NEW Vodka and Vinegar Dosing Charts

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

So far, so good. I don’t know if there are any “real differences” in the various products but I do recall not being pleased with nopox and I’m no scientist but am more comfortable using a prepared product, rather than vinegar. I did try Tropic Marin’s Elimi NP but am comfortable with the FM line.
My corals are certainly responding well and I will continue to use the product.

I’m not seeing any reason to prefer a hobby company’s organic that does not provide any purity assurance to a diy using the same ingredients that do come with a purity assurance.

One may be able to argue for one organic over another, but not really the source, IMO.

 

[lmfbs]

I've been carbon dosing for a while on my 127g (waterbox 130.4).

Nitrate last night was 48.7 (hanna HR), phos ~0.05 - 0.1 (it fluctuates a bit, usually higher than I'd like, hanna phos).

I started with NOPOX at the recommended dose, and saw no change. I've moved to vinegar, but getting 5% is difficult here - I can either find 4% or 6%.

I'm currently dosing 62.5ml of 4%. Yesterday was day 10, and nitrates are slowly climbing. (I do about a 15% WC weekly or 30% fortnightly).

Stocking/tank
I have a yellow eye kole tang, a leopard wrasse, fairy wrasse, 2 clowns, 2 zebra brittle stars, and 2 peppermint shrimp. I feed as lightly as I dare, once a day.

I'm getting a light white bacterial film, but not too bad, have lots of surface movement and have upgraded my skimmer to Octo Elite 150 IN, which should be fine for my tank with a medium bioload. I have a filter roller, refuge with LR and chaeto, and extra LR in my main sump compartment.

The only thing I can think which could be contributing to my nitrates is the wrasse moves a lot of sand around, and I also have issues with the powerheads moving a lot of sand (tips gratefully received, it's so annoying). The SB is shallow, and the tank is 11 months old. My euphyllia have died (but that could be kH instability?) and my zoas are struggling too.

Things I could do:
1. increase my vinegar dosing to 75ml/day (which I think would account for the vinegar being 4% rather than 5%)
2. start using 6% and keep dosing 62.5ml and 'over dose' (according to the chart)
3. something else - larger, more frequent WCs? ignore it?

 

[Miami Reef]

I'm getting a light white bacterial film, but not too bad

Any other side effects? Are your corals expanded and happy?

Do you see any white slime anywhere? Cyano increasing? Any nuisance algae growth increase?

If you aren’t having any negative effects with the carbon dose, you can go higher. The highest I’d suggest is 95mL per day. As long as your tank remains happy you can go to that dose. You can first try 75mL for a few days to see if there’s any side effect.

Minor while film on the glass isn’t a big deal. The bacteria has to grow somewhere.

4% to 6% vinegar isn’t a big difference. Keep what you’re using as long as it’s distilled white vinegar.

 

[lmfbs]

Any other side effects? Are your corals expanded and happy?

Do you see any white slime anywhere? Cyano increasing? Any nuisance algae growth increase?

If you aren’t having any negative effects with the carbon dose, you can go higher. The highest I’d suggest is 95mL per day. As long as your tank remains happy you can go to that dose. You can first try 75mL for a few days to see if there’s any side effect.

Minor while film on the glass isn’t a big deal. The bacteria has to grow somewhere.

4% to 6% vinegar isn’t a big difference. Keep what you’re using as long as it’s distilled white vinegar.

Other than the euphyllia and sad zoas the other stuff I have is softies, which are all looking great and growing.

I'll crank up to 75ml/day and see where I am in a week. The film really isn't too bad. I'll report back!

 

[Miami Reef]

Other than the euphyllia and sad zoas

Were the happier before the carbon dosing?

 

[lmfbs]

Were the happier before the carbon dosing?

No - I started carbon dosing because I'm pretty sure sustained high nitrates upset them (though 40 - 50ppm shouldn't really kill them, honestly)

 

[Miami Reef]

(though 40 - 50ppm shouldn't really kill them, honestly)

I agree with you. I don’t think nitrate is the problem.

Surely you can decide to lower them, but I’d ask in the main forum. Chemistry is usually the least likely reason why corals perish.

 

[lmfbs]

I agree with you. I don’t think nitrate is the problem.

Surely you can decide to lower them, but I’d ask in the main forum. Chemistry is usually the least likely reason why corals perish.

I rescued some that were really struggling in a friend's tank, and I think moving them to a newish tank with not very stable KH was probably the reason, though they could have died from whatever was affecting them in my buddy's tank.

I'm getting a Reef Factory KH tester arriving next week, and I'm dosing now so the KH is more stable. Just nervous about getting something new until I get the nitrate feeling under control. I don't really care if it sits at 20 or 30, but I would like to feel like it doesn't rise quickly after a WC before I add anything new.

 

[lmfbs]

Great news, after 3 days of dosing at 75ml, my nitrates are starting to drop. Just a little, but they're dropping. Thanks so much for your help! I'll check back in in a few more days.

 

[Miami Reef]

Great news, after 3 days of dosing at 75ml, my nitrates are starting to drop. Just a little, but they're dropping. Thanks so much for your help! I'll check back in in a few more days.

Great! This coincides well with my experience. I find .75mL/gallon produces a good nitrate reduction. Once you start reaching around 95mL (.75mL/gal) they’ll drop much quicker. But as I’ve said already, I don’t think nitrate is the issue, so there’s nothing wrong with keeping at 75mL/day.

The corals and sponges will enjoy the acetate. They can directly consume it for energy and (the corals) can make fatty acids with it. They’ll also enjoy the extra bacteria floating around.

 

[Miami Reef]

Updated the text in the first post. I tried to condense it and make the intro easier to digest.

 

[PeterErc]

Good Job OP,
I use vinegar in kalk ato for the bacteria source and to increase the saturation of the limewater. I have always kept fish well fed, fat and happy. Corals seemingly are happy as demonstrated by good growth.

My first experience carbon dosing was with using ascorbic acid, and that was short lived. Bio pellets were used with success some time back as well. Randy does not recommend the use of ascorbic acid so that has not been an option since.

Recently reset the tank and put a small quantity of pellets online, along with vinegar in ato. The bio diversity threads are the reasoning behind using pellets again. I cannot comment as I do not see anything noticeable since adding them. I did top the level off so they are being digested.

I have bottomed out nitrate many times over the years causing white bio film and or paling of SPS. I have used GFO and aluminum binders(SeaChem) to remove phosphate but too pricey. Lanthanum dosing has been used as well. Sodium nitrate has been dosed to help when bottomed out and for removal of phosphate but never got that dialed in. I have had STN in acro from bottoming out nitrate, or the combination of above methods. Trial and error.

I have dosed dissolved teaspoons of kalkwasser in vinegar and teaspoons not disolved with seemingly no ill effects

What I am getting at is vinegar has been very forgiving. Use caution not to bottom out nitrate. Bottoming out phosphate with binders can contribute to a not happy reefer as well.
For more reading pleasure look into Randy’s ammonia dosing and silicate dosing threads. Not going to de rail this thread

On another note I noticed they sell cleaning vinegar which is 6% acetic acid.
I then saw 30% and 45% vinegar and did some searching. A 32oz bottle of 30% is around $10

Ingredients: 30% Vinegar (Acetic Acid) CAS#64-19-7, 70% Water CAS #7732-18-5

CAS#7732-18-5 is purified water

Thoughts?

Harris 30% Vinegar (32 fl. oz.)

COUNTLESS USES - Concentrated vinegar is widely used to replace many harmful and expensive commercial cleaning products. 30% STRENGTH - Clean patios & driveways, eliminate odors from laundry, and much more. CONCENTRATE - 6x more powerful than standard vinegar can be used diluted with up to 60...

pfharris.com

 

[lmfbs]

Just wanted to update on how things are going - last night nitrates had dropped to 28, which I'm absolutely thrilled about. From 49 just a couple of weeks ago, I'm really happy.

Now I've got 2 issues

• My phosphate (hanna ULR) seems to be jumping around a bit:
  

  19/02/2024	0.3
  24/02/2024	0.17
  13/03/2024	0.09
  15/03/2024	0.13
  18/03/2024	0

• I doubt it's actually zero, but I fed a bit more last night and will order some phos for dosing tonight just in case, and I'll test again tonight. I just don't understand why it's moving up and down quite a bit - generally I find hanna testers pretty reliable.
• I'm considering getting a phosphorus hanna checker instead - thoughts?

And how do I stop?
I'm aiming for phos between 5 - 15ish, but not too fussed on the actual numbers. Do I slowly ramp down my dosing? What level should I move to (125g)? I'm currently dosing 75ml/day (via my doser, 11 times a day during daylight hours) and obviously don't want my nitrate to bottom out.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I'm surprised if dropping nitrate from 49 to 28 ppm is accompanied by a 0.3 ppm drop to undetectable in phosphate due to organic carbon dosing.

Anything else changed?

 

[lmfbs]

I'm surprised if dropping nitrate from 49 to 28 ppm is accompanied by a 0.3 ppm drop to undetectable in phosphate due to organic carbon dosing.

Anything else changed?

I did a couple of water changes, killed some aiptasia with boiling lemon juice in a syringe, increased my alk and calc via dosing (red sea A and B, powder) and manually removed a bunch of GHA. I tested phos again last night 0.08, and double checked it with the salifert phos test too (I do the higher sensitivity test because I STRUGGLE with the colours).

My best guess is that 0.3 reading was a testing error. I have an auto-stirrer now, which hopefully means the mixing is more consistent, so higher quality results?

 

[CaptainSupersonic]

I am doing a hydrogen peroxide doing to combat cyano, it is working wonderfully. my nitrates are a bit high, i want to vinegar dose to slowly lower nitrates. an i start vinegar dosing while peroxide dosing or should i wait for the peroxide dosing to finish in the next week or so?

 

[TehBrainz]

I am doing a hydrogen peroxide doing to combat cyano, it is working wonderfully. my nitrates are a bit high, i want to vinegar dose to slowly lower nitrates. an i start vinegar dosing while peroxide dosing or should i wait for the peroxide dosing to finish in the next week or so?

I don't believe there are any adverse effects of the dosing schedules overlapping. Just don't mix them outside of the tank (you'll end up making peracetic acid). FWIW, I tried peroxide once and the only success I seemed to have was when it was dosed directly onto the specific algae I was targeting (not cyano). Light cycles and other remedies did more for me.

I'll let someone else provide some insight, but I don't see an issue.

My only other question would be what is your tank volume?

 

[fendanto]

I started dosing vinegar on two of my tanks recently as a result of a year of high nitrates and very low po4. Now thanks to some in-and-out hospital visits lately (shout out to Lahey!), I have been inconsistent with measuring my nitrates (or anything else really).

The tanks were already in slightly rougher shape than I wanted them to to begin with and now I’m about to leave town for a week. I’ve got an extra pump on the dosers for each tank I could commit to automatically dosing while I’m away but I’m not sure what the course of action to take is.

Will suddenly stopping dosing cause me issues in a 7 day period? Could I avoid that with say, halving my dose for that time period? Basically trying to hedge my bets if needed since I don’t have a trend line informing how my dosing has been going the past week.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I would always wait until you get back to start up any new dosing pump system since startup is a common time for problems to arise.

Not dosing for a week is fine.

 

[SocalS14]

Just started following this regimen last week. Nitrates are down 3 points from 18.5 to 15.1 using vodka. Although it says to up the dose in week 2, I might stick with the ~5ml for my tank as I monitor - don't want to bottom out the tank.