My Results: Carbon Dosing with Brightwell Bio Fuel vs TM Reef Actif vs and Vinegar

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

That's a good suggestion for some. Might actually work. Won't work for me. First of all you can't control the calcium level that way. Because your dosing based on maintaining the pH of the solution rather than the needs of the aquarium. But also, I have a large 10000 ml dosing tank which contains Calcium Chloride as well as Tropic Marin k+ Trace element mix. And that's all dosed through an apex based on the calcium readings from the trident. If I were to do both I would drive my dkh through the roof

Vinegar saturated with calcium hydroxide has an exact amount of calcium and alk. It’s not very high, and certainly does not prevent proper control of alk or calcium. It just reduces the apparent demand for other sources.

Dosing is not based on pH any way.

 

[spicymikey]

Vinegar saturated with calcium hydroxide has an exact amount of calcium and alk. It’s not very high, and certainly does not prevent proper control of alk or calcium. It just reduces that apparent demand for other sources.

To neutralize the acetic acids pH and bring it to around 7 required i had to put in more calcium hydroxide than my system needed. Therefore that technique did not work for me because I ended up increasing my calcium. Of course, I could find some compromise and put in some lesser degree of calcium to raise the pH a bit but also not bring it above my total system demand.

I am redoing all the experiments again. I have added a test using elimi-np from Tropic Marin. I've also started using 99% acetic acid mixed into a magnesium solution rather than white vinegar, which is 95% water. It makes the volume of my dosing solution much more reasonable. Preliminary results show that elimi-np definitely works but I need way more than the 8 ml prescribed for a 400 gallon system. It's making it about six times as expensive as just using acetic acid. But it does indeed work

 

[spicymikey]

That may be more expensive than grocery store vinegar where a gallon bottle will last you 19 days. I dosed right from the bottle.

It's not. One gallon of 99% acetic acid is $54 on Amazon. That's 20 times the concentration. $54 / 20 is $2.70. That's significantly less than a gallon of vinegar in my grocery store. Which would make sense since you're paying to transport 95% water. If I found a better supplier I'm sure I could get the cost down even more. But buying straight off Amazon sure makes it convenient

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

To neutralize the acetic acids pH and bring it to around 7 required i had to put in more calcium hydroxide than my system needed. Therefore that technique did not work for me because I ended up increasing my calcium. Of course, I could find some compromise and put in some lesser degree of calcium to raise the pH a bit but also not bring it above my total system demand.

I am redoing all the experiments again. I have added a test using elimi-np from Tropic Marin. I've also started using 99% acetic acid mixed into a magnesium solution rather than white vinegar, which is 95% water. It makes the volume of my dosing solution much more reasonable. Preliminary results show that elimi-np definitely works but I need way more than the 8 ml prescribed for a 400 gallon system. It's making it about six times as expensive as just using acetic acid. But it does indeed work

You are not understanding the method. pH 7 should not ever be the goal. That will be a bacteria soup. Saturation is the goal

I don’t understand how that happened in your system unless your demand for alk and calcium are very low. Perhaps you are doing the math wrong.


if you start with 5% acidity vinegar (0.83 M) and saturate it with calcium hydroxide, then the potential alkalinity is a bit over 0.83 M or 2333 dKH.

If you add 200 mL per day to your 400 gallon system, then that is adding about 0.3 dKH.

is your demand lower than that?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It's not. One gallon of 99% acetic acid is $54 on Amazon. That's 20 times the concentration. $54 / 20 is $2.70. That's significantly less than a gallon of vinegar in my grocery store. Which would make sense since you're paying to transport 95% water. If I found a better supplier I'm sure I could get the cost down even more. But buying straight off Amazon sure makes it convenient

Ok, your vinegar is more expensive than mine. Mine was less than $2.50 per gallon. I also like the quality assurance of food grade for a high volume additive.

 

[spicymikey]

Ok, your vinegar is more expensive than mine. Mine was less than $2.50 per gallon. I also like the quality assurance of food grade for a high volume additive.

Yeah here in Florida it's in the low threes. But it's not really the cost. It's the convenience. Not having to buy gallons and gallons of vinegar and also not having to dilute my magnesium / acetic acid solution so much with water. This allows me to create a solution with a higher concentration of active ingredients that I can dose for a longer period of time between refills. So that's the really big advantage. To me it seems that if this is a long-term solution for someone then getting higher concentration acetic acid is the way to go. It's even more highly concentrated with carbon than using vodka. Of course you have to have the right situation. Like having vodka laying around, you need to know that it is secure and cannot be accessed by little hands.

 

[spicymikey]

You are not understanding the method. pH 7 should not ever be the goal. That will be a bacteria soup. Saturation is the goal

I don’t understand how that happened in your system unless your demand for alk and calcium are very low. Perhaps you are doing the math wrong.


if you start with 5% acidity vinegar (0.83 M) and saturate it with calcium hydroxide, then the potential alkalinity is a bit over 0.83 M or 2333 dKH.

If you add 200 mL per day to your 400 gallon system, then that is adding about 0.3 dKH.

is your demand lower than that?

Okay great. I'm actually glad to hear that I might just be "doing it wrong". Do you have a recipe? What should I be adding to reduce the pH hit on the acetic acid dosing? Admittedly, it's not as big a deal anymore now that I am slowly dosing it 24 hours a day. But I still have lost some gain in pH and cannot easily reach 8.2 or 8.3 anymore.

It's not a math problem. It's observational. But I will revisit it all and try it again. Let me know if you have that recipe. I was definitely trying to get the pH neutral which is what probably made it a problem. It required a lot of calcium hydroxide

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Okay great. I'm actually glad to hear that I might just be "doing it wrong". Do you have a recipe? What should I be adding to reduce the pH hit on the acetic acid dosing? Admittedly, it's not as big a deal anymore now that I am slowly dosing it 24 hours a day. But I still have lost some gain in pH and cannot easily reach 8.2 or 8.3 anymore.

It's not a math problem. It's observational. But I will revisit it all and try it again. Let me know if you have that recipe. I was definitely trying to get the pH neutral which is what probably made it a problem. It required a lot of calcium hydroxide

The method is to add as much calcium hydroxide or calcium oxide as it takes to saturate it, and leave extra on the bottom after shaking it up a bit. Should take a bit over 35 g/L, but you can add as much more than that as you want and just keep reusing it.

 

[chema]

I am trying a transition from carbon dosing based on vodka (ethanol) and acetic acid to Tropic Marin Elimi NP. The aim of this transition was double: first, to check whether a probable change in the heterotrophic bacterial community in my tank might help with a persistant dinoflagellate-cyano problem. Second, to further reduce the phosphate concentration below 0.1 mg/L.

I was dosing 28 ml/day (125 g tank; that is 0.056 ml/l) of a mixture of vodka (37.5 vols.) 50%: acetic acid (80%) 3.75%; or 500 ml vodka 37.5 vols. and 37.5 ml acetic acid 80% per l. This dose was keeping nitrate at 5 mg/L and phosphate at 0.15 mg/L.

I suppressed vodka/acetic acid dosing and started dosing Elimi NP at the recommended initial dose of 0.1 ml/100 L. In four days nitrate climbed to 11.5 mg/L and phosphate to 0.27. I doubled the dose (0,2 ml/L) and in a couple of days raised it up to 0.4 ml/L which is close to the limit stated by Tropic Marin (0.5 ml/L). Nitrate has increased up to 15.1 mg/L after one week dosing 0.4 ml/L and phosphate up to 0.29 mg/L. I have not seen nitrate and phosphate concentrations have reached a plateau. They keep up increasing although at a lower rate than in the first days.

My feeling is that even dosing the maximum amount, the nitrate and phosphate concentrations are not going to reach the levels I was obtaining with vodka/acetic acid dosing. May be I have to wait for a longer time to allow the new bacterial populations to reach a working mass.

I admit that the major drawback of this strategy is the lack of knowledge about the composition of the original bacterial community and the final bacterial community (if a change happened).

As other participants in this thread were worried about pH changes I have to say that I had no pH problems while dosing vodka/acetic acid nor I have encountered them dosing Elimi NP.

 

[Hans-Werner]

Second, to further reduce the phosphate concentration below 0.1 mg/L.

If your goal is to reduce the phosphate concentration below 0.1 mg/l I recommend Elimi-NP. It is the same organic carbon source but without the nutrients added to NP-Bacto-Balance.

However, phosphate concentrations below 0.1 mg/l are not necessarily better for corals nor do they necessarily reduce growth of dinoflagellates or cyanos since these are problems frequently connected to low phosphate concentrations.

 

[chema]

If your goal is to reduce the phosphate concentration below 0.1 mg/l I recommend Elimi-NP. It is the same organic carbon source but without the nutrients added to NP-Bacto-Balance.

However, phosphate concentrations below 0.1 mg/l are not necessarily better for corals nor do they necessarily reduce growth of dinoflagellates or cyanos since these are problems frequently connected to low phosphate concentrations.

Hi Hans: thank you for your reply.
Elimi NP is what I am dosing.

 

[spicymikey]

I am trying a transition from carbon dosing based on vodka (ethanol) and acetic acid to Tropic Marin Elimi NP. The aim of this transition was double: first, to check whether a probable change in the heterotrophic bacterial community in my tank might help with a persistant dinoflagellate-cyano problem. Second, to further reduce the phosphate concentration below 0.1 mg/L.

I was dosing 28 ml/day (125 g tank; that is 0.056 ml/l) of a mixture of vodka (37.5 vols.) 50%: acetic acid (80%) 3.75%; or 500 ml vodka 37.5 vols. and 37.5 ml acetic acid 80% per l. This dose was keeping nitrate at 5 mg/L and phosphate at 0.15 mg/L.

I suppressed vodka/acetic acid dosing and started dosing Elimi NP at the recommended initial dose of 0.1 ml/100 L. In four days nitrate climbed to 11.5 mg/L and phosphate to 0.27. I doubled the dose (0,2 ml/L) and in a couple of days raised it up to 0.4 ml/L which is close to the limit stated by Tropic Marin (0.5 ml/L). Nitrate has increased up to 15.1 mg/L after one week dosing 0.4 ml/L and phosphate up to 0.29 mg/L. I have not seen nitrate and phosphate concentrations have reached a plateau. They keep up increasing although at a lower rate than in the first days.

My feeling is that even dosing the maximum amount, the nitrate and phosphate concentrations are not going to reach the levels I was obtaining with vodka/acetic acid dosing. May be I have to wait for a longer time to allow the new bacterial populations to reach a working mass.

I admit that the major drawback of this strategy is the lack of knowledge about the composition of the original bacterial community and the final bacterial community (if a change happened).

As other participants in this thread were worried about pH changes I have to say that I had no pH problems while dosing vodka/acetic acid nor I have encountered them dosing Elimi NP.

If you read this whole thread you know that I started it with comparison of a few different sources of carbon. I did not try Elimi-NP, but I am now doing another round of testing that includes that product as well as ethanol. I need more time to draw any conclusions but so far I'm seeing what you're seeing with the elimi-np. It clearly works at controlling nitrates and phosphates. But at a higher cost. Like you, I found the recommended dosage did not meet my needs. I needed to pretty much double the max dose to get effective control of nitrates and phosphates like I was getting with acetic acid. I need a lot more acetic acid to get the job done but it's a lot cheaper, especially if you just buy pure acetic acid and dose it in the appropriate amounts. That's what I'm doing right now rather than using vinegar which is 5% acetic acid and a lot of water.

The advantage with the elimi-np products is that it's clearly more convenient and easier to use. You have this little pump bottle and you just squeeze off the needed amount in the tank. No mess, no concern with acids, and no pH effect that I noticed other than the reduced pH naturally caused by the increased biological activity. It definitely has its purpose and is a good choice for some who want a very easy method and do not have too large of a system. But for my 400 gallon system it doesn't seem cost effective.

I'm testing ethanol now. Like the vinegar / acetic acid test, I just opted to buy 200 proof natural ethanol rather than go use vodka which also mostly water. All of these things are easily found right on amazon. But you have to be careful. You do not want denatured ethanol. Sadly, I'm old enough to remember a world Before computers, the internet, and certainly Amazon. I gotta tell ya, I just love this world we live in now

Btw, Is there a reason you were creating a mixed solution with both the ethanol and acetic acid? Did you read somewhere that it worked better somehow? I don't remember reading anything indicating any particular advantage but I do remember reading other people doing the same thing of mixing the two together. Thanks

 

[chema]

If you read this whole thread you know that I started it with comparison of a few different sources of carbon. I did not try Elimi-NP, but I am now doing another round of testing that includes that product as well as ethanol. I need more time to draw any conclusions but so far I'm seeing what you're seeing with the elimi-np. It clearly works at controlling nitrates and phosphates. But at a higher cost. Like you, I found the recommended dosage did not meet my needs. I needed to pretty much double the max dose to get effective control of nitrates and phosphates like I was getting with acetic acid. I need a lot more acetic acid to get the job done but it's a lot cheaper, especially if you just buy pure acetic acid and dose it in the appropriate amounts. That's what I'm doing right now rather than using vinegar which is 5% acetic acid and a lot of water.

The advantage with the elimi-np products is that it's clearly more convenient and easier to use. You have this little pump bottle and you just squeeze off the needed amount in the tank. No mess, no concern with acids, and no pH effect that I noticed other than the reduced pH naturally caused by the increased biological activity. It definitely has its purpose and is a good choice for some who want a very easy method and do not have too large of a system. But for my 400 gallon system it doesn't seem cost effective.

I'm testing ethanol now. Like the vinegar / acetic acid test, I just opted to buy 200 proof natural ethanol rather than go use vodka which also mostly water. All of these things are easily found right on amazon. But you have to be careful. You do not want denatured ethanol. Sadly, I'm old enough to remember a world Before computers, the internet, and certainly Amazon. I gotta tell ya, I just love this world we live in now

Btw, Is there a reason you were creating a mixed solution with both the ethanol and acetic acid? Did you read somewhere that it worked better somehow? I don't remember reading anything indicating any particular advantage but I do remember reading other people doing the same thing of mixing the two together. Thanks

What dose of Elimi NP have you been using? Did you observe negative effects when going over the maximum recommended dosage?

My mixture of vodka and acetic acid is a cheap knock off of Nopox

 

[spicymikey]

What dose of Elimi NP have you been using? Did you observe negative effects when going over the maximum recommended dosage?

My mixture of vodka and acetic acid is a cheap knock off of Nopox

For my size tank it said maximum dose 8 ml elimi-np per day. Like you, I started seeing negative results when I switch to 8ml elimi-np from 10ml pure acetic acid (ethanoic acid). I got it stable again with about 16 ml Elimi-np per day. I know TMs instructions say not to exceed 8 ml for my tank, but I'm sure they're being very very overly cautious. We don't know exactly what's in this product but we know it's just a polyalcohol. Likely one of the dozen or more sugar-alcohols.

Fyi, I was up to 10ml acetic acid per day (200ml white vinegar) and the tank was doing great before switching to elimi-np. Because I'm doing these experiments I tested every third day using a Hanna high range nitrate tester and Hanna low range phosphate tester. Everything was stable and I had nitrates around 10ppm. Phosphates always under 0.1ppm and often closer to 0.05.

I'm now testing with pure ( 200 proof ) ethyl alcohol. Sourced it from laballey.com. I need a couple more weeks to get some reliable numbers. After that I'll share some results

 

[chema]

For my size tank it said maximum dose 8 ml elimi-np per day. Like you, I started seeing negative results when I switch to 8ml elimi-np from 10ml pure acetic acid (ethanoic acid). I got it stable again with about 16 ml Elimi-np per day. I know TMs instructions say not to exceed 8 ml for my tank, but I'm sure they're being very very overly cautious. We don't know exactly what's in this product but we know it's just a polyalcohol. Likely one of the dozen or more sugar-alcohols.

Fyi, I was up to 10ml acetic acid per day (200ml white vinegar) and the tank was doing great before switching to elimi-np. Because I'm doing these experiments I tested every third day using a Hanna high range nitrate tester and Hanna low range phosphate tester. Everything was stable and I had nitrates around 10ppm. Phosphates always under 0.1ppm and often closer to 0.05.

I'm now testing with pure ( 200 proof ) ethyl alcohol. Sourced it from laballey.com. I need a couple more weeks to get some reliable numbers. After that I'll share some results

Thanks for the info. I'll raise the dosage and see what happens.

Another thing to try would be to combine Elimi NP and another carbon source. In that way the daily dose of Elimi NP would be lower.

 

[spicymikey]

True. But the "cost per carbon"ratio, if we could describe it that way, is still higher for the elima - NP versus using raw acetic acid or possibly ethanol. The advantages I found is it has less negative effect on my pH, it's relatively safer if you have little people around and it also comes in this very convenient pump bottle where one pump equals 1 ml. So there's no need to measure or mix anything. For those people where those pluses outweigh the cost negative, it's a true legitimate option. It is certainly a better option than the Brightwell biofuel from my experience. The cost-to-carbon ratio of that is terrible. It's extremely expensive to accomplish the same thing. I would not recommend that to anyone

 

[chema]

True. But the "cost per carbon"ratio, if we could describe it that way, is still higher for the elima - NP versus using raw acetic acid or possibly ethanol. The advantages I found is it has less negative effect on my pH, it's relatively safer if you have little people around and it also comes in this very convenient pump bottle where one pump equals 1 ml. So there's no need to measure or mix anything. For those people where those pluses outweigh the cost negative, it's a true legitimate option. It is certainly a better option than the Brightwell biofuel from my experience. The cost-to-carbon ratio of that is terrible. It's extremely expensive to accomplish the same thing. I would not recommend that to anyone

There is another point to take into account, besides the cost, the differences in the bacterial population you are promoting. The problem is that unless you may get a profiling by means of DNA sequencing, the only way to get some information is indirectly by noticing improvements in the corals

 

[spicymikey]

There is another point to take into account, besides the cost, the differences in the bacterial population you are promoting. The problem is that unless you may get a profiling by means of DNA sequencing, the only way to get some information is indirectly by noticing improvements in the corals

True again. I know there are those companies that do biome sequencing. But it's all very very early stages of this stuff. And the bacterial populations change quickly overtime so a snapshot may not be much value unless you did Regular testing.. In the end, again, it is really the effect we are going for. So I can test and observe to see what works best even if I don't know exactly what is living in my tank. Having said that, I do constantly dose small amounts of Dr Tim's ecobalance and waste away continuously on a doser. The goal is not to populate, but rather just seed and maintain a somewhat diverse bacteria population in the tank and not let things get too over run by one or the other. My tank looks great But who knows if it really helps without some kind of a control environment to compare it to. I'm very into the science of this hobby but not that crazy to go through that kind of work LOL

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If you read this whole thread you know that I started it with comparison of a few different sources of carbon. I did not try Elimi-NP, but I am now doing another round of testing that includes that product as well as ethanol. I need more time to draw any conclusions but so far I'm seeing what you're seeing with the elimi-np. It clearly works at controlling nitrates and phosphates. But at a higher cost. Like you, I found the recommended dosage did not meet my needs. I needed to pretty much double the max dose to get effective control of nitrates and phosphates like I was getting with acetic acid. I need a lot more acetic acid to get the job done but it's a lot cheaper, especially if you just buy pure acetic acid and dose it in the appropriate amounts. That's what I'm doing right now rather than using vinegar which is 5% acetic acid and a lot of water.

The advantage with the elimi-np products is that it's clearly more convenient and easier to use. You have this little pump bottle and you just squeeze off the needed amount in the tank. No mess, no concern with acids, and no pH effect that I noticed other than the reduced pH naturally caused by the increased biological activity. It definitely has its purpose and is a good choice for some who want a very easy method and do not have too large of a system. But for my 400 gallon system it doesn't seem cost effective.

I'm testing ethanol now. Like the vinegar / acetic acid test, I just opted to buy 200 proof natural ethanol rather than go use vodka which also mostly water. All of these things are easily found right on amazon. But you have to be careful. You do not want denatured ethanol. Sadly, I'm old enough to remember a world Before computers, the internet, and certainly Amazon. I gotta tell ya, I just love this world we live in now

Btw, Is there a reason you were creating a mixed solution with both the ethanol and acetic acid? Did you read somewhere that it worked better somehow? I don't remember reading anything indicating any particular advantage but I do remember reading other people doing the same thing of mixing the two together. Thanks

Other people do it because they are mimicking NOPOX, but I do not believe it is better than acetic acid alone from the standpoint of being readily bioavailable to many organisms.

 

[spicymikey]

Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions back in June. I did some more experimenting based on that input and posted it in a new thread here

Second Test