time to time.
_______________________________________________________________


Though I am reading this information with great interest, I have NOT yet tried dosing carbon. Heck, I didn't even resort to this awful crutch to cycle my tank like someone here did.


And why do we not regard water changes as a "quick fix"? We change water instead of addressing the problem!!! Seems to me that one of these days when someone figures out how to properly maintain water quality we'll be able to dispense with this band-aid approach.

I keep an active and interesting tank, have always had a fuge, and recently added a skimmer.
My overpopulated tank is like a three ring circus, has had very few casualties, and I love it. My nitrates have recently risen to 20, so I am concerned. I do not however want to have a tranquil (boring) tank with beautiful corals and two starving fish.

Remember, this is supposed to be fun.

This is my setup:
180 gal set up May 2005
Ecosystem sump and skimmer
Actinic and halide lighting
300 # LR, 1 1/2" LS
1 banded pipe, 2 seahorse, 2 Centropyge argi, 4 percula, 2 Sunburst Anthius, 5 small blennys, royal gramma, 2 yellowstripe clingfish, small sailfin tang
Gobies - 3 yellow clown, 1 Rainford, 1 firefish, 4 green stripe, 2 mandarin, 3 redhead, 2 hi fin red banded, 1 neon, 2 twinspot, 1 Stonogobiops yasha (Ilike gobies)
Shrimp - 2 peppermint, 2 cleaner, 2 fire, 6 Thor amboinensis, 2 yellow CBS, 3 Perilimiines, 1 Heliofungia
2 Pom Pom Crabs, few tube worms, sea hare
few mushrooms, few softies, few small sps, few small lps, 2 plates, 1 bubble, xenia
tube anemone, 1 large Bartholomea annulate, 3 misc anemones
Basket star, Pencil urchin, Diadema urchin, short spine black urchin, and a bunch of other misc. stuff.

Also, in a 20 gal tank running off the same sump/fuge (I'm too lazy to set up another system) 9 neon Eviota gobies, 3 red stripe Eviota gobies, 2 clown gobies, 3 Trimma striata, 2 Trimma sp., 3 masked goby, 2 bluestripe pipefish, 2 periclimines, 3 Thor amboinensis, 2 orange claw scissor shrimp.

This is not as excessive as it sounds since most of the fish are very tiny. Total biomass of 70 fish is about the same as a quarter pounder with cheese.


If dosing carbon may help maintain this population without putting everyone on a crash diet, it is worth considering.

But....

I haven't ruled out a 3,985,983,757 gallon tank either.

 

[wds21921]

A water change is not a "quick fix", it's a temporary resolution to an ongoing problem that we cannot move out enough of the biowaste as we need like the ocean does.
Try going without one for 6 months and let me know how your tank does. It's more of a neccesity than a quick fix and aligning it with that statement is being very shortsighted.

 

[coralnut99]

After sifting through all the acrimony in this thread, it seems Reefral may be the longest-running carbon supplementer at a about a year. Fishykid for about 6 months. A year is a pretty long time. Has anyone heard of a successful, or at least non-disastrous case of carbon supplementing for longer than a year?

I hereby nominate Reefreal for RC president.

 

[Angel*Fish]

I can't believe I read through this entire thread - it seems to me that if people would actually read posts before they respond to them, threads like this would be less "amusing" (as a few have commented).

Those of you who want to wait until a method has been completely established with all the bugs worked out might consider that without those who are willing to take some "chances" on new theories, we might all still be sitting around wondering if a water change, while risky, might indeed be a good idea.* Fine - bring on your devil's advocate -- but why the put-downs?


* For those of you with no sense of humor - and you don't usually seem to know who you are - this is what I would characterize as a sarcastic, "tongue-in-cheek" remark

 

[Angel*Fish]

Oh yes and thanks, Reefer Al, for having done your research and sharing it.

And for anyone out there who appreciates very bad analogies, here's mine - Adding too much sugar to your tank can cause a crash ....well how about adding too much kalk? Ever think of that? Huh? Talk about a bleaching event! That's right, adding too much kalk will kill your tank.

For anyone who didn't read my preface to that remark - I already said the analogy was not apt.

For anyone who didn't read the previous statement please refer to an earlier comment where I clearly stated that it was a b-a-d analogy.

Can you tell I'm aggravated? Yes, I am - I just read a really "funny" thread.

OK - off my rant - please excuse, this is my first rant, I think.

 

[Angel*Fish]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7881915#post7881915 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by PatrickJ
I swithced to bare bottom, and IT SUCKED, I lost fish and I lost a 9 inch neon green montipora, and a RTN'ed a colony of acropora.

Therefore, the things I hear on RC, I take it for a grain of salt.

This is a discussion board not a "God has come down and explained it all for you" board. I'm sorry you had to have such a bad experience to figure this out.

This is the INTERNET - half of us could be serial killers for all you know. Excuse me, I have to go re-explain this to my 17 and 21 year old daughters

 

[mattsilvester]

I think this idea is great. I do however have to agree with the "doubting" people in that using this as a quick fix might not be a good idea long term.

Personally, in the time I have been keeping marine animals (fish and corals) I have found nitrate levels to be a good indicator of the health of an aquarium. Please let me emphasize the world INDICATOR. By this I mean if you were test no other parameter only nitrate, then if it was low, the conditions in the system would tend to be good. Nuisance algae would tend not to be a problem, fish and corals would tend to be in good health, and generally everthing would tend to be in good condition. If your nitrates are 'naturally' low, then your system should be pretty balanced, you probably haven't overstocked the system.

The logic behind this is that by managing your nitrates through traditional means (by traditional I mean water changes, skimming, and macro algae), your are also managing many other parameters..... water changes are ensuring you top up trace elements and you are removing other nasties that we do not measure for. Skimming is keeping the oxygen levels up, stabalising more than just disolved organics....... macro algae (on 24hr lighting) is removing more than just nitrate, and is also stabalizing pH. So in general, if you were to strive to measure and subsequently manage any one parameter, I would say manage the nitrate - because in doing so you are managing pretty much everything else.

Furthermore, and system will be over stocked in psychological terms long before it is biologically overstocked. If you are biologically overstocked, then your animals are living in an overcrowded prison. In my mind, at least for fishes, you are doing alot more harm to the animal by crowding it out than you are by a little nitrate poisoning. I would put it this way, if you had the choice of living in an 8x10 jail cell, with 9 other maniac inmates but the jail cell is fully air conditioned, and you are giving the best of food, and have a perfectview out the window.... OR..... you get to live in a degraded apartment of your own, in an old block with dodgy plumbing, poor heating, and no air con........ which would you choose?

By artificially reducing nitrate, you are basically side stepping the maintainance that helps ensure all these other paramenters are taken care of.

I personally think the sugar method is only going to make you think your tank is in much better condition that it actually is. If is crashes a couple of years down the line, I doubt it has anything to do with actually adding sugar to your system. I would think that if it crashes, it does so becuase some other element of the system has become either too high or too low, as a result of not doing enough water changes - because if you use nitrate as the barometer for when you need to change water, well basically you will have been working with a broken barometer.

To this end, I think it is a good idea to use sugar to help with nitrate only if you are doing it as a short term solution. For example, if you have just upgraded from a 100 gal tank to a 240gal, and you are using your old skimmer until you have the money for a new one.... maybe 6 months down the road....... or maybe you have an old system with high nitrate and which while your new refugium is establishing itself you need to give the system a little helping hand..............

I think in general, people worry too much about nitrate itself....... nitrate is like colestoral - if its high you are probably out of shape, over weight, and drink or somoke too much....... its not the colestoral as such that is the problem, but your lifestyle. Now, if someone comes along with an "anti colestoral" pill, you will still be out of shape, overweight, and still smoke and drink too much..... meaning that while you may not die from a heart attack, your still exposing yourself to lung cancer, bowl cancer, ulcers, joint problems etc.

Just for the record, I disagree with all forms of "nitrate filteration" other than "natural" methods i.e. dsb / LR / macro algae........ and I am under no illusion about the term natural either.... after all, none of what we do in our hobby is natural, when you put a slice of the ocean in a glass box, power it with electricy, and feed it processed foods..........

sorry about all the speling mistakes.

Regards,

Matt

 

[Herpervet]

Just two cents guys:

This idea, like many others has its place. There are MANY ways to skin this cat.

In a nano tank few would argue with doing regular water changes using a very high quality mix like Tropic Marin is the most logical method to maintain a healthy system.

I my system with over 1100 gallons this is a weapon I want to know more about since water changes become very costly.

I suspect that over time we will learn some standard rules to follow just like with many methods.


I am curious though. Those of you (Al?) that have dosed a carbon source regularly:

Have you seen an increase in sps color as a result? (anectdotally of course)

 

[Angel*Fish]

Ummm.... I just reread my posts from 5 days ago - sorry everybody - I still think I had some points, but that was not the way to express them. Please excuse.

 

[ReeferAl]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7917744#post7917744 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Herpervet
I am curious though. Those of you (Al?) that have dosed a carbon source regularly:

Have you seen an increase in sps color as a result? (anectdotally of course)

I have noticed that my SPS, which had nearly stopped growing for unknown reasons have resumed good growth as the nutrient levels have dropped. I have SPS that have been colorful throughout and those that are somewhat bland and have remained so.

No matter how hard one tries to keep everything constant and change just one parameter at a time, it always seems that when you look back there are multiple parameters that have actually changed. This makes it hard to know what factor caused the growth to resume. My nitrates have always been well below 1ppm and phosphates undetectible. I have noticed that my glass needs cleaning less often than before though so nutrients must be lower. It used to be that I had to clean the glass every 2 to 3 days. That has decreased to every 4 to 5 days. At the same time I have increased feedings somewhat.

Since I started dosing sugar I have also replaced all the light bulbs. I previously had a mix of 14K Phoenix and 10K AB and now I have all 14K Phoenix bulbs.

I also added a closed loop to replace my Stream pumps.

Each of these changes was made a few months apart, but the changes I have seen in growth did not occur suddenly but gradually, so I really don't know what to attribute it to. That is the frustrating part- I don't know what I am now doing right nor do I know what I was doing wrong when the corals were barely growing.

So, the short answer is that I can't reliably attribute any changes to the sugar dosing. OTOH, I have seen no deleterious effects either.

Allen

 

[Reef_bones]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7877990#post7877990 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by RichConley
HOw is it any more of a bandaid than feeding less? Theyre different solutions to the same problem.

Its just a different method of nutrient removal. Woudl you say getting a bigger skimmer is a bandaid? Because thats basically the same thing, increased nutrient export.

100% agree with this. Good point about the skimmer. I am not understanding the cause for aruguement over to use or not to use. If you have to depend on sugar to keep your nitrates down them maybe its time to upgrade some equipment or cut back feeding. On the other hand if you have something die and can't find it this could be the answer until it decomposes... I would rather go through a week of sugar in my tank than have to take all my rockwork out to get a snail that found deaths door...

 

[Reef_bones]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7883450#post7883450 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by wds21921
A water change is not a "quick fix", it's a temporary resolution to an ongoing problem that we cannot move out enough of the biowaste as we need like the ocean does.
Try going without one for 6 months and let me know how your tank does. It's more of a neccesity than a quick fix and aligning it with that statement is being very shortsighted.

I can go without a water change for six months and not notice any difference in water quality... The reason I do water changes is to replinish the MINERALs. I have tanks that the owners never do water changes is. Of course most run a remote DSB that can be changed very easily....

 

[RonD]

Well I did try this method and I am now back to water changes.. not that I wasn't before but I had a spike and gave it a whirl.. Never again will I do this. I am not saying it doesn't work.. it just didn't work for me. My Coroline bleached very quickly and things just didn't look as happy in my tank either(fish and corals). I know you may say well it was the nitrates that caused the bleaching and you may be right but it happened a few days into the sugar adding... thus I felt it was the sugar doing it. I have made some mods to my skimmer to up its performance and am seeing big changes for the better. My skimmate is a lot wetter now as well.. going for the more out, the better approach. I have to add more in the way of water top ups but that's fine.. as I mentioned above .. things are happier now.

 

[Reef_bones]

would powdered sugar work the same??? and can you drip it with limewater....

 

[RichConley]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7883450#post7883450 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by wds21921
A water change is not a "quick fix", it's a temporary resolution to an ongoing problem that we cannot move out enough of the biowaste as we need like the ocean does.
Try going without one for 6 months and let me know how your tank does. It's more of a neccesity than a quick fix and aligning it with that statement is being very shortsighted.

And how is adding sugar any differnt?

 

[ReeferAl]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7920649#post7920649 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Reef_bones
would powdered sugar work the same??? and can you drip it with limewater....

Powdered sugar would work fine, although I don't know why you would bother as granular sugar is cheaper. I don't know of any way it could interact with lime water so it should be ok to dose together.