When did you see results from carbon dosing?

[rebels23]

I think it was just many many years of overfeeding and poor maintenance habits. Carbon dosing (vinegar) eventually took care of the problem. In fact, now I struggle to keep nitrates above 1, even after quitting carbon dosing about 7 or 8 months ago.

How are you keeping your nitrates down now? Do you have a deep sand bed or use bio blocks?

 

[clm65]

How are you keeping your nitrates down now? Do you have a deep sand bed or use bio blocks?

I have sand (but it's not deep). I did add quite a bit of Matrix to my sump. I also use a skimmer and grow chaeto. I probably should remove the Matrix to see if that gets my nitrates up a bit, but everything is doing pretty good right now, so I haven't messed with it.

 

[Buffalou]

I read some of these comments to my wife and she was wondering if I was enrolled in chemistry grad school course!

I'm holding my NO3 at 10 PPM and my PO4 at 0.018 PPM, I have a 3 year old tank and have noticed what looks like some red turf algae and some beginning of bubble and hair algae. I'm inclined to start dosing but have learned over 8 years of this hobby to thread slow! I'm trying to reduce the algae naturally by chaeto in sump and dosing good bacteria. I have what I consider a moderately stocked tank and feed apox 3 times a day with BRS homemade food.

SPS corals have great polyp extensinsion and growing albeit slowly,
Parameters:
alk 8.4
mag 1490
cal 440
sal 35.5
temp 79

any suggestions or thoughts on removing algae?

 

[mcgullen]

I dosed it for many years. I also did not dose it for many years on the same system. I can see the exact changes it caused. None were negative at appropriate doses.

Hi Randy,

Will carbon dosing feed a "proteinaous bacteria load" that must then be exported by skimming, otherwise risking making a tank cloudy?

Also, must GAC be removed when carbon dosing?

Thanks.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

No need to remove GAC. I didn’t.

Do you have a skimmer?

some folks carbon dose without skimmers. I think the requirement for them with organic carbon dosing is often exaggerated.

 

[mcgullen]

No need to remove GAC. I didn’t.

Do you have a skimmer?

some folks carbon dose without skimmers. I think the requirement for them with organic

rbon dosing is

often exaggerat

No need to remove GAC. I didn’t.

Do you have a skimmer?

some folks carbon dose without skimmers. I think the requirement for them with organic carbon dosing is often exaggerated.

I do have a skimmer. But it never skims anything from my 5g pico