More to do about Carbon dosing.

[JulesH]

Hi,

My current 300 litre tank has just reached its second birthday. Over the last year I have had stubbornly high phosphates 0.2 to 0.25 ppm, nitrates not more than 5ppm. I thought I would give TM's Bacto balance to see if:

1. I could reduce my PO4
2. Utilise the bacteria for coral food.

If I understood Bacto balance correctly I would not bottom out my PO4/NO3 as it doses these two elements to stop that from happening. According to the TM web site because of the age of tank I could dose 0.75 ml daily and perhaps go to 1.5 ml after a couple of weeks depending on the two tests.

However I erred on the side of safety. I have been dosing BB for about three weeks now I started with a low level of 0.25ml and worked my way up to 0.75ml. I noticed my PO4/NO3 tests results steadily decreasing. This evenings tests have shown a PO4 of 0.00 ppm and a NO3 level of 0.4 ppm. I feed quite heavily twice a day, run a skimmer and a filter roller.

Should I stop dosing BB immediately or go for a reduction over a period of time. I thought with Bacto Balance it dosed PO4 and NO3 to stop you bottoming out?

Thanks for looking.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

IMO, BB may not achieve it's claim, and I'd stick to normal products where you know what is in them and how much.

 

[JulesH]

Randy, Thanks for the reply. I am a bit of a carbon dosing virgin, please can you point me in the right direction (a good carbon dosing starter article).

Thank goodness for the likes of R2R, there is so much ju ju juice around for us people with more money than sense. I should know better, if I dont know what's in it I should not put it into my tank.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Sure:

NEW Vodka and Vinegar Dosing Charts

The reasons I'm updating the Vinegar and Vodka dosing charts are two-fold: 1. The ramp was unnecessarily slow. There was no perceived benefit to such a tedious ramp, and it led to reefers quitting because they thought carbon dosing didn't work. 2. The ramp did not scale up correctly...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[The Mushroom Man]

Ive known carbon to do more for Nitrates rather then Phos, i would use GFO, to bring down your phosphates, as always make sure you know how to use it and use half of the reccomend dose for first use! GL