vinegar dosing

My current vinegar dosing setup, in case anyone is interested:

The system is a 120 main tank. I dose into tank overflow water just upstream of two large rock-filled refugia, in series. These are 44-gallon Brute cans filled nearly to the top. The water enters the bottom and is removed from the top of each refugium. So the vinegar passes slowly through a lot of rock area in two refugia then into 2 sumps (in series) with a skimmer before getting back to the main tank. The rocks are lit on top and have macroalgae growing there in a few inches of water. The is another rock filled and lit refuigium that the vinegar may also make its way to after the first sump.

I presently dose about 66 mL of vinegar without any lime in it, spread out over 20 slow pump additions (1.1 mL/min for 3 min each) between about 10 AM and 5 pm. :)
 
Can't quite follow the way you weaved through DIN, DIC, DOC and dont know what IIRC means. Reduce PO4 would play a role in skeletal growth too.

In my opinion and experience at some level the the consumption indicated by the browning is bad in that these animals recede and in some cases perish. Whether or not the cause is related to oxygen radicals from excessive zooxanthelae acitvity is unknown to me but seems plausible.
In some cases a bit of available vodka or vinegar seems benefical ; anecdotally, my zoanthus respond well to it( more growth, improved genreral vibrancy). Some corals do less well and seem more sensitive to higher levels of carbon dosing; ime, usually the fleshier lps like nemzophylia, scolymnia, lobophylia, caulastrea. Some seem fine but grow less; like singularia, nepthia, xenia, euphyliaand echinophylia in my experience. How much of these responses relate to consumption of the carbon source ,bacteria or the lower N and P ranges is not clear.
 
IIRC - if I recall correctly.

Randy, that sounds like an intricate setup. With the slow passage between rocks are you trying to have the vinegar taken up and bacteria proliferate prior to reaching the skimmer?
 
Randy Holmes-Farley said:
My current vinegar dosing setup, in case anyone is interested:

The system is a 120 main tank. I dose into tank overflow water just upstream of two large rock-filled refugia, in series. These are 44-gallon Brute cans filled nearly to the top. The water enters the bottom and is removed from the top of each refugium. So the vinegar passes slowly through a lot of rock area in two refugia then into 2 sumps (in series) with a skimmer before getting back to the main tank. The rocks are lit on top and have macroalgae growing there in a few inches of water. The is another rock filled and lit refuigium that the vinegar may also make its way to after the first sump.

I presently dose about 66 mL of vinegar without any lime in it, spread out over 20 slow pump additions (1.1 mL/min for 3 min each) between about 10 AM and 5 pm. :)
Click to expand...

Yes, I agree on the slow dose --- I have seen worms leave my rocks with a fast dose and I am sure I need my worms to keep my rock pores open.
 
Randy Holmes-Farley said:
My current vinegar dosing setup, in case anyone is interested:

The system is a 120 main tank. I dose into tank overflow water just upstream of two large rock-filled refugia, in series. These are 44-gallon Brute cans filled nearly to the top. The water enters the bottom and is removed from the top of each refugium. So the vinegar passes slowly through a lot of rock area in two refugia then into 2 sumps (in series) with a skimmer before getting back to the main tank. The rocks are lit on top and have macroalgae growing there in a few inches of water. The is another rock filled and lit refuigium that the vinegar may also make its way to after the first sump.

I presently dose about 66 mL of vinegar without any lime in it, spread out over 20 slow pump additions (1.1 mL/min for 3 min each) between about 10 AM and 5 pm. :)
Click to expand...

Nice system. It's interesting to me that you, Cliff and I, independently, settled on a similar volume of dosing in terms of organic carbon content.

I'd like to automate mine dosing for vacation periods but haven't done so. I've also thought about transitioning to a full vinegar dose without vodka. If I were starting anew I'd probably go with just vinegar. I was dosing just vodka and did have some persistent cyano patches on the sand bed in a frag tank. I switched to roughly a 25% proportion of vinegar and the cyano abated. When I moved to50% vinegar it came back strong . Idiosynchratic to the current system and bacteria in it , I suppose. Since everything is working well at 75% vodka and 25% vinegar , I decided to run it that way for the last 18mos or so.

I dose it all to the sump but have similar rock filled refugia that it get's to eventually but mine are unlighted. I might benefit by altering the dosing point.

Thanks for sharing your set up.
 
so tom, are you saying you dose both vodka and vinegar but would do it vinegar only if you were to start over again? why?
you say you struggled w a bit of cynao and the vodka killed it out. thats the way i read it at least, i am not questioning you as much as just making sure i understand this b4 i attempt it.
i have a 220 that i am thinking of dosing vinegar and i am looking for a good amount to "start" dosing on. then do i change the amount.........when.......how much...how long....do you ever stop dosing.
what is the advantatge of dosing over the pellets, are there any?
sorry its a lot of questions
corey
 
so tom, are you saying you dose both vodka and vinegar but would do it vinegar only if you were to start over again? why

Vinegar seems to work as well as vodka and it would be easier to dose just one source. It may/may not be an or disadvantage advantage to avoid the ethanol breakdown.Watching what Randy does is always a good idea.ime.

you say you struggled w a bit of cynao and the vodka killed it out. thats the way i read it at least, i am not questioning you as mu

Actually , I had the patchy cyano after beginning to dose vodka only. When I shifted 25% of the dose to vinegar it abated.

i have a 220 that i am thinking of dosing vinegar and i am looking for a good amount to "start" dosing on. then do i change the amount.........when.......how much...how long....do you ever stop dosing.

Dosing amounts will depend on the idiosyncracies of the particular aquarium.
Personally, I would reduce measureable NO3 and PO4 to reasonable levels before starting, say PO4 <.2ppm and NO3 <20ppm to avoid excessive dosing and bacterial action early on.
Genetics(Nate) has an article on dosing vodka ,starting low and amping up. You can search for it on this forum. I think it is entitled Vodka Distilled.
You can use his guide for vinegar too by multiplying the amounts by 8.
I have been dosing for over two years. If the nutrient/bioload in my system changed, I might cut back or stop. For me it's about managing the levels of NO3 and PO4 and exporting the organics that adsorb them via gac .skimming. Any secondary nutritional benefit which may be derived could be made up with foods ,imo.

what is the advantatge of dosing over the pellets, are there any?

The pellets are polymers( carbohydrates) . Many report success with them. They are supposed to isolate bacterial activity to the pellets and not across the entire aquarium which may or may not be the case. Reports by users include the same issues as those overdosing vodka or vinegar or sugar including bacterial blooms,cyano, coral issues, etc which I take to indicate either some of the ploymers are spreading or at least by products of the bacterial growth are. Carbohydrates are higher up in the cascade of anaerobic digestion( acetogenisis). So more steps in bacterial activity are involved along with different bacteria including a step to monomers such as glucose. In as much as sugar ,particularly glucose has been implicated in coral mortality in studies shared by Highland Reefer(Cliff) on other threads and I have personally experienced bad reactions from sugar dosing, I tend to avoid the pellets and the potential for monomers hitting the tank and use ethonol( vodka) and vinegar( acetic acid),exclusively.
 
ok thanks for the response!
i am new to the chemical side of aquarium keeping but not new to the aquarium itself so my question as silly as it sounds is how do you reduce NO3, PO4?
corey
 
tmz said:
Can't quite follow the way you weaved through DIN, DIC, DOC and dont know what IIRC means. Reduce PO4 would play a role in skeletal growth too.
Click to expand...

If I recall correctly, there have been a number of studies that show nitrate reduces calcification in corals. One was Marubini and Davies 1996 'Nitrate increases zooxanthella population density and reduces skeletogenesis in corals'. I'm not a chemist, so, I'm not sure I am grasping this 100% correctly, so, certainly please let me know if I'm misunderstanding something...

In this paper though (and latter others), they suggested that the available inorganic carbon for calcification and photosynthesis come from the same pool of inorganic carbon. However, due to the fact that the zoox is in closer proximity, within the cell walls, to the DIC source, that it has a competitive advantage over the host for the DIC. It's however the zoox is N limited normally, but when N increases this is no longer so. Under that condition, the C02 is exhausted quickly from the DIC pool, due to increased photosynthesis. So, I think that they mean, as a result of the photosynthesis, the solubility constant of intracellular CO2 is increased as a result of this demand and the intarcellular DIC concentration is therefore shifted to Co2 and not the other two DIC species. So, The intracellular DIC needed for calcification is then limited.

So, lets say zoox doesn't necessarily need to fix C, and can consume DOC directly, at least under certain circumstances, such as if external DOC is raised high enough via carbon dosing. Then, would more of the DIC pool remain available for calcification?

Re:PO4, for simplicity, I didn't want to get into PO4, but certainly I agree with that as well.


tmz said:
In my opinion and experience at some level the the consumption indicated by the browning is bad in that these animals recede and in some cases perish. Whether or not the cause is related to oxygen radicals from excessive zooxanthelae acitvity is unknown to me but seems plausible.
Click to expand...

I certainly wouldn't call it a fact, but it seems to be a fairly excepted hypothosis in regards to DIN. Assuming this correct, and can be applied to C then this seems like a likely outcome and explanation.

tmz said:
In some cases a bit of available vodka or vinegar seems benefical ; anecdotally, my zoanthus respond well to it( more growth, improved genreral vibrancy). Some corals do less well and seem more sensitive to higher levels of carbon dosing; ime, usually the fleshier lps like nemzophylia, scolymnia, lobophylia, caulastrea. Some seem fine but grow less; like singularia, nepthia, xenia, euphyliaand echinophylia in my experience. How much of these responses relate to consumption of the carbon source ,bacteria or the lower N and P ranges is not clear.
Click to expand...
Great info thanks :)
 
Randy, that sounds like an intricate setup.

Maybe, but the dosing is done with a BRS doser on a home depot timer, drawing vinegar from the 1 gallon jug I buy it in. That part is not complicated at all. :)

With the slow passage between rocks are you trying to have the vinegar taken up and bacteria proliferate prior to reaching the skimmer?

Yes, and for cryptic sponges etc., to consume some of the bacteria. That said, my GAC canister runs from my sump and the GAC gets coated with bacteria, so clearly vinegar is getting through anyway (before dosing organics, I saw no such bacteria on my GAC).
 
I'd like to automate mine dosing for vacation periods but haven't done so.

Yes, mine runs unaided for a couple of months. :)

and did have some persistent cyano patches on the sand bed in a frag tank.

I recently decided to add a phosphate binder to my GAC canister (some very old x-phosphate I had around) and that knocked out some cyano that was beginning to appear in the main tank. My macroalgae in my refugia has some cyano on it, but I don't care much about that.
 
This time is was just some very old X-phosphate that I bought from Albert Thiel more than a decade ago. I have used GFO in the past, and also Seachem Phosguard, but the latter often causes creatures to close up in my system, apparently from released aluminum (not sure why the Thiel product doesn't cause any issues, I may retry the Phosguard I have to see what it does in my current setup).
 
Randy Holmes-Farley said:
My current vinegar dosing setup, in case anyone is interested:

The system is a 120 main tank. I dose into tank overflow water just upstream of two large rock-filled refugia, in series. These are 44-gallon Brute cans filled nearly to the top. The water enters the bottom and is removed from the top of each refugium. So the vinegar passes slowly through a lot of rock area in two refugia then into 2 sumps (in series) with a skimmer before getting back to the main tank. The rocks are lit on top and have macroalgae growing there in a few inches of water. The is another rock filled and lit refuigium that the vinegar may also make its way to after the first sump.

I presently dose about 66 mL of vinegar without any lime in it, spread out over 20 slow pump additions (1.1 mL/min for 3 min each) between about 10 AM and 5 pm. :)
Click to expand...

Why did you stop dosing the vinegar with lime?
 
That would be a reason to not dose it in 24/7 limewater, but I was actually using lime saturated vinegar itself, which I was dosing only during the day, and manually once or twice a day for much of the time.

I can't recall which reason tipped the balance, but slow dosing eliminates any big concern with the pH drop on adding vinegar. It is a bit more of a pain to make up (although not much). I also wasn't sure about sending the lime saturated solution into the rock area where mixing is poor. It isn't a big deal with or without lime, IMO.
 
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