Carbon dosing

[Chucky]

So I have 2 questions here, first is I’ve been doing sugar I did it for about a 12 day period and I’m noticing slight outbreak of cyano is this from the sugar dosing? Second question is does vinegar dosing affect ph? I already struggle with low ph and am using airline to suck in fresh air to skimmer which has my ph up to 8.0-8.2. I’ve been water changing like crazy to get my no3 down I was just wondering if I dosed to keep them stable if it would be a good idea

 

[Timfish]

Dosing Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC), aka carbon dosing, can cause all kinds of problems. I'd stop myself and stick to water changes. Here's some links if you're interested, Here's some link, there is a lot of info so don't try to take it in all at once and go back ad reread and review the info several times:

"Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas" This video compliments Rohwer's book of the same title (Paper back is ~$20, Kindle is ~$10), both deal with the conflicting roles of the different types of DOC in reef ecosystems. While there is overlap bewteen his book and the video both have information not covered by the other and together give a broader view of the complex relationships found in reef ecosystems


Changing Seas - Mysterious Microbes


Microbial view of Coral Decline


Nitrogen cycling in hte coral holobiont


BActeria and Sponges


Maintenance of Coral Reef Health (refferences at the end)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Here's a copy and paste from your otehr thread for folks who may only see this one:

I've never been a fan of sugar dosing, but there are some folks who use it. In my tank it browned up corals the one time I experimented with it. I cannot judge the dose size suitability without knowing the tank size.

Vinegar and vodka are more often the DIY organic sources used.

Sugar lowers pH a similar amount per carbon atom dosed, you just do not notice it because it has the same effect, but more slowly. That is because after it is metabolized, all organic carbon sources we use end up as CO2 and water.

Vinegar just packes its pH lowering up front. If you want to avoid that lowerting, one easy way is to saturate the vinegr with calcium hydroxide. It will then have no pH lowering, either initially or later. I did that when manually dosing viengar, but stiopped when I put it on a dosing pump since that spreads out any pH effects.

 

[Timfish]

. . .

I've never been a fan of sugar dosing, but there are some folks who use it. In my tank it browned up corals the one time I experimented with it. I cannot judge the dose size suitability without knowing the tank size.

. . .

Do you have a link to your experiemnt with sugar? Or are you refering to your thread on vinegar and vodka?

Your experiment with vinegar and vodka shows increasing vinegar caused browning too. How did you determine it was vodka and not vinegar since the browning came as you increased vinegar but reduced vodka?

Randy's vinegar dosing limit. I found it! - Reef Central Online Community

Randy's vinegar dosing limit. I found it! The Reef Chemistry Forum

reefcentral.com

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Do you have a link to your experiemnt with sugar? Or are you refering to your thread on vinegar and vodka?

Your experiment with vinegar and vodka shows increasing vinegar caused browning too. How did you determine it was vodka and not vinegar since the browning came as you increased vinegar but reduced vodka?

Randy's vinegar dosing limit. I found it! - Reef Central Online Community

Randy's vinegar dosing limit. I found it! The Reef Chemistry Forum

reefcentral.com

I don't have a link about the sugar. I wrote about it long ago on RC, but would have a hard time finding when I posted it.

Years later, when I started with vodka, the cyano seemed to immediately grow faster and I stopped dosing it. Then I switched over to vinegar and saw no problems for a long time (linked article suggests months), using manual dosing and eventually dosing pump doses. I do not recall a slow switch over, but the 2012 article does suggest it.

The vinegar browning effect only kicked in at very high doses (410 mL per day or 21 grams acetic acid in about 250 gallons system), done to see what happens as the dose is pushed higher and higher. Other things happening then including haziness in the water from bacteria and seemingly faster macroalgae growth in the display.

There was no browning or other visible effect at "normal doses", which in my tank was about 110 mL per day of 5% acidity vinegar.

The 410 mL per day problematic dose is substantially higher per gram of organic than the sugar dose I experimented with only once. I do not recall the exact dose, but it was not more than a teaspoon (a few g).