Dosing honey = "carbon dosing + amino acids"?

Starblenny · May 1, 2013

scrapz said:
Just wondering if anyone has been experimenting with this

I finally raised my nutrient levels after my biopellet crash and I just started dosing honey into my tank a week ago (like half a drop every week). I'm going to try 1 drop every 3-4 days and see what happens...

On a side note, I'm running gfo but my phosphates is around ~.10ppm and Nitrates is around ~15-20ppm. It's 'dirty' but ever since of my biopellet crash, I'm afraid of having a low nutrient system. My corals isn't as colorful but the important part for me is that they're encrusting nicely, polyps are no longer retracted, and not dying.

robby2782 · May 1, 2013

When did you have a bio pellet crash? Was it because you took them offline?

Starblenny · May 1, 2013

robby2782 said:
When did you have a bio pellet crash? Was it because you took them offline?

I installed the biopellet reactor and added ~1 tablespoon of biopellets around Decemember and by the end of Feburary, most of my acros were either pale, lack of PE, STN, or doing all 3. I thought it was a phosphate issue but it turns out my nitrates was at 0.00ppm. I took the reactor offline (like cold turkey) and most of my acros stoped STN by 2 weeks and most of them turned from pale to brown and PE came back by 4-5 weeks.

darryl_v · May 3, 2013

Your not going to get any sigificant amount of amino acids from honey. Carbon sugars sure. Vitamins and minerals....looks like it but amino acids are building blocks of protein which you will not find any significant amount in honey.

Diver86 · May 3, 2013

well i'm willing to be a test dummy here... i have some acros that aren't doing so well and i have some that are doing really well... might be a good test subject... and i have plenty of natural honey

Mike J. · May 3, 2013

I'm a big fan of N.C. honey. Used to have bees on my farm. I'm going to tag on.

Diesel · May 4, 2013

Well, good luck guys.
Will tag on.
If you do a combination of honey and amino acids maybe you have some better luck.
As some reefers here using VSV or just vodka and they use additional amino accids with it.

Mason Dixon · May 18, 2013

subscribed

Dynamic_Reef · May 21, 2013

Hope your experiment goes well..

redtop03 · May 21, 2013

very interesting concept,I have used sugar desolved on hot ro/di water and now I use vodka but would never have thought about honey,one thing for sure though,it's gonna take a strong pump to use for dosing LOL

Goldsbed · May 21, 2013

Starblenny said:
I finally raised my nutrient levels after my biopellet crash and I just started dosing honey into my tank a week ago (like half a drop every week). I'm going to try 1 drop every 3-4 days and see what happens...

Sounds interesting. 1 drop every 3-4 days, what is the size of your system?

whixley101 · May 21, 2013

About 15 years ago I was dosing a mixture of honey, vinegar, and vodka. It was mixed by equal part of weight not volume. Had some nitrate problems so we stopped after six months. We did notice a difference in color with our sps but back then it was mostly wild colonies that usually RTNed in about a day and did help acclimating wide colonies. Our thought was similar to the post above, honey was a glorified natural amino booster, vodka was your carbon dose, and vinegar was a pH buffer. I would NOT recommend trying this method. My levels drove me nuts!!

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EpicWin · May 21, 2013

Biologist here. Alcohol and sugar are almost identical for bacteria to feed on. Without doing any research honey makes a lot of sense to me. I personally don't think it's going to be a "world changer", in that its just a slight variation on carbon dosing. That being said I think you can safely give it a try.

Blu · Jun 13, 2013

Subscribed, very curious to see what happens.

Ellery · Jan 19, 2016

I've tried Milk and honey and it didn't seem to impact my 365 gallon system running BioPellets. Now I am trying to keep my Nitrates between 2-5ppm and my PO4 at 0.02 ppm since when I had 0 ppm for both things were not very colorful and fading probably from being starved somehow. I have never had any luck with Acans in my tank soI just stick with larger acanthyphyllia I can target feed.

Erick Camargo · Jul 23, 2018

After 5 years from this post, any updates?

Erick Camargo · Jul 23, 2018

Reefltx · Jul 23, 2018

Speaking of honey, have anyone tasted acropower? Tastes just like honey..;Dead

ectoaesthetics · Jul 23, 2018

Sooo I am totally following along on this one. I would NOT try this in a large reef: honey also has antibiotic properties which is why bacteria does not grow like crazy in the sugar rich environment. Could be a lot like adding antibiotics to a system totally dependent upon its bacterial population. How concentrated that is in relation to its aminos and sugar... I have absolutely no idea. It would be really fun to follow someone willing to try it out. But I would caution against piloting this ina system with thounds invested in corals due to that property.

Ellery · Jul 25, 2018

I did it for a few months and tank was fine just didn't want to get a refrigerator to dose it automatically. I now just dose acropower and glucose syrup mixture and still run biopellets.