Vinegar Dosing question

[sensei]

I started with just vinegar and a month later added vodka at 10 cc/day. The vinegar was 150 and vodka a shot glass daily and now I'm seeing very low nitrate. 10 weeks into dosing the 600 gallon system and I got the reduction.

when you say a shot of vodka you mean 10cc correct?
I ask becuase a shot is ussually one once or 30cc

thanks

 

[tmz]

A shot glass is about 1.25 to 1.5 oz (37- 44cc/ml).
FWIW, I've been dosing 60 ml of vinegar and 36 ml of vinegar a day( a total vinegar equivalent in terms of organic C of .497 ml per gallon) for many years as a maintenancece dose; I'd start with 25% of that and amp up over a month or so.

PO4 holds in the .02 to .04 range with NO3 under 1ppm withouyt GFo; i do run a small amount of rox activated carbon and two large skimmers to aid organics removal.

 

[sensei]

A shot glass is about 1.25 to 1.5 oz (37- 44cc/ml).
FWIW, I've been dosing 60 ml of vinegar and 36 ml of vinegar a day( a total vinegar equivalent in terms of organic C of .497 ml per gallon) for many years as a maintenancece dose; I'd start with 25% of that and amp up over a month or so.

PO4 holds in the .02 to .04 range with NO3 under 1ppm withouyt GFo; i do run a small amount of rox activated carbon and two large skimmers to aid organics removal.

Tom,
when dosing a mix of vineger and vodka is there a % of one to the other that is better to maintain or it makes no difference??

I have read that some people have experienced more cyano when doing only vodka. Is this accurate info??

do you dose with doing pump and several doses per day?
do you dose the mix of both or do you dose vodka as bolus dose daily?

Thanks

 

[tmz]

Don't know if there is an optimal proportion of ethanol and acetic acid or if just one or the other is as good or better. Ethanol takes and extra step on the way to acetate as AABs( ethanol oxidizing bacteria ) oxidize it to acetic acid (vinegar). The acetic acid spikes pH down precipitously when bolus dosed ; the ethanol does not. The extra bacterial activity by AABs may have some additional effect on nutrient reduction.

The vodka /vinegar cyano issue is mostly old and doesn't seem to hold up. I've seen cyano at start up with either perhaps related to the extra CO2 or the waning of some competitive organisms due to nutrient reductions giving the cyano a short term edge. In any case that problem tends to go away after siphoning some out IME and seems to be limited to a start up issue; since the acetic acid dumps a lot of CO2 one could argue that would bounce cyano but I rally haven't found a cyano reltionship to either that I can articulate much less prove.

Personally, I don't bother with a dosing pump. 80 proof vodka is bolus dosed twice a day:
30 ml in the am and 6 in the pm( from what I've read the bacteria split every 12 hours or so ; I dose the 6 ml at night in hope of continued sustenance);

60 ml of vinegar is also bolus dosed in the am about an hour after lights on( it's a relatively small amount given the 700 gallon system ) so the pH drop is relatively small and shortlived at that level.

Bolus dosing is more convenient for me and the burst may be better for denitrification in theory.

 

[tmz]

After thought:

When I started carbon dosing about 9 or 10 years ago; I started with vodka only.. I saw some cyano and read some anecdotal reports saying vinegar might be less likely to enocourage cyano than vodka . Though there was no logical explanation for that distinction, I tried substituting 25% of the carbon from ethanol to acetic acid. The cyano abated over a few weeks which may have been coincidence. Nonetheless, I moved another 25% in favor of acetic acid and the cyano returned. I dropped back to the 75% ethanol to acetic acid proportion and the cyano abated. Ultimately after tweaks unrelated to cyano which dissappeared for good after the first month or so , I've settled in at a proportion of approximately 80% ethanol and 20% acetic acid. Obviously this may vary by tank but has worked in my system for a very long time. I haven't seen cyano in the main system for nearly a decade. aside form occassional spots related to detritus accumulations and/ or coral warfare.

 

[sensei]

After thought:

When I started carbon dosing about 9 or 10 years ago; I started with vodka only.. I saw some cyano and read some anecdotal reports saying vinegar might be less likely to enocourage cyano than vodka . Though there was no logical explanation for that distinction, I tried substituting 25% of the carbon from ethanol to acetic acid. The cyano abated over a few weeks which may have been coincidence. Nonetheless, I moved another 25% in favor of acetic acid and the cyano returned. I dropped back to the 75% ethanol to acetic acid proportion and the cyano abated. Ultimately after tweaks unrelated to cyano which dissappeared for good after the first month or so , I've settled in at a proportion of approximately 80% ethanol and 20% acetic acid. Obviously this may vary by tank but has worked in my system for a very long time. I haven't seen cyano in the main system for nearly a decade. aside form occassional spots related to detritus accumulations and/ or coral warfare.

Thanks a lot Tom.

Ed ( Big E) directed me to you when I asked him a question about this.

I am now dosing 100ml of vineger equivalent ( 25ml of my mix)
my mix with respect to carbon is 14% vineger 86% vodka
I plan to increase dose after 1 week.
my system is 600g and NO3 is around 30

how much would you increase in one step? and how often would you do the increments?

Thanks again,

 

[tmz]

The most conservative standard for amping up is the chart presented as as a sticky at the top of this forum( see vodka dosing chart under reef chemistry articles) Personally, I go faster. How the tank reacts is tank specific though given variables like surface area for bacteria to growth ; nutrient levels and a number of other things. Having said that, if pressed for a hip shot opinion , I'd say: increase by ten to fifteen percent per week till you reach a .4 vinegar equivalent per gallon per day level and hold that level for a few weeks before going higher; drop it back to .2 to .3 if cloudiness or excessive bacterial growth is observed in areas you don't want it.

 

[sensei]

The most conservative standard for amping up is the chart presented as as a sticky at the top of this forum( see vodka dosing chart under reef chemistry articles) Personally, I go faster. How the tank reacts is tank specific though given variables like surface area for bacteria to growth ; nutrient levels and a number of other things. Having said that, if pressed for a hip shot opinion , I'd say: increase by ten to fifteen percent per week till you reach a .4 vinegar equivalent per gallon per day level and hold that level for a few weeks before going higher; drop it back to .2 to .3 if cloudiness or excessive bacterial growth is observed in areas you don't want it.

Thanks a lot Tom!

 

[tmz]

You are welcome. Good luck .

 

[Nanook]

Well, things were going well until the last few weeks when I started seeing acropora Brown, then bleach. This with nitrate levels of 4-8ish and phosphate of .03-.06. Thought these numbers would've been okay.

Now, my nitrate is down to 1ppm and the losses are real. I dropped from 130cc/day yesterday to 65cc/day. Im thinking of cutting vinegar off completely and not dosing the shot cup of vodka.

Thoughts?

 

[tmz]

Toubling news. The PO4 and NO3 nos .don't appear deficient. Backing off the carbon dosing might be the right course at this point. There may be another issue or two though.What's the alkalinity ? How well is the skimmer working? Any chance of new acro pests from new specimens?

 

[Nanook]

Alkalinity has consistently been 7.1-7.4 the whole time. I haven’t started my calcium reactor yet as there hasn’t been a need yet. Magnesium is 1350 and calcium is 425.

I dip everything religiously and buy from some of the best hobbyists, that being said, I don’t see signs of pests. A part of me wonders if dosing just isn’t ideal for acropora.

 

[bertoni]

I'd back off on the dosing. I am not sure what's happening, but coral loss is a bad sign.

 

[Nanook]

They probably starved with high light and insufficient nutrients. At least that’s my best educated guess. Dosing certainly reduces nitrate.

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

Nanook,
to me the alk is somewhat low.
I would start using the CA reactor.
When I attended a seminar on CA reactors the fellow stated,"they should really be called alkalinity reactors because that is the parameter you should set them up with, then dose CA to where you want it".

 

[tmz]

Acropora of a wide variety do well with carbon dosing IME. Each system is different though and I don't know what's causing the browning and stn in your situation. backing off the dose might help . FWIW, I dose kalk 24/7 to maintain alk around 9dkh , pH at 8.1 to 8.35,calcium over 420ppm and magnesium over 1400. NO3 holds at less than 1ppm with PO4 in the 0.2ppm to 0.4ppm range. I also feed my fish heavily and quarantine new coral specimens for several weeks. Lighting is radium mh plus vho actinic for the main system with several ancillary tanks under leds

 

[Nanook]

Acropora of a wide variety do well with carbon dosing IME. Each system is different though and I don't know what's causing the browning and stn in your situation. backing off the dose might help . FWIW, I dose kalk 24/7 to maintain alk around 9dkh , pH at 8.1 to 8.35,calcium over 420ppm and magnesium over 1400. NO3 holds at less than 1ppm with PO4 in the 0.2ppm to 0.4ppm range. I also feed my fish heavily and quarantine new coral specimens for several weeks. Lighting is radium mh 250 20K plus vho actinic for the main system with several ancillary tanks under leds

I’ve been very methodical on the dosing and have kept logs every few days to a week on tank parameters. The fact that these frags are browning then STN’ing is hard to take from a confidence perspective, and financial one!

The very high light plus close to water too stripped of nitrate is my only factors that could be causing the problems. But, even when nitrate was in the 4-8 range I was losing frags, which led me to think high light, but I’d run 400 watt halides for years without a need to acclimate.

At this point, my vinegar dosing pump is on standby and the vodka dose goes to me I’ll keep an eye on the corals and see how things look in a couple of weeks.

 

[tmz]

Good luck ; hope it improves. The browning is puzzling since that usually indicates high zooxanthelae density which seems contrary to a nitrogen deficiency. Typically paling is observed with a nitrogen deficiency. Really hard to know what reactions are occurring though.

 

[Nanook]

It’s really more of a retraction of polyps, fading into light tan and eventual tissue sloughing.

 

[reefgeezer]

Has the carbon dosing resulted in clearer water? Maybe better light penetration? Maybe just the change in nutrient levels rather than the level itself caused the issue. I've always had trouble figuring out problems with "sticks" because many times there in a big delay between cause & effect.