Nitrate Reduction 101 with sugar!!!

Phosphates are at 0.03 yesterday they were at .25
Nitrates are still at 25,I used Sailfert test kits.I'll test again in the morning.So for me Phosphates came down but Nitrates are the same.I'm going to put 1/3 a Tsp of sugar in now that i've read that article,Thanks to boxfishpooalot.
 
Ok I'll update.I reduced the sugar dose to !/3 teaspoon and 2ml white vinegar.I have 1 sopt of hair alge left in my tank and no diatoms.I have calupra and cheato in my sump and the calupra stopped growing and died back.Basiclly it's gone,the cheato is still healty and looks like it's growing.The corals look great and are keeping their colors.Skimate has been alot less then it was.I hardly get any now,I was pulling almost a cup(8oz) daily.If I get 1/2 a cup a week it's alot.I haven't cleaned my glass in 10 days and it's still clean and the water is spotless.So dosing sugar and vinegar has worked great for me,I think people with troubles are over dosing.My phosphates are at 0 and Nitrates are at 2ppm both tested with sailfert.Silicates are 0 tested wit seachem.I also test my RO/DI water for all 3 and with a TDS every 2 weeks.I have no fish in the tank only a bubble coral and a clam and 5 sps frags.I feed the bubble coral 2 shrimp pellets 3 times a week.I have almost 0 nutrient imports so the exports are happening pretty quickly.I do a 1 gallon water change every other day,I think a little at a time is better then alot unless it's an emergency.I just bought a box of Bio-Clean.You dose it every 15 days instead of daily.I am going to use this for awhile so I don't have to dose sugar and vinegar daily.If I don't get the same results I'll go back to vinegar and sugar.I think I covered everything,so far so good and I hope this helped.Oh I have a 65 gallon tank the net gallons with sump is 55 gallons.
 
Thanks Cosmo.

Did you ever have a noticable 'bloom' while dosing?

I dosed 1 tsp. for about 140gal. yesterday and this morning my skimmer was full, my filter socks were totally plugged up with boogers and the tank was a little cloudy. Everything is doing fine, but I am going to drop it to 1/2 tsp as the 1 tsp. was probably too much. Do you think I should wait until the tank totally clears before doing my next dose, which I planned on doing daily?

After I cleaned out the skimmer and started it back up, I had to drop the water level WAY down and it still pushed a great deal of really sticky foam up into the cup. Skimmer is running back to normal now.
 
Yep,I sure did.The first week I had a few good blooms.I think I started with a teaspoon,I forget now.I used 2 sources of carbon,sugar and vinegar so I wouldn't just boost one type of bacteria.I read alot in the chemistry forum and on the net.I used a filter pad where the water flows from my tank to sump and had to clean it at least once a day sometimes twice.I think it works great to reduce nutrients but it's not a overnight solution.I also think I still have hair because the rock absorbed phosphates and is still leaching it.My sand is pure white again and the conchs are actually climbing on low rocks and the glass for food.I've never seen that in the 4 years my tank has been running,except the past few weeks.I run a SSB.Oh I would wait for the bloom to go away,you'll notice crystal clear water,then dose again.It shouldn't be more then 24 hours.The first time I dosed after lights out it was so cloudy I thought the tank was cooked.But when I woke up the water was clear.If you have fish be careful the blooms lowers oxygen big time.
 
This type of post keeps on appearing, while I praise people for trying new things, and I have tried this myself with poor results. It has been proven that Sugar and Vodka do help to lower Nitrates by promoting Algae growth but they also create other problems. Just my 2 Cents on this but from what I have seen, you are eliminating one problem that can be solved with Water Changes and creating another problem that is even harder to solve (Algae blooms) and the biggest problem in my mind is that your going into completely uncharted territory! We know so little about the Corals and other creatures in our Tanks, so to go and add a unnatural level of a substance such as Sugar is just asking for problems. I bet you guys who have tried this keep wondering everytime something dies or goes out of whack "Is it the Sugar"
I did the same thing during my 2 week test and decided to stop, because I had no idea what problems where just normal, bad luck or related to the sugar.
 
I should correct myself, Bacteria Blooms. Although in my case I did see a whole lot more Green and Red Algae growing, thats what always stuck in my head when I think about the experiment. BTW my skimmer never Ran more than normal, but the water did get cloudy.
 
My results have been great and I've had no deaths in corals so far.Just hair alge and diatoms.I don't dose enough to get cloudy blooms but I do notice clear water.I'm starting to think if you dose to get that cloudy water the O2 depleats and starts stressing the animals and some die.If you dose in small amounts I think it's fine.I also think it's just like sandbeds and bare bottom tanks,zeo and non zeo users.It works for some and not others.
 
I am going to try this too. I have a 120g fish-only with DBS/Cheato sump and faux corals. Haven't changed water in the last 8 months. Even with moderate feeding, my nitrate is at a constant 15ppm. While I don't see any problems with the tank, I do have to wipe the glass every other day (use MH for lighting). There are not any bad algae that I can see in the main tank though. The reason I want to reduce nitrate further is because I am ready to add more fish to the tank, and the bioload will at least double after the addition.

How much sugar should I start with? Can I dissolve the sugar in my top off water? I usually add Superbuffer powder and iron supplement in the top off water and drip it into the sump, will sugar react with such mix?

BTW, thank you fishykid9212 and all you who stood up to the skeptics. It is amazing people are so quick to condemn "quick fixes" or "unnatural fixes" when this entire hobby is about quick and unnatural fixes so we may enjoy a piece of ocean at home.
 
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Well I added a half tsp of sugar three days ago, noticed nothing, then added another half tsp yesterday, the water had turned slightly cloudy, and my skimmer started to pull very wet foam out of water (I intentionally did not adjust the skimmer to see the effect on skimming product).

Nitrate has dropped to 5ppm from 15ppm. I have put sugar addition on hold until the tank clears up. I did not think half tsp of sugar would amount to much for my 125g tank but apparent you only need a very small dosage.

BTW I used organic cane sugar after seeing it next to the regular cane sugar granule at the store. The organic sugar was off white compared to the regular sugar, lead me to think some bleach agent must have been added to the regular sugar.
 
I went from this
HairAlge.jpg
[/IMG]

To this in about 6 weeks

No_Dino.jpg
[/IMG]
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8453503#post8453503 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Cosmo^Kramer
I went from this
HairAlge.jpg
[/IMG]

To this in about 6 weeks

No_Dino.jpg
[/IMG]
Click to expand...
What you will do for a maintenance now.
 
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