Carbon Dosing Questions

[PristineReef]

Hello everyone, I just started dosing nopox as a carbon source for my 3yr old tank. Instantly my xenia closed up and looks like it's done for. I've heard this from others who have used nopox as well on other threads. My question is what are you all dosing for a carbon source? How much do u dose daily for your size tank?

Tank details:
65gal tank
20gal sump
Total volume around 80gal
7 fish: 2 clowns, 2 damsel, 2 chromis, 1 yellow tang
Protein skimmer Octo
Bag of carbon
Miracle mud
Change filter socks daily
Heavy Feeder 1/2 cube mysis 1/2 cube brine daily
Doser: 5ml alk daily, 3ml cal daily, 3ml nopox daily

Currently have cyano on sand and some gha on rockwork.

No3=1.5 but gha is uptaking
Po4=0.08
Alk=9.9
Cal=424
Mag=1600 currently dropping via water changes due to over dose.
Sg=1.026
Ph=8

 

[jda]

What is the problem that you are trying to solve? Carbon dosing is best for lowering nitrate and at 1.5 ppm, this is hardly a problem.

I would never recommend using organic carbon in a reef tank except for a specific reason with an experienced reefer. The stuff can work for some things, but the risk of damage is way higher and most people mess it up than get it right.

If you do decide to dose carbon, then use a singular source like vodka, sugar, ethanol of some kind or vinegar. Something like nopox is a blend and nobody knows for sure what is in it. You can do a better job if you something pure - knowledge of what goes in helps to get it out.

In the end, don't dose this just to dose it.

 

[redfishbluefish]

I would remove the carbon while carbon dosing.

 

[PristineReef]

What is the problem that you are trying to solve? Carbon dosing is best for lowering nitrate and at 1.5 ppm, this is hardly a problem.

I would never recommend using organic carbon in a reef tank except for a specific reason with an experienced reefer. The stuff can work for some things, but the risk of damage is way higher and most people mess it up than get it right.

If you do decide to dose carbon, then use a singular source like vodka, sugar, ethanol of some kind or vinegar. Something like nopox is a blend and nobody knows for sure what is in it. You can do a better job if you something pure - knowledge of what goes in helps to get it out.

In the end, don't dose this just to dose it.

Reason for carbon dosing:
I've got gha on rockwork. The no3 reads low due to uptake of no3 fron gha. If it was truly 1.5 I don't think I'd have gha. Also have cyano now. I've heard carbon Dosing alleviates those problems.

 

[PristineReef]

I would remove the carbon while carbon dosi

I would remove the carbon while carbon dosing.

What's the reason for doing that?

 

[MaxTremors]

I currently dose 25ml of vinegar per day in my 20g total tank volume tank. I have notice that my Xenia closes up for around 5 minutes when I dose it, but then goes back to normal, within 10 minutes if dosing it looks like nothing happened. I’ve been dosing it for around 3 months, and its dropped my nitrates from consistently being around 80ppm to now being consistently between 10 and 20ppm. My phosphates have consistently been very low (usually between 0.005 and 0.01). Haven’t had any cyano, had a lot of Derbesia before and still do, plan on dosing some fluconazole in the near future.

 

[jda]

I have .1 N and .005 to .01 P and algae would overrun my tank without consumers. If you stave the macro algae you can stave the micro algae too. Carbon dosing has a lot of unintended consequences including raising bacterial rates that will use ammonia ammonium instead of it getting to your corals. I suggest that you attack this another way, but good luck with whatever you do.

 

[PristineReef]

I have .1 N and .005 to .01 P and algae would overrun my tank without consumers. If you stave the macro algae you can stave the micro algae too. Carbon dosing has a lot of unintended consequences including raising bacterial rates that will use ammonia ammonium instead of it getting to your corals. I suggest that you attack this another way, but good luck with whatever you do.

Recommendations?

 

[redfishbluefish]

What's the reason for doing that?

Activated carbon will remove ethanol and acetic acid.....the two ingredients in NOPOX.

 

[fryman]

Recommendations?

Stop dosing nopox, your nitrate level is fine.

GHA will grow happily in the same conditions as coral. My recommendation is to manually remove long GHA, and add something that eats GHA, like a tang, urchin, or certain snails like trochus.

 

[jda]

Manual removal, urchins and/or just waiting if you started with dry or dead rock... this is an unfortunate byproduct that gets left out by the folks who sell it.

 

[jda]

Fish are mostly a waste of time for me. Some have some luck with some rabbit fish, but most do not. I would skip this. Just pull the algae by hand, go and find your urchins and then put them on the area. It takes some work, but it will get down. I like the Florida Keys urchins from ReefTopia.

 

[JohnMzreef]

Hi, I recommend that you do dose vodka 3-4 drops per day. Also add mb7 1 capful per day until you see gha start to melt. (usually starts melting after about a week). If that is working for you then continue vodka at the same dose, do not ramp it up. Do not chase numbers with nitrate or phosphate. Continue to dose mb7 weekly.
Remove GAC from your filtration. Only add it every 1-2 months for about 2 days to polish your water.
Continue to run your skimmer if you have one - use nutrient testing to tune it.
(a drop is about 0.05 ml)
You will have some cyano with this method but it shouldn't be too crazy.
See if that works for you. It works for me.

 

[fryman]

Fish are mostly a waste of time for me. Some have some luck with some rabbit fish, but most do not. I would skip this. Just pull the algae by hand, go and find your urchins and then put them on the area. It takes some work, but it will get down. I like the Florida Keys urchins from ReefTopia.

I agree an urchin is going to be the most reliable at eating gha, but some people avoid them because they pick up & carry around anything not nailed down. I've rescued countless snails, hermits, and even coral frags from my urchins over the years.

Fish are indeed hit-or-miss, my yellow tang is mostly useless in this area but he's still a baby. I had a purple tang once that was great and rabbit fish also are usually good at controlling gha I think.

Full-grown adult trochus snails will eat gha if it's short but they don't ship well so you'll have to get them from your LFS. Also ime only the big ones do the job and even then it takes a handful to be as effective as a single urchin. But if you don't like/want an urchin they are an option.

 

[PristineReef]

Ty for your responses! I appreciate it!

 

[Lovefish77]

Cyano is a symptom of low nitrates and high phosphates (kind of what you have exactly). Carbon using strips out more N then P. So it might make your cyano worse. Best guess is t ok raise N not reduce it.

 

[Danroo]

I would recommend manually scrubbing the gha off. I have adult trochus snails 3 huge ones still got gha on my power heads. I used a toothbrush and scraped it. My trochus were to busy eating other type of algae and never bothered with gha on power heads. Even lost a couple because they refused to eat it. Did a lot of changes recently which is not creating anymore gha after I scrubbed. Added carbon, new lights. Saw some gha on sand bed which turned white overnight and is gone now.

 

[Rmckoy]

Hi, I recommend that you do dose vodka 3-4 drops per day. Also add mb7 1 capful per day until you see gha start to melt. (usually starts melting after about a week). If that is working for you then continue vodka at the same dose, do not ramp it up. Do not chase numbers with nitrate or phosphate. Continue to dose mb7 weekly.
Remove GAC from your filtration. Only add it every 1-2 months for about 2 days to polish your water.
Continue to run your skimmer if you have one - use nutrient testing to tune it.
(a drop is about 0.05 ml)
You will have some cyano with this method but it shouldn't be too crazy.
See if that works for you. It works for me.

Just dosing the mb7 alone will reduce nitrates and phosphates as essentially …. You’re increasing the nitrifying bacteria that consume and transform these nutrients .

 

[PristineReef]

Cyano is a symptom of low nitrates and high phosphates (kind of what you have exactly). Carbon using strips out more N then P. So it might make your cyano worse. Best guess is t ok raise N not reduce it.

Yes I just tested and nitrate is 0 phosphate is 0.12. I dosed nitrate to raise it. How do I drop phosphate?

 

[Lovefish77]

Yes I just tested and nitrate is 0 phosphate is 0.12. I dosed nitrate to raise it. How do I drop phosphate?

Once you raise nitrates (and you should go very slow and test) the higher nitrates should lower phosphates a bit. Just go slow
Nitrates should be much highter than phosphates. Ratio of N to P should be like 30 to 150 they say.