I'm carbon dosing already, how long until the impact of an increased dose begins?

[vanguard]

The title says it all. I've been carbon dosing for four months. About a month ago I lowered from 75mg to 65mg of vinegar daily. Today I raised it back to 75mg.

Would you say the bacteria will be working at 75mg of full force in a day, week, month?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It will likely be fully consumed within a day or two. The effects on nutrients may be slower to be noticeable.

 

[Uncle99]

It took about 5-6 months for me to carbon dose 50ppm to a solid 5ppm using no pox.

Slow, but did work. Slowly cut back to zero after reaching 5 and with weekly small water change, now has held 5-10ppm for 3 years now.

For the first 4 weeks, really didn’t see any change at all.

 

[Dan_P]

The title says it all. I've been carbon dosing for four months. About a month ago I lowered from 75mg to 65mg of vinegar daily. Today I raised it back to 75mg.

Would you say the bacteria will be working at 75mg of full force in a day, week, month?

What is the total volume of the system? How much vinegar are you adding per day-I don’t think you meant75 mg?

 

[vanguard]

What is the total volume of the system? How much vinegar are you adding per day-I don’t think you meant75 mg?

You're right. I meant 75 milliliters, my mistake. Also, it's a 150 gallon system.

150 gallon display + 50 gallon sump - (rocks + sand + corals) ~= 150 gallon

I followed this guideline: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/new-vodka-and-vinegar-dosing-charts.1024056/

 

[Dan_P]

You're right. I meant 75 milliliters, my mistake. Also, it's a 150 gallon system.

150 gallon display + 50 gallon sump - (rocks + sand + corals) ~= 150 gallon

I followed this guideline: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/new-vodka-and-vinegar-dosing-charts.1024056/

Here are a few thoughts.

In my system, I saw rapid depletion of nitrate when I saw bacteria growth on the glass. The dose was 1 mL of vinegar per gallon. I was able to repeat this some months later after stopping vinegar dosing altogether.

The amount of vinegar needed to deplete nitrate does not seem predictable. Some systems require a little, some much more. The thinking is that there is consumption of vinegar (acetate) by organisms in the aquarium that does not result in making much biomass and therefore not much consumption of nitrate occurs. I guess if you have not seen nitrate depletion in your system, the dose is too low.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

. The thinking is that there is consumption of vinegar (acetate) by organisms in the aquarium that does not result in making much biomass and therefore not much consumption of nitrate occurs. I guess if you have not seen nitrate depletion in your system, the dose is too low.

I agree.

 

[vanguard]

Here are a few thoughts.

In my system, I saw rapid depletion of nitrate when I saw bacteria growth on the glass. The dose was 1 mL of vinegar per gallon. I was able to repeat this some months later after stopping vinegar dosing altogether.

The amount of vinegar needed to deplete nitrate does not seem predictable. Some systems require a little, some much more. The thinking is that there is consumption of vinegar (acetate) by organisms in the aquarium that does not result in making much biomass and therefore not much consumption of nitrate occurs. I guess if you have not seen nitrate depletion in your system, the dose is too low.

Thank you for the feedback. I think I'll do 10ml increments and experiment a bit more. I started dosing in February and things have been trending well until lately. I'm not sure what I did wrong but my levels are a bit erratic lately.

My target is 8-12 NO3 and .08-.12 PO4. Some of that lower nitrate progress was the result of an extra water change here and there but mostly I was on the right track, until recently.

Question: How long would you wait between 10ml vinegar dose changes before making another change?

 

[GARRIGA]

Here's some data points on how quickly nitrates can fall by overdosing although these figures are broken into several smaller dosages when fish are present as oxygen demand can drop quickly. Point of consideration. Wasn't able to drop nitrates until phosphates introduced. This was a fishless cycle that completed ammonia in four days and nitrites in 9.

I'll drop another chart of when I experimented with dropping nitrates fast with fish present and one sacrificial Xenia. All survived.

 

[GARRIGA]

Here's post allowing nitrates to accumulate then aggressive dosing to reduce it quickly. Test tank volume 16 gallons. Recommended NoPox is 3ml per 25 gallons. Key again was having phosphates present and these dosages were done once per day as I found no issues at even 10ml.

Nitrates might be high due to nitrites present as I didn't test for them post cycle but I highly doubt it based on my alkalinity which would drop from 9 to 5 dkh when nitrates that elevated and there was no reason why nitrites would rise, either. I could literally test alkalinity and guess my nitrates the two were so inline since I performed no water changes in 2-1/2 plus year this test tank ran.

Suspect that those seeing slower results might be due to having low phosphates. Yet this dosing would keep my phosphates below 0.25 ppm although based on color I could guess at times it was lower than 0.05 because although API not precision as Hanna when viewed under same lights the shade did change and I took photos for comparison.

Just checked my notes and did record cloudy water when dosed 10ml. Hard remembering everything and why I took notes. How some have photographic memory. My is more like a Polaroid that shows but for a moment then goes Memento although I never forget the logic behind it.

 

[vanguard]

Thank you for the data. Your nitrates dropped so much faster than I would have expected. I've had success keeping my PO4 about 1% of my NO3. We measure a few times a week because we don't want dinos from dropping to zero. (Neptune Trident NP is in the mail)

I am learning that I don't need to wait weeks between changes. I'll likely make more conservative adjustments than you did in your tests but it's still really useful data.

 

[GARRIGA]

Thank you for the data. Your nitrates dropped so much faster than I would have expected. I've had success keeping my PO4 about 1% of my NO3. We measure a few times a week because we don't want dinos from dropping to zero. (Neptune Trident NP is in the mail)

I am learning that I don't need to wait weeks between changes. I'll likely make more conservative adjustments than you did in your tests but it's still really useful data.

Oddly, didn't have Dino until doubling my light intensity then it went to crap although ultimately I resolved it. Had cyano infrequently but turkey baster blow solved it until Dino attack then that too got uncontrollable. To this day no clue what actually caused both as my nutrients didn't change and for an extended period wasn't even dosing and tank on auto pilot.

When I broke it down the nitrates were zero due to my diy Fuge/ATS and phosphates at 1.4 but no Dino for months and cyano was receding with daily peroxide treatments. Possible the peroxide kept all the nasties at bay. Further test will hopefully confirm once I erect the tank again. Being lazy unfortunately and hoping to get a controller and auto tester so I don't need to rely on manual testing and logging. Better things in life I'd rather be doing. Yet knowledge I seek also important. Eventually all gets wrapped up into how I design my main and hopefully QT/Observation/Grow out.

 

[Dan_P]

Thank you for the feedback. I think I'll do 10ml increments and experiment a bit more. I started dosing in February and things have been trending well until lately. I'm not sure what I did wrong but my levels are a bit erratic lately.

My target is 8-12 NO3 and .08-.12 PO4. Some of that lower nitrate progress was the result of an extra water change here and there but mostly I was on the right track, until recently.

Question: How long would you wait between 10ml vinegar dose changes before making another change?

I was making changes every 3-7 days, but only if none of the fish or coral looked disturbed.