adding bacteria while vinegar dosing

[skr791346]

Anyone dosing vinegar also supplement with bacteria? (mb7, prodibio, or zeobak) Not seeing much results from vinegar dosing alone and was wondering if adding bacteria will help / expedite the nitrate reduction process.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I think the bacteria will only help if the bacteria growing from the vodka are unsightly, such as cyano. Otherwise, patience and dose adjusting are what’s typically needed.

But it doesn’t hurt to add bacteria too. [emoji3]

 

[bubbaque]

Randy, if you have unsightly bacteria and start carbon dosing, I imagine it will only make the unsightly bacteria grow. If you start carbon dosing and adding beneficial bacteria at the same time, can it outcompete the unsightly bacteria that is already there or will it just make it worse?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

That does sometimes work, yes.[emoji3]

 

[skr791346]

I think the bacteria will only help if the bacteria growing from the vodka are unsightly, such as cyano. Otherwise, patience and dose adjusting are what’s typically needed.

But it doesn’t hurt to add bacteria too. [emoji3]

Thank you Randy! Haven't seen any cyano with vinegar; been reading of people using bacteria supplements with biopellets and thought it might help with vinegar dosing too. I'll wait another month or so to see if there's any change without bacteria supplement.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The vinegar is being used even without additional bacteria, and there’s no reason to think different bacteria will use it “better”.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

How long have you been dosing vinegar?

 

[skr791346]

About three months now and nitrate stuck at 50

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

How did you decide how much to dose?

 

[skr791346]

I'm mixing it with ESV Transitional Elements Plus and the ratio they recommended was 1 to 3 part vinegar, 4 ml / 20 gallon so I'm currently at about 30ml.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I'm mixing it with ESV Transitional Elements Plus and the ratio they recommended was 1 to 3 part vinegar, 4 ml / 20 gallon so I'm currently at about 30ml.

Have you tried dosing more vinegar? Folks usually titrate dose to the tank needs?

 

[skr791346]

Initially, I was advised to keep it at 4ml / 20 gallons because TE+ has about 5 times organic carbon source than vinegar. I spoke to them recently and they said after testing it out at 1 to 4 (5ml / 20gallons) or 1 to 5 ratio (6ml / 20gallons) TE+ to vinegar, they saw no issues on their test systems so I will definitely be ramping it up and hope that it starts working!