Vinegar dosing and skimmer being turned off

[Kyle Sicard]

Hello,
I need to dose chemi clean in my tank and would have to turn off the skimmer and carbon reactor to do so. I wanted to ask if there's any negative affects from vinegar dosing while the skimmer is turned off. From what I understand when you carbon dose its necessary to have a skimmer to skim out the bacteria. If the skimmer is turned off for 7-10 days will I have any issues if I continue to dose vinegar?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

There should be no concern except consumption of O2 when the vinegar is metabolized, and possibly low pH due to accumulated CO2.

Is the tank otherwise well aerated?

 

[Kyle Sicard]

Thanks for clearing that up. I've got lots of flow and surface agitation so I think I should be good on O2

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

You're welcome.

Good luck!

 

[jason2459]

Why do you need to turn the skimmer off? Chemiclean may make it foam a lot more so just open up the gate valve to lower the water level. I would keep the skimmer going for aeration.

 

[twilliard]

Also to note chemiclean is effective against spirulina and not so much others
I just pull the cup off and let it overflow since O2 will drop and you will need all you can get when using chemiclean

 

[Kyle Sicard]

For some reason I thought that chemiclean makes skimmers go nuts for a week or so. I didn't know that it doesn't affect the skimmer that much. I'll kick the skimmer on and see if it is or isn't going to overflow like crazy.

The chemiclean worked it cleared up almost all the algae on the sandbed. Which leads me to my next question. I had some chemiclean on hand but I only had enough for 12-13 scoops where my system volume is about 160-170g. It cleared up about 85%-90% of the algae on sand bed and I assume that since I did a smaller dose then recommended thats why it didn't clear it all up. How long should I wait before doing another dose that is the proper amount for my system?

 

[twilliard]

What you are dealing with is a cyanobacteria. If you are trying to kill every last cell then you will have to dose outside the recommended dose by X1.5-1.7

 

[Kyle Sicard]

In your opinion do you believe thats the best way to rid the tank of the brown cyano? I've had it growing on the sand for 9 months now. Chemiclean is the only thing so far to actually help get rid of it. I run a GFO reactor to keep phosphates between 0.02-0.08ppm and I do 20% WC every 2 weeks. I've cut back on feeding and only feed once a day and only a small amount. I changed my T5 bulbs to make sure that wasnt the issue. And I'm not really sure what else I can do to get rid of the algae other then just dose chemiclean in a larger dose.