Nutrient control question......

[Damon]

Do you carbon dose or anything?? I'm starting to think do I even need to carbon dose since I got the new skimmer?? my numbers aren't terrible, nitrates 10 and phosphates at 0.06....weekly water changes and skimmer should be good enough right?

I use pellets.. I have used them now, for years in a recirculation reactor.. I honestly think carbon dosing, in some form, was one of the best discoveries for our systems.. I will probably always do so in some form or another.. I always teeter on the ulns levels with carbon dosing(nitrates normally at 0.0 and phosphorus normally around 0.03,but tests from two days ago, I recieved a phosphorous of 0.01), and its been great for me.

For me, just like growing plants in the past, having extremely low levels allows me a good base.. I am able then, to easily add what i want and judge its effects, or side effects.. And also, with those levels, I'm able to feed the fish like pigs..

I also run a heavily lit refugium.. I practice the multi pronged approach..

But ultimately, it depends on what and where you want your levels at.

 

[Gwitness]

I use pellets.. I have used them now, for years in a recirculation reactor.. I honestly think carbon dosing, in some form, was one of the best discoveries for our systems.. I will probably always do so in some form or another.. I always teeter on the ulns levels with carbon dosing(nitrates normally at 0.0 and phosphorus normally around 0.03,but tests from two days ago, I recieved a phosphorous of 0.01), and its been great for me.

For me, just like growing plants in the past, having extremely low levels allows me a good base.. I am able then, to easily add what i want and judge its effects, or side effects.. And also, with those levels, I'm able to feed the fish like pigs..

I also run a heavily lit refugium.. I practice the multi pronged approach..

But ultimately, it depends on what and where you want your levels at.

Okay gotcha!!!!

 

[Gwitness]

The other day when I did my weekly water change I blew off the rocks with turkey baster and whatever cyano was on them blew off.....now there are a lot of air bubbles just attached to my rocks?? Is that normal?? Also, not sure if this has anything to do with anything but during this whole process with this issue my snails flip over constantly or die.....nitrates are only 10 which I'm assuming wouldn't cause that...any ideas? Could it be them eating cyano or could it be vinegar dosing?

 

[Gwitness]

Both, but more nitrate than phosphate. How long have you been dosing that level?

I'm almost at 4 weeks now and I'm dosing 35ml of the white vinegar....nitrates are still at 10 on salifert kit and I know it can take up to 6 weeks or so for the vinegar to start to kick in.....but I'm curious how do I know if the vinegar hasn't started working yet or if I need to up my dosage of the vinegar per day??

However cyano has gotten better! [emoji3]

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I'm almost at 4 weeks now and I'm dosing 35ml of the white vinegar....nitrates are still at 10 on salifert kit and I know it can take up to 6 weeks or so for the vinegar to start to kick in.....but I'm curious how do I know if the vinegar hasn't started working yet or if I need to up my dosage of the vinegar per day??

However cyano has gotten better! [emoji3]

If you want the nitrate lower, I'd up the dose.

 

[cb684]

Ok. So I read through your thread and I got a lot of interesting information. I dose carbon and I have been dealing with low amounts of cyano all throughout. Coral are happy, PE is great and color is good. So it did not really bothered me.
A couple of weeks ago I got a bloom of cyano in the sandbed. Interestingly it is only growing on the sand that is stirred by my pistol shrimps. On the side of my tank (96"x24"31"), where most of my sand is covered with coraline algae there is hardly any.
Now the interesting part. My system is 400g with two display tanks. The differences are, one is bare bottom and the other has approximately 1-2 inches of coarse sand. On the bare bottom i use LEDs (Radiom pro 3g) and on the one with sand bed I use (2 ATI 8x54W). The increased on cyano only happened on the one with sand and T5. If I was only watching the one with LEDs I would say that there is no bloom whatsoever.
So, same water, same skimmer, similar flow, different light, different sand... and different biology?

 

[Gwitness]

If you want the nitrate lower, I'd up the dose.

Okay cool....how many milliliters should I increase at a time?? Should I go up 10 a day? 15? 20?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Okay cool....how many milliliters should I increase at a time?? Should I go up 10 a day? 15? 20?

What was you tank size again?

 

[Gwitness]

What was you tank size again?

It's 165 gallons

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I'd up it by 10 mL a week for a few weeks and see what happens.

 

[Gwitness]

I'd up it by 10 mL a week for a few weeks and see what happens.

Okay got it! Thanks!! Is there a max I should stop at?? Or do I just let my nitrates and phosphates tell me when I need to stop going up on vinegar? Obviously if they both are at 0 I need to lower my dosage then

 

[Gwitness]

I'd up it by 10 mL a week for a few weeks and see what happens.

Randy I have slowly increased my dosage of the vinegar to 70 ml a day...35 in morning and 35 in evening....I do my 20 gallon weekly water change and rarely ever miss it! i do not over feed and only have 10 fish (mostly small)....nitrates are still consistently between 7 and 10 and phosphates read 0.13 tonight...however, my cyano is pretty much gone now and my tank looks really good!! sps have never been better, which is not saying much for me but still! Polyps out all day and acros colored up pretty good! I would still like to get phosphates under .1 and nitrates at 5 or lower....what are your thoughts on what I should do? Should I just keep increasing my vinegar dosage 10 ml a week?? I'm at 70 a day now, how much vinegar is too much??

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I'd stay at 70 mL per day for a while. I'd just watch the values a bit longer, and nitrate especially may come down more. Phosphate you may have to use something else in addition to the vinegar, such as some GFO, but I wouldn't rush to do it yet.

 

[Gwitness]

I'd stay at 70 mL per day for a while. I'd just watch the values a bit longer, and nitrate especially may come down more. Phosphate you may have to use something else in addition to the vinegar, such as some GFO, but I wouldn't rush to do it yet.

Got it!! Thank you!!! I will keep you updated in a month or so! Thanks again

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

You're welcome.

Happy Reefing.

 

[Gwitness]

You're welcome.

Happy Reefing.

Added Gfo and has definitely helped out more!! I manually dose my vinegar and I'm just curious what if I'm out of town 3 days, will that mess up anything if I miss dosing the vinegar for those days?

 

[DeniseAndy]

Added Gfo and has definitely helped out more!! I manually dose my vinegar and I'm just curious what if I'm out of town 3 days, will that mess up anything if I miss dosing the vinegar for those days?

Did you by chance remove any of the gorgs? I realize this has nothing to do with nutrients, but you mentioned no growth at some point too. Thought I would ask as it would help with my studies of these guys.

 

[Gwitness]

Did you by chance remove any of the gorgs? I realize this has nothing to do with nutrients, but you mentioned no growth at some point too. Thought I would ask as it would help with my studies of these guys.

Actually I did take out 2 of them so now I have one big one and one real small one.....I did it same time as I stated carbon dosing and bought new skimmer so I can't say it has helped or not....but I did take two of the four out!

 

[DeniseAndy]

Trust me, it will help. These guys are pros at toxic warfare. If you run carbon it will help, but once you get more than three, all bets are off. Seems to be a magic number in many tanks. Of course, larger is better when housing these guys. Have a friend that has a few in his with sps and such, but his tank is I think 400g.

How is growth?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Added Gfo and has definitely helped out more!! I manually dose my vinegar and I'm just curious what if I'm out of town 3 days, will that mess up anything if I miss dosing the vinegar for those days?

Nutrients may rise, but I don't think it will do substantial harm.