I thought about that a lot. Basically, I can make 33gals of water at a time though. I am pretty sure that once I get my parameters back in line, I should be fine, so I didn't want to buy a new trash can for mixing salt water. I now have considerably more macro algae growing and a AquaC EV240 skimmer. Amazing that my Ecosystem setup runs flawlessly on the 90gal but didn't work very well on the 210 gal. On the 90gal I used a 30gal sump (33% of tank volume) but on the 210gal the ecosystem sump was only 40gals (19%). If I had to do it again, I would definately do the Ecosystem design again, but ensure that the sump/fuge was at least 1/3 of tank volume.
Nitrate Reduction 101 with sugar!!!
- Thread starter fishykid9212
- Start date
archie1709
New member
That was funny. A whole large article with scientific facts were provided about sugar. Then everyone just went: "Well, I saw that but....eeeeeh....anyways, I put half a tsp of sugar this week..."
Brushed off...
Brushed off...
well, after 3 long weeks and lots of reading... my nitrates tested 0 tonight!!! That is down from a shocking 160 3 weeks ago... hence my discovery of this thread and the beginning of my dosing sugar...I dosed 1/2 tsp everyday for 3 weeks... saw no ill effects on anything and they are finally DOWN to a big fat 0!!!
Does anyone know what I should dose to maintain this??
Thanks for lots of good advice!
Jenni
Does anyone know what I should dose to maintain this??
Thanks for lots of good advice!
Jenni
thriceanangel
Active member
Thats going to take some tinkering. What I did was reduce the dose by, 50% and test a week or 2 later, and see where you are. If you test + for nitrates, then go back to your original dose then reduce by 25%. so on and so forth.
thriceanangel
Active member
I am still tinkering months after my first dose.
boxfishpooalot
Active member
Nobody experiences fish getting bacterial infections like fin rot or any abrasions on the skin?
RichConley
New member
I havent.
I dont see why you would, theyre totally different species.
RichConley
New member
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9341637#post9341637 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by archie1709
That was funny. A whole large article with scientific facts were provided about sugar. Then everyone just went: "Well, I saw that but....eeeeeh....anyways, I put half a tsp of sugar this week..."
Brushed off...
Its because the article is totally irrelivant. Its a completely different environment.
archie1709
New member
I wouldn't say it is "totally" irrelevant. You may wish to ignore certain things with it, fine. You argued that the reason for the sugar was the algae present due to run-offs. Fine. That's what the article said.
But it specifically said that sugars promote growth of certain bacteria that kills or weakens the coral. So it doesn't matter whether the sugar came from a spoon in your kitchen or the fleshy algae. You can argue "complex sugar this, complex sugar that, simple sugar this, mono-whatever that". The fact is that sugars present in the reef tank promots growth of bacteria that kills or weakens the coral.
Not directly related? Sure. But TOTALLY irrelevant? I dunno
Last edited:
boxfishpooalot
Active member
O yes it does kill off photosythesizeing animals. Especially hair algae. I would not remove corals from the list of possible things the bacteria attack. Because they will. Free carbon is completly different than carbon molecule attached to an organic. One is bound the other is not.
flameangel88
New member
This could explain the reason my xenia started to die and polyps closed up after dosing 3+ weeks. After moving all the stuff to a different tank and stopped dosing there as well it seems they are all coming back to life with the exception on one of the 2 Xenia (I'd this one the longest and exposed to sugar the most).
I've to say since I stopped dosing sugar the water clarity is definately not as good as before. The nitrate level didn't seem to come down while dosing sugar but then I do have a high bio-load and a combo of heavy feeding don't help but I do 10-12.5% WC every week.
I've to say since I stopped dosing sugar the water clarity is definately not as good as before. The nitrate level didn't seem to come down while dosing sugar but then I do have a high bio-load and a combo of heavy feeding don't help but I do 10-12.5% WC every week.
fishykid9212
New member
I'm glad it's working for most of you 
If you see corals dying, it might not be because of the excess bacteria. Most likely it is because when you add the sugar, you pretty much strip the water clean of nitrates. When you get the nitrates to zero, it can harm corals because many corals such as xenias need some nitrate as nutrients.
As for maintaining nitrates at zero this is what you have to do. I would throw a pinch or two or sugar in the tank daily. After a week or two check the nitrates if they are still zero then you can keep on doing what you are doing but if they increase, throw in one more pinch than normally a day and again test the water after a week or two. I hope that answers your questions, let me know if you have anymore. It's almost been a year now using sugar without a loss
If you see corals dying, it might not be because of the excess bacteria. Most likely it is because when you add the sugar, you pretty much strip the water clean of nitrates. When you get the nitrates to zero, it can harm corals because many corals such as xenias need some nitrate as nutrients.As for maintaining nitrates at zero this is what you have to do. I would throw a pinch or two or sugar in the tank daily. After a week or two check the nitrates if they are still zero then you can keep on doing what you are doing but if they increase, throw in one more pinch than normally a day and again test the water after a week or two. I hope that answers your questions, let me know if you have anymore. It's almost been a year now using sugar without a loss
thriceanangel
Active member
I'd like to see some pictures of tanks that dose sugar... I know it works, but I'd still like to see some.
John Kelly
Goniopora Aficionado
....or, the corals are affected by the change in water clarity. For me, that would be the main short term concern. I threw a tsp of sugar in a 55g "dump" tank that has a bunch extra corals, critters, and algae in it. There was no bacterial bloom and the tank hasn't ever had a water change (1 1/2 yrs). Within a couple of days the water was crystal and the algae (hair) is disappearing quickly. My first thought was that if I did this on my main tank my corals would probably get fried from the lights. This happened the first time I used phosphate remover, which also caused a bacterial bloom, which stripped the water of oxygen, which killed my fish. Due to the super clear water that occurred after that, a bunch of my corals lightened up considerably from a quick loss of zooxanthellae and a few of them bleached.
So, if corals start losing zoox, I would consider the lighting as first suspect since the water has quickly and dramatically lowered it's refractive index.
John Kelly
Goniopora Aficionado
The reason I came across this thread " Nitrate Reduction 101 with sugar!!!" is because I was originally interested to see if anyone here on RC had experimented with feeding their corals directly with dissolved sugar........possibly as a way to help bleached corals to recover.
Here is a page from an article that I came across. On the Feeding of Some Scleractinian Corals with Bacteria and Dissolved Organic Matter
The part I found interesting was:
“Coral polyps certainly utilize organic matter produced by symbiotic zooxanthellae (muscatine 1967; Franzisket 1969) but active photosynthesis by zooxanthellae requires an extensive inflow of nutrients which are very scarce in tropical waters. Polyps are believed to have additional sources of food, both particulate and dissolved. Stephens (1962) showed that polyps can consume glucose from solution at concentrations ranging from 2-20mg liter-1. “
Here is a page from an article that I came across. On the Feeding of Some Scleractinian Corals with Bacteria and Dissolved Organic Matter
The part I found interesting was:
“Coral polyps certainly utilize organic matter produced by symbiotic zooxanthellae (muscatine 1967; Franzisket 1969) but active photosynthesis by zooxanthellae requires an extensive inflow of nutrients which are very scarce in tropical waters. Polyps are believed to have additional sources of food, both particulate and dissolved. Stephens (1962) showed that polyps can consume glucose from solution at concentrations ranging from 2-20mg liter-1. “
I started doing this about 4 days ago. Does everyone still do water changes through this? Or will it screw up the balance of sugar that you have dosed? As my nitrates seem to be sitting at the about the same (i know it will take time for the sugar to work) But i don't want to stress the corals a whole lot either.
Opinions?
Opinions?
thecoralreefer
New member
I checked with Marc Weiss products on this.
They are using sugar base ingredients from fruits.
Not sure the complete recipe. The bacteria do get stimulated by adding these products. If you use some kind of enzyme(Y2Kzyme) to help this process you will see the same kind of results. The enzymes help breakdown any decaying matter,meaty or vegetable. And did you know it is the sugars in alchohol that give you a headache. Which one you chose is up to you.They both work if you use them regularly.
They are using sugar base ingredients from fruits.
Not sure the complete recipe. The bacteria do get stimulated by adding these products. If you use some kind of enzyme(Y2Kzyme) to help this process you will see the same kind of results. The enzymes help breakdown any decaying matter,meaty or vegetable. And did you know it is the sugars in alchohol that give you a headache. Which one you chose is up to you.They both work if you use them regularly.
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