I believe around page 2 he states he was up to 2 mL/gal
Randy's vinegar dosing limit. I found it!
- Thread starter Randy Holmes-Farley
- Start date
I believe around page 2 he states he was up to 2 mL/gal
Spar
New member
That is where he is saying things started to look ugly though. I wasn't sure what was the ml/g he backed up to that seemed to work for him.
I have seen the .5ml/g/day referred to, like TMZ said. I will aim for that to start and see how things look.
I agree the maintenance dose for a specific tank can vary significantly from others given a variety in surface areas ,nutrient inputs /exports and other variables. Amping up to a maintenance dose slowly is recommended . Generally I'd start at .1 ml per gallon and move up to .3 over several weeks and keep it at that level for a month or so before moving up any more if at all , while watching for bacterial blooms and dropping back if necessary.
BTW:This is from Randy's post #31 fyi:
OK, I've slowly backed all the way down to about 44 ml per day, spread over the daylight hours. Things look much better. I did not realize how cloudy the water had gotten, presumably with suspended bacteria.
That's 44ml for 120 gallons or .366ml per gallon .
BTW:This is from Randy's post #31 fyi:
OK, I've slowly backed all the way down to about 44 ml per day, spread over the daylight hours. Things look much better. I did not realize how cloudy the water had gotten, presumably with suspended bacteria.
That's 44ml for 120 gallons or .366ml per gallon .
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Hi tmz, I have never tested for Iron. Should I? How frequently?
NO3 = 1ppm, PO4 = 0.12ppm. PO4 used to be 0.06 and lower, but then I had the dinos on the sandbed and read about ULNS as a possible cause due to lack of algae and other natural dinos competitors. So I decided to feed a little more to raise nutrients a little. Also introduced copepods. So now I'm trying to keep PO4 at 0.12ppm or a little lower. And see how it goes.
That would be a larger dose than mine, taking into account that mine is vinegar only and yours has some vodka in it, which is (if I recall correctly) 8 times stronger. My point is that larger doses are viable, given that you increase them gradually and monitor how your tank reacts.
The "œchart" refers to the one everyone is using, first published years ago, reprinted many times in this forum. If correctly scaled, recommended dosing schedules in this chart would be greater for larger systems. That's what I meant. Scary large volumes of vinegar are not really "œoff the chart"
I've read about your success. I agree that you are dosing what you needed to dose to get your desired outcome. I wish that I knew more details about your success. Not only are all aquara different, they are complex.
Somethiing you stated last December in this long thread. I was wondering what you meant: higher dKH while dosing or just highr dKH?
Well, that's a good question. The more popular guess, and I do mean "guess", is that higher alkalinity and very low dissolved nutrient levels might lead to coral problems. There's a lot of hedging there because I don't know of any reasonable theory as to what, if anything, might be happening. It's generally easy to lower the dKH level of a tank, though, and inexpensive, and it seems to have helped for some people, in a repeatable way, so trying it generally seems reasonable.
The question if not for me, but, I have experienced problems with KH over 9 dKH when I had virtually zero PO4 and NO3. I found many references stating that if you have a ULNS tank, you must lower your KH. Actually, Red Sea's Reef Care Program Foundation Testing and Supplementing User Manual states that for Ultra Low Nutrient System (ULNS) the optimal level of KH is 7.0 dKH. (33 ppt salinity, 410 mg/l Ca, 1220 mg/l Mg).
I now try to keep those levels, except SG 33 ppt, which seems low to me, I'm currently trying to lower it from 35 to 34.
Were you dosing acetic acid at the time?
I finally got my lazy body in gear and posted a new chart.
To clarify...So carbon dosing AND high dKH is not necessarily the issue, correct? It is more general, like ULN AND high dKH?
Good for you! Given the half life of the original chart, your response time was admirable.
Daddi0
Active member
As I remember from my research (and I could be wrong) When you have a high DKH and low nutrients. The coral's soft tissue growth cannot keep up with the increased skeletal growth and you get exposed tips.
I dose 1ml vinegar per gallon of tank water per day and feed daily with no issues. NO gha or cyano, and some visible bacterial colonies (both pink and white)
Cheers! Mark
Update: My DKH is just under 11
