vinegar dosing
- Thread starter biecacka
- Start date
Yes, that would be fine. 
Let us know what happens, but it may take a while to notice any changes.
:thumbsup:
Good luck.
Good luck.
You're welcome.
Happy Reefing.
Happy Reefing.
Yogre
Cheesehead Reefer
That's what I use, and have been for 8 months or so now. I didn't start to see results (green hair algae die-off) for at least a month.
I never had any detectable PO4 or NO3, the hair algae was taking it up too quickly.
8 months of vinegar dosing, I'm basically hair algae free.
Yogre
Cheesehead Reefer
Honestly, it was so bad I was thinking of leaving the hobby. I had nasty hair algae with flowing strands on nearly every rock in my tank, and that's about 300# of rock.
I referenced the Reefkeeping article on vodka dosing "Notes from the Trenches" that was co-authored by Genetics. I multiplied the starting dose of vodka recommended in the article by 8, as vodka provides 8x more carbon per ml than vinegar. I started dosing 6 ml/day of vinegar into about 200 gal. system water volume.
According to my log, it looks like it took me a month to reach 70 ml/day, at which point I started to see some cyano, with the hair algae in retreat. I backed off to about 50ml, and I go up and down from there based on whatever pestilence I'm seeing in my tank.
Right now I have a bit of cyano of a couple different species, red slime and something that looks like lyngbya... nothing I can't deal with at this point.
Distilled white vinegar is the standard for the dosing schedules. It is 95% water and 5% acetic acid.
While were on the subject ,80proof plain vodka is 40% ethanol and 60% water; so it takes only 1/8th as much to equal vinegar's carbon content. Solid carbon sources, like sugar and vitamin C take 1/20th gram to 1 ml of vinegar to get an approximately equal amount of organic carbon.
While were on the subject ,80proof plain vodka is 40% ethanol and 60% water; so it takes only 1/8th as much to equal vinegar's carbon content. Solid carbon sources, like sugar and vitamin C take 1/20th gram to 1 ml of vinegar to get an approximately equal amount of organic carbon.
Hello all, I'm about to start dosing vinegar w/ kalkwasser and had a couple of questions.
First, is there a chart somewhere that details the amount of vinegar to dose on a daily basis? I'd obviously like to start out small and gradually increase the dosage. I have the API test kits for Nitrate and Phosphate but they both register 0 so I'm not sure what the actual levels are. Of course I don't trust these because I have a HUGE GHA outbreak, one which I've finally gained the upper hand on but am unable to kill off completely.
Second, I'm not sure that I have a deep sand bed but it's definitely deeper than some at 2.5 - 3". Will the nitrification aspects of this bed hamper the effects of the vinegar dosing?
I bought a gallon of distilled white vinegar and a package of Mrs Wages pickling lime. I'd love for someone to just tell me exactly what to dose and for how long but that's probably cheating!
I'll grab some pics tonight before I start dosing. Should I post them here or wait until I have an after pic? My corals are pretty bland right now :\
EDIT: so the chart used for vodka, I'll just bump that down x8 for vinegar and go that route.
First, is there a chart somewhere that details the amount of vinegar to dose on a daily basis? I'd obviously like to start out small and gradually increase the dosage. I have the API test kits for Nitrate and Phosphate but they both register 0 so I'm not sure what the actual levels are. Of course I don't trust these because I have a HUGE GHA outbreak, one which I've finally gained the upper hand on but am unable to kill off completely.
Second, I'm not sure that I have a deep sand bed but it's definitely deeper than some at 2.5 - 3". Will the nitrification aspects of this bed hamper the effects of the vinegar dosing?
I bought a gallon of distilled white vinegar and a package of Mrs Wages pickling lime. I'd love for someone to just tell me exactly what to dose and for how long but that's probably cheating!
I'll grab some pics tonight before I start dosing. Should I post them here or wait until I have an after pic? My corals are pretty bland right now :\EDIT: so the chart used for vodka, I'll just bump that down x8 for vinegar and go that route.
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