Miami Reefer you received this research or beta test product from me. This is not something that is available for sale. The product is nothing more than vinegar combined with a small amount of usp or pharmaceutical grade aspartic acid and glutumic acid. Randy has written many great articles on the benefits of carbon dosing. I have been dosing vinegar for 4-5 years now and like Randy am a strong believer that it works if you understand its limitations. That is at some point nitrates go to zero and we need to reduce the carbon dosing and let nitrate rise. As for AA (Amino Acid), Tim Wijgerde wrote the most recent article on the topic for Advanced aquarist.
A few quotes:
As the organic matrix of corals exhibits an abundance of aspartic acid, it stands to reason thats its supply is critical to coral growth
Aspartic acid in an interesting candidate to start with, given its important role in organic matrix synthesis and skeletal growth. It is possible that corals which receive a concentrated aspartic acid supplement on a daily basis show faster growth compared to corals fed with zooplankton (which may provide less aspartic acid)
Not from the article my thoughts
Amino acids are a great coral food. May be better than other foods as between our bacterial colony feeding on it and coral feeding and skimming it is most likely gone from our system very quickly. Hence feeding AA once a week is like feeding your fish once a week. Not perfect. Continuous dosing makes more sense.
amino acids are a carbon source ! We have learned that sugar and vodka are carbon sources but not as good as vinegar. As they bring on cyano red bacteria. Its possible aminos are even better of a carbon source than vinegar. Combined with vinegar it may help provide us with multi strands or a diversity of bacteria in our system
Miami Reefer said he has seen a decline in both nitrate and phosphates. He also mentioned better polyp extension. Thats 3 positives!!! The only negative is closed zoas? Seems unrelated to me.
I have been dosing this for 4 weeks now. I was dosing vinegar before this, so the only change was the addition of the 2 Aminos. I have seen significant polyp extension on my sps. I have seen tips begin to show faster and new growth. My zoas are fine? I have not seen large nitrate reduction, but have seen phosphate reductions. I think the reason is that aminos like all proteins have nitrates. This may be a blessing in disguise------remember the negative to vineger. It reduces nitrates much faster than phosphates. Hence here we attack phosphate more while feeding corals.
I am not a scientist, I a reefer! But I like to read on our hobby. If we wait for the science and research to show us 100% conclusive result. We are in trouble. As the money for research just is not there. So we need to share our experiences on great forums like this to truly learn and experiment. That is why I have given away a dozen bottles of this stuff to my friends to try. The results of many over some months will give us a better understanding of what this research product is all about.
If you can share articles that discuss this it would be great!
PS: I am not here to promote a product, I am here to furthur our knowledge and discussion on this topic by bringing actual case use and results studies by a small group of beta testers------lets learn together!
