Nitrates 100+ppm, Need help with Dosing Vodka

[FishTruck]

plus one on refugium. I set one up a couple months ago, and now I have a low nutrient problem, which I think will stabilize by just adjusting the refugium light cycle and buying more fish.

 

[jda]

what kind of sugar are you using and how are you dosing it? What can go wrong with this method and does it have any impact on PH?

You add it to the tank like vinegar or vodka... just normal kitchen sugar. I have no idea how much I dosed. I started with maybe 1/4 teaspoon a day and moved it up a bit every week until the skimmer got nasty. I was in no hurry.

 

[Miami Reef]

Sugar dosing is the least optimal carbon source. It tends to brown out corals.

 

[Ashish Patel]

No mention of refugium yet, might have to be good size to soak up 500g@100ppm

+1 I looked at the YouTube channel and immediately thought Refug with deep sand and macro would take care of this better than dosing. I’m always partial to natural methods and no dosing to treat individual issues.

That was one of my regrets, not starting with a RSB. I thought adding the LR in the sump would suffice. I am reluctant to add anything in the sump bc I want to convert half of it into a frag tank someday. I also blame my orange shoulder tangs growth and last year when adding 10 really big turbos snails (2" now 3") the nutrients really got out of control. I believe my Snails and urchins have more mass as all the fish combined. I dont test nitrates often but 1 or 2 months after adding the turbos is when I started getting a deep purple color on my Salifert NO test kit... Last problem to solve in my system but i wanted to avoid any carbon dosing or pellets bc I have always been strongly against these methods,, now i have no choice.

 

[ReefGeezer]

I took a look at your build thread. Nice. It appears you might have a big blue tub and space to use it to make a big refugium. A remote deep sand bed and a lighted Cheato Fuge over it could do the trick over time. Place 4-6" of sand with the system water flowing over it (not through it) and returning to the system... add some Cheato or Caulerpa and a decent light source and you could have a low maintenance nitrate and phosphate eating machine. While I still like the water change and carbon dosing protocol, this will get you there over time.

 

[jda]

The only problem that I have actually had or seen with sugar is that it is very easy to dose too much. People have gone too fast with it - they seen more able to use vodka or vinegar more judiciously. Like a 1/16 of a teaspoon of sugar is like 100ml of vodka. The larger dosing is also likely why it works so good... probably could do the same thing with a crate of vodka too. From what I can tell, most people have never actually seen sugar brown out corals in their own home, just heard it from the same single source way back then. There are issues with using too much, but you see this with all OC sources. To each their own.

A remote DSB should be able to handle this in time. I will take a few months to start working. Sand beds are incredibly effective when left undisturbed. Maybe put a RDSB online, use some V/S/V into action in small doses to get a start.

If this were my tank, I would spend a hundo on IO salt from Chewy and change 88 gallons at a time for 6 times. Get another cheap Marketplace/CL skimmer in that sump - like a $50 ASM G3/G4 or something like that. Start a bit of V/S/V in a slow fashion. Put a remote DSB online in a larger tote or old beat up 40g breeder - something in the 18 by 36 inch footprint type of deal with 12-14 inches of aragonite sand. Buckle up for the long run. When the no3 gets below 25 or 30, scale back the V/S/V and let the DSB start to take over.

 

[Miami Reef]

From what I can tell, most people have never actually seen sugar brown out corals in their own home

Randy himself noticed sugar browning out his corals/anemones.

 

[Miami Reef]

In my one brief experiment, it browned up corals (like from increased zoox), and it is much less commonly found in the ocean than is acetate (vinegar), which is consumed by a wide range of organisms from corals to sponges to bacteria.

IME, it browned up corals, and I think it is less widely used by organisms than is acetate in vinegar.

Seawater Is Filled With a Sugary Feast. Here’s How Sponges Eat It. (Published 2019)

The new research helps explain how sponges, and coral reef ecosystems, survive with limited nutrients.

www.nytimes.com

"Few organisms can directly take in this bounty hiding in seawater."

 

[jda]

It never did any such thing for me. You can bet that I would add that as caveat since it works so well and is worth considering at least in any tank without corals even if it did brown them for everybody. Going too fast is real, though.

I will start to tell people that Dr. RHF had browning issues even though I did not.

BTW - I don't carbon dose in any reef tank anymore. It is just not worth it if you can handle things in other ways. I would do it if I needed to, like the OP. I won't likely ever have a tank without a few inches of sand anymore, so this has not been a problem for me.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

It never did any such thing for me. You can bet that I would add that as caveat since it works so well and is worth considering at least in any tank without corals even if it did brown them for everybody. Going too fast is real, though.

I will start to tell people that Dr. RHF had browning issues even though I did not.

BTW - I don't carbon dose in any reef tank anymore. It is just not worth it if you can handle things in other ways. I would do it if I needed to, like the OP. I won't likely ever have a tank without a few inches of sand anymore, so this has not been a problem for me.

i would say I did not carefully evaluate sugar doses. I did not add more organic mass than I added of vinegar, however. It could be that the assembly of organisms that used it is smaller than for acetate, and hence it was focused more on the zoox.

 

[cdnco2004]

200g boxes of IO are 3 for about $110 right now. This is a cheap jumpstart.

I wish that was still the case and that deal was only good for new Chew repeat order customers. As a long time Chewy customer, I did not get that deal. 3 boxes of Reef Crystals from Chewy during their black Friday sale would still have cost me $190 before taxes. Even with the discounts it was still cheaper to get Reef Crystals at PetCo with their regular VitalCare fish supplies 20% off discount.

 

[jda]

Had a local dude get sick of buying NoPOX and we told him that he could just dose other things and not pay a premium. He went to sugar. Never heard anything about browning of corals, only that he was happy. I will ask. Sugar was very popular in our local reef club twenty years ago when people started to tear out their sand beds thinking that they were time bombs of phosphate - they did not understand the po4 binding and thought that the sand just suddenly decided to make po4 out of nowhere... and their nitrates rose when their sand was gone.

Zoox do make glucose and sucrose for the host. I can see how a host might like extra of this, but I have no idea how they would get the glycol and aminos that they would also need to culture an oversupply of zoox in their tissue, but hosts have proven to be adaptable. I am most acropora and clams, so that might matter too.

 

[jda]

I wish that was still the case and that deal was only good for new Chew repeat order customers. As a long time Chewy customer, I did not get that deal. 3 boxes of Reef Crystals from Chewy during their black Friday sale would still have cost me $190 before taxes. Even with the discounts it was still cheaper to get Reef Crystals at PetCo with their regular VitalCare fish supplies 20% off discount.

Go find the thread on the main page. The sale is still happening - buy 2, get one free. You have to add it to the cart and all of that. You can sign up for autoship to save another $20 and then just cancel it - you do not have to autoship at all.

I used that deal twice a few days apart and also a buy 3 get 1. Got 10 boxes for about $40 a box with shipping and stuff. I don't use reef crystals when IO is available, but it says that the same deal is good.

 

[Miami Reef]

I am bare bottom, and my nitrates tend to rise quick. There’s very little denitrification going on in my tank. I need to add carbon doses daily to maintain my NO3.

I recently added 5lbs of seachem matrix to help support denitrification. I’m very curious to see if there is going to be a change in my nitrate depletion rate after a few months.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Zoox do make glucose and sucrose for the host.

Is there an article showing that zoox make and release sucrose to the host?

 

[MnFish1]

Any carbon dosing to lower nitrates will have the same pH lowering effect.

If you saturate vinegar with calcium hydroxide, you can completely bypass the pH drop. That’s the only carbon dosing method to avoid dropping pH. It will actually have a positive effect on pH.

Lanatham chloride doesn‘t drop pH. It doesn’t contain H+. It can precipitate lanthanum carbonate, which in turn can lead to an overall lower pH by having less alkalinity in the water.

Yes, dropping 50ppm NO3 will add 2.3dKH alkalinity.

Adding 50ppm NO3 from foods or dosing ammonia will deplete 2.3dKH alkalinity.

So unless you dosed nitrates, the alkalinity change will be net neutral.

Lowering nitrates increases alkalinity (by dosing) as you said, I'm not sure why the pH would drop with vodka, though vinegar is an acid. What you're saying is interesting - though I don't understand completely the chemistry behind it.

 

[Thales]

Since you mentioned that cash was a problem, what is the actual problem you are trying to address?

 

[jda]

Is there an article showing that zoox make and release sucrose to the host?

I have read it. If your point is that this seems weird, I agree, which is why I did a double take when I read it. Most that specify say glucose, but many just say sugar and leave it at that. This could be a translation thing, for sure. I will hollar when I see another article.

Probably a good idea to use the right terms and avoid sugar.

 

[cdnco2004]

Go find the thread on the main page. The sale is still happening - buy 2, get one free. You have to add it to the cart and all of that. You can sign up for autoship to save another $20 and then just cancel it - you do not have to autoship at all.

I used that deal twice a few days apart and also a buy 3 get 1. Got 10 boxes for about $40 a box with shipping and stuff. I don't use reef crystals when IO is available, but it says that the same deal is good.

Yes I did add all three to cart and my costs for all 3 boxes. This is the best price I have been able to get Chewy to give me. And at a reg base price of $89 a box it costs more to buy from Chewy than PetCo with my Vital Care discount.

 

[AKReefing]

You've given multiple reasons why you have high nitrates, and why you shouldn't be using a method that's best applied by regular dosing. I recommend that you consider alternatives, such as a DSB, algae scrubber, or chaeto. Short term solution would include water changes and feeding less, and even skimming wet. The tang police might be at your door, though.

I dose magnesium by adding it in measures quantities to my ATO barrel. Not sure if it'd work with VSV since it could promote competing bacterial growth in the fresh water.

I've been using a DSB for ten years and my nitrates are almost undetectable. I also supplement with an LED plant light in the sump for algae growth.