Vodka, vinegar,biopellets and other organic carbon dosing

guys i have been dosing vsv in a 170 ltr tank and have been doing so for close to 2 months and im up to 4 mls morning and nite and have just started adding
microbactor 7 this last week and my nitrates are still 50 ppm :angryfire:

what am i doing wrong?

ive done it in the past and never had to dose more than two mls morning and nite to get my nitrates down to zero and gone to a mainatence dose.


:hmm4:
 
Rick,Been of this thread for a bit. Missed your ?
Live rock leaching PO4,using lanthanum.

If you want to keep the rock live use new clean salt water in a curing bin with a small powerhead. Test the PO4. Put the rock it in the curing bin ;test the PO4 again after a few days to a week,. If it's leaching PO4 add lanathaum chloride to bring the PO4 to zero;check every day or two and add more lanthanum to mainatin near zero PO4 in the water. It's beren years since I last did this but IIRC a cpaful(5ml) of seaklear as a daily dose to a 20 gallon bin was adequate. Once the PO4 tests give you consistently low to zero readings ,the process is complete. Ususlly takes a few weeks.

If you don't care about keeping the rock alive use fresh water . It has an advantage in terms of reducing PO4 to very low levels when used with lanthanum since there is 0 to very low carbonate in it ;so, lanthanum binding to carbonate instead of PO4 is avoided for the most part.

Usually coraline will tak space from microalgae .

I don't have a link handy but if you search on the Reef Chemistry forum you'll find several.
 
Judge,
How much sugar, vodka , vinegar doesthe vsv contain. Sugar is 2.5 as strong as vodka ; vodka is 8xs as strong as vinegar in terms of organic carbon content? Sine I don't use sugar I need the pro[portions to compare your dsingamount to mine.

Nitrates at 50 could take a while to drop. In some cases it takes months. Reducing them with water changes or otherwise before starting the carbon dosing makes it much quicker and easier to reach a maintenance dose. What is the PO4? The bacteria need some to go with the nitrates and organic carbon.
 
Thanks Tom!...I'm going with option 2,...using just ro-di water(no salt) with LC,...seems to knock the PO4 down quick, and then polish it off with a few days of GFO. I definitely will make sure it reads 0 for a number of days before it goes back in the tank, as pulling all my rock and doing it in batches is a real chore. :uhoh3:---Rick
 
I still get a bit of PO4 on my Hanna,....just making double sure this time before I put it all back lol. As I have read many times on RC,..."go slow"... in this hobby, really comes shining through. :)
 
tmz said:
Judge,
How much sugar, vodka , vinegar doesthe vsv contain. Sugar is 2.5 as strong as vodka ; vodka is 8xs as strong as vinegar in terms of organic carbon content? Sine I don't use sugar I need the pro[portions to compare your dsingamount to mine.

Nitrates at 50 could take a while to drop. In some cases it takes months. Reducing them with water changes or otherwise before starting the carbon dosing makes it much quicker and easier to reach a maintenance dose. What is the PO4? The bacteria need some to go with the nitrates and organic carbon.
Click to expand...


cheers for the reply,

200 mls vodka, 1 x table spoon brown sugar, 50 mls vinegar.

could i increase the dose?

i need to test my po4 but if the experience ive had in the past has anything to do with it i noticed my po4 was always higher than my nitrate and when i got my nitrates down to zero,my po4 with nitrate limited and had to dose nitrate to get my po4 down tonear zero.


thanx in advance :beer:
 
200 mls vodka, 1 x table spoon brown sugar, 50 mls vinegar.


 1table spoon of sugar = 14.78 mls x2.5 = 37ml (80 proof/40% )vodkda
50ml (5% acetic acid vinegar)=50 divided by 8=6ml vodka
So ,250 ml of your mix is : 200 +37 +6 = 243 ml 90 proof vodka equivalents.

It's 97% the strength of straight(80 proof/40% ethanol ) vodka.





could i increase the dose?


4mls your dose divided by 170liters =.023 per liter x ( 3.8 liters per gallon )= ..089ml per gallon x.97 = the equivalent of 0.87 ml per gallon or 80 proof vodka.

Most settle in between .04 and .08 ml per gallon ; so, you are already at the high end of the average dosing .FWIW, I use 0.06ml per gallon. about 70% of your current dose.;much more than that gives me some excess bacteria.

Sorry for all the math but going from metric to tablespoons to gallons to proof etc takes a while.
 
I've been reading all I can before I set up my first saltwater tank. I read this thread from beginning to end, and I just wanted to say: Wow, Tom, you should charge for your services here! It seems so few people know anything about carbon dosing; I might as well be looking up how to do magic. Thank you!
 
200ml of vodka seems to me a lot of vodka is this for a 120 gallon tank? Also it took me almost 4 months to get to zero po4 and zero nitrates using vodka. I ended up dousing 5mls a day and even that was a lot as I started to see the thin white slim algea. All I can say is go slow with this as it works well. One of the mistakes I made when I was dosing vodka was I ran GFO and this striped the water too fast and Sps bleached.
Good luck and please go slow.
 
Who's dosing 200ml vokda to a 120 gallon? I should say dosed since it's likely the tank didn't survive it.

Our friend from Austraillia is dosing 4 ml of a vodka vinegar sugar mix to a 170liter tank;almost .09ml per gallon

200ml for 120 gallons is 1.6 ml per gallon roughly 25 times higher and would surely destroy a tank.I personally don't go over .07 mls per gallon .
 
tmz said:
200 mls vodka, 1 x table spoon brown sugar, 50 mls vinegar.


 1table spoon of sugar = 14.78 mls x2.5 = 37ml (80 proof/40% )vodkda
50ml (5% acetic acid vinegar)=50 divided by 8=6ml vodka
So ,250 ml of your mix is : 200 +37 +6 = 243 ml 90 proof vodka equivalents.

It's 97% the strength of straight(80 proof/40% ethanol ) vodka.





could i increase the dose?


4mls your dose divided by 170liters =.023 per liter x ( 3.8 liters per gallon )= ..089ml per gallon x.97 = the equivalent of 0.87 ml per gallon or 80 proof vodka.

Most settle in between .04 and .08 ml per gallon ; so, you are already at the high end of the average dosing .FWIW, I use 0.06ml per gallon. about 70% of your current dose.;much more than that gives me some excess bacteria.

Sorry for all the math but going from metric to tablespoons to gallons to proof etc takes a while.
Click to expand...


thanx for the reply,

so ok the 4 mls dose seems high but have had no slime or anything so far
so do you think my levles will come down eventually?

ok to keep dosing 4 ml?

cheers
 
judgedread said:
thanx for the reply,

so ok the 4 mls dose seems high but have had no slime or anything so far
so do you think my levles will come down eventually?

ok to keep dosing 4 ml?

cheers
Click to expand...

It's not that high and tanks are different. Since you aren't getting any signs of excess bacterial growth , the 4mls might be right for your tank now;though it seems high for a maintenance dose.

It can take months in some cases to bring down intial NO3 levels. Some folks just keep upping the dose but that carries an increased risk for a bacterial bloom or total organic carbon buildup. Water changes to bring them down in a smaller tank or a sulfur dentrator in a larger system followed by a maintenance dose to keep them low is easier,safer and faster,ime.

I've never used bacterial supplements. They aren't necessary,imo.

If it were my 170l tank I'd do a series of 15% water changes while continuing to dose and probably tweak back the dose a bit once the nitrate level was under 5ppm. To keep the dose constant , you can add a proportionate amount to the replacement water.
 
Last edited:
tmz said:
It's not that high and tanks are different. Since you aren't getting any signs of excess bacterial growth , the 4mls might be right for your tank now;though it seems high for a maintenance dose.

It can take months in some cases to bring down intial NO3 levels. Some folks just keep upping the dose but that carries an increased risk for a bacterial bloom or total organic carbon buildup. Water changes to bring them down in a smaller tank or a sulfur dentrator in a larger system followed by a maintenance dose to keep them low is easier,safer and faster,ime.

I've never used bacterial supplements. They aren't necessary,imo.

If it were my 170l tank I'd do a series of 15% water changes while continuing to dose and probably tweak back the dose a bit once the nitrate level was under 5ppm. To keep the dose constant , you can add a proportionate amount to the replacement water.
Click to expand...
Great advice where were you when I was dosing vodka two years ago lol
 
Tom I think I read back on one of the carbon dosing threads that you should not carbon dose on a new tank . If this is correct I am curious as to the reason
 
I wouldn't personally.
The extra hetertrophic bacteria may impede the growth of the usual ammonia oxidizers and other cycling bacteria . They may not out compete them but it seems reasonable to think they would since they take ammonia directly. Also the general lack of stability in a new setup doesn't need to be more complicated ,imo. I prefer to let a tank mature a little before considering carbon dosing. There is no rule on it though.
 
Thanks, I was here and on the chemistry forum mostly. I started this thread two and a half years ago. First dosed vinegar 8 years ago. Started this run with vodka and vinegar over five years ago. Wow that's 37 liters of vodka so far.
 
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