Vinegar dosing

[cassklar]

I have been searching the web all night and thought now I would come to you guys for help tested my water and I have nitrates at 20 I am starting today dosing vinegar to help the question I have is go many ml to add to a water volume of 60 total gallons thanks

 

[bertoni]

This article gives guidelines that seem to be okay:

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php

For 60g of actual water, the starting dose would be about 0.2 ml.

 

[cassklar]

Thanks bertoni but that's for vodka I thought vinegar you could more

 

[jtgordon20]

Vodka to vinegar is multiply by eight. So it would be 1.6mL which is 32 drops. Seems low for some reason :O but its good to start slow.

 

[bertoni]

Sorry, yes, the conversion rate is 8:1. I meant to post the link to the vinegar article, but I got the wrong link.

 

[swcc]

at 20ppm nitrate.... I would not carbon dose. You have a nutrient export problem currently. If you want to do this right get the nitrates under control fist then you can dose to do what carbon dosing was meant to do... go from low nutrient system to ULN system. Don't use carbon dosing as a substitute for husbandry/ export issues.

 

[thereeftank]

isn't carbon dosing an export of nutrients via skimmed bacteria?

 

[swcc]

yes and no. while carbon dosing does increase skimmer production, ultimately it is due to the increased in bacterial activity. Thing is you have a current export problem. either your skimmer is not keeping up with system demands or there are loads of accumulated detritus causing a huge ammonia reducing bacterial presence. Both these factors are the reason one would see high nitrates like you have. rigt now you are better served to figure out why you have high nitrate levels vs reducing them with the carbon dosing approach. If you can get nitrates to stabilize below 5ppm then it will be the time to introduce carbon dosing to go uln.

 

[kissman]

carbon dosing causes more bacteria to grow and use up the nutrients and then removed by skimmer. At 20ppm I would increase water changes and vinegar dose. Worked for me. Just start out slow, and increase like 2-4ml a week. Ity takes several weeks but it works, I also had better luck by adding Brightwells Microbacter7

 

[bertoni]

We don't know what form of nutrients are being skimmed. It might be bacteria or byproducts of bacterial growth. The approach does appear to work, though.