NO3:PO4-x conversion to vinegar

[llandegfedd]

PO4 will never become 0mg/L in this tank. Not only do I not want it to be that low, but would be near impossible under current methods haha.

There's a lot of visible bacterial growth on the glass however it is now at present reminiscent of the bacterial growth on the glass we had when dosing the NO3O4-x.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Can you describe your system and where you dose the vinegar?

It would be desirable to get it to grow somewhere else. I've never had any apparent growth on my glass (uust green algae).

 

[llandegfedd]

It doesn't bother me so much. In fact it could be somewhat desirable. I very rarely get algae on the glass. I guess the film may prevent algae settling on the glass. May feed certain organisms in the tank too..?
I must have to get the blade on there to get any settled algae off every 1.5 maybe 2 months.

Otherwise, it's just a quick wipe of the glass to remove the film every 3 or so days.


There's quite a big bit of info on the first page of this thread, and this is the sump:

Front pump is on the O3 circuit.
Middle pump is on the U.V. - chiller- second PO4 reactor circuit.
Back pump is the return pump.

Front and middle pumps pump around the sump and out to the outside box also. They're Tunze 1073.05s, therefore electronically controllable, so have a combined flow of about 600lph.

The rear pump, being the return has a output of approximately 1000lph.

Ethanoic acid dosed 24x/day.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Where is the ethanoic acid added?

 

[llandegfedd]

Entitled vinegar on the dosing rack, as seen in the last photo.

 

[llandegfedd]

The point of showing the other stuff is to show that an amount of the dosage will enevitably go through the O3 system (pictured) then the sump again, before making it to the display tank.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I can't tell where you are dosing it relative to the sump. If you are happy with it on the glass, there's no need to move it, but dosing upstream of the sump might put more of the growth there. Upstream of GAC (if you use any in the filter) may also put more growth there.

 

[shermanator]

I'm not sure we know what amount of what is in that product, so it would be pure guessing to try to match it.

Today is "make my grad students do aquarium experiments" day in my lab. I had a student take an NMR of NOPOX (see attached image for spectrum).

It is...

6:1 EtOH:AcOH (ethanol : acetic acid). The AcOH is ~3%.

So you can make your own NOPOX (roughly) by adding 1 part vinegar to 1 part 30% ethanol.

There are a couple impurities around 3 ppm, but otherwise it's quite clean stuff.

 

[tmz]

That is interesting. I've been dosing roughly 7.5 ethanol to 1 part vinegar for over 5 years ,long before NOPOX was out there; not exactly the same but close.

 

[Dario666]

Hey guys great read I have posted on rfc I few times on carbon dosing I am now at 5.5 MLS of vodka and 36 MLS of vinager things are not where I want them yet but being hope full I also did a 30% wc today will test tomorrow see where am at.

 

[shermanator]

I forgot to attach the spectrum.

 

[tmz]

Thanks, I meant to say I've been dosing 7.5 parts ethaol to 1part acetic acid (not vinegar).

 

[droog]

Today is "make my grad students do aquarium experiments" day in my lab. I had a student take an NMR of NOPOX (see attached image for spectrum).

It is...

6:1 EtOH:AcOH (ethanol : acetic acid). The AcOH is ~3%.

So you can make your own NOPOX (roughly) by adding 1 part vinegar to 1 part 30% ethanol.

There are a couple impurities around 3 ppm, but otherwise it's quite clean stuff.

You mean 1 part vinegar (itself acetic acid at 5% right) to 1 part 30% ethanol?

There were two peaks in the attached spectrum, are they isomers?

-droog

 

[shermanator]

You mean 1 part vinegar (itself acetic acid at 5% right) to 1 part 30% ethanol?

Yeah, I think that is what I wrote. It won't be exact (you'll end up with 2.5% AcOH and not 3%, but our determination of the AcOH concentration probably has more than .5% error anyhow), but close enough.

There were two peaks in the attached spectrum, are they isomers?

The two peaks for ethanol? Those are the two different proton signals for ethanol. There are two peaks my student labeled as "mystery peaks" but those are minor impurities of some sort. Overall, it's quite pure.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Today is "make my grad students do aquarium experiments" day in my lab. I had a student take an NMR of NOPOX (see attached image for spectrum).

It is...

6:1 EtOH:AcOH (ethanol : acetic acid). The AcOH is ~3%.

So you can make your own NOPOX (roughly) by adding 1 part vinegar to 1 part 30% ethanol.

There are a couple impurities around 3 ppm, but otherwise it's quite clean stuff.

Thanks.

 

[SloppyWhenWet]

So 6 to 1 vodka(80 proof) to vingear(5%). About to finish a bottle of the Red Sea I won in a club meet and will be dosing vodka and vingear now.

 

[droog]

So 6 to 1 vodka(80 proof) to vingear(5%). About to finish a bottle of the Red Sea I won in a club meet and will be dosing vodka and vingear now.

My understanding might be wrong here, but if you're using 80 proof vodka (40% abv) I would think you need 8x as much vodka as 5% vinegar to have the ratio described here.

Ethanol at the right strength is easy enough for anyone in a lab to get. Not sure how easy for members of the general public.

Using vodka is probably just as expensive as buying the NOPOX product though (and less pure). As a member of the general public, I guess "ethyl" alcohol would be the closest match, but it will have been "denatured" (poisoned) to make unsuitable for human consumption. The impurities in ethyl alcohol I think run from 5-30%, typically isopropanol and methanol.

I wonder if those "mystery peaks" could be trace amounts of isopropanol or methanol. From high school chemistry I remember its very hard to get pure ethanol.

I'm not a chemist though... defer to Randy whether this is yummy food for our bacterial friends and safe to add to reef aquarium.

-droog

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Using vodka is probably just as expensive as buying the NOPOX product though (and less pure)

Why do you think that? It looks more expensive to me than vodka, especially bearing in mind that it is only about 45% as concentrated as vodka.

I'm not sure how to compare purity.

 

[droog]

Ah... the acetic acid is ~3% and ethanol around 18% by volume ~= 36 "proof" vodka - is that what you mean? Yeah, in that case I guess Vodka is cheaper, depending which brand of vodka you feed your fish and the local price you get on NOPOX.

Regarding purity, how about you dose yourself a couple of shots of NOPOX at night, measure your headache in the morning in the name of science? (joking folks, don't drink that stuff!)

-droog

 

[tmz]

I get 80 proof(40% ethanol) plain vodka for $14.13 for 1.75 liters. Been using it for about 6 years along with store brand vinegar ( 5% acetic acid) at about $4 per gallon on average.

FWIW, the daily dose for 650 gallons I use is 36ml vodka and 80ml vinegar .Thus roughly 78% of the carbon source is ethanol with 22% acetic acid. The cost is .8 cents per ml of vodka ,ie 29cents per day plus 8 cents for the vinegar or 37cents per day total cost.
One liter of NO3PO4x ,the ecnomy size, cost $24.99; the recommended daily dose is up to 12ml per 100gallons ;so for 650 it would be 78ml : roughly $1.95 per day at the high dose level and 65 cents per day at the lowest recommended dosing leve l4ml for 10 gallons. It's significantly more expensive.