Quick ? about vinegar dosing

Can someone just give me a quick answer
I am looking at this chart because I want to try vinegar dosing but I need to know if the numbers on here for amounts are ML's?

I believe they are, For instance if you look at week 1 for 25 gallons it says 0.8, So is that 0.8 ML's?



Thanks in advance

 

I cannot read the article, as RC does not support Hot Linking, but I am familiar with it

they are conversion or multiples of 8 , based on the Genetics and Stony Corals method of dosing Vodka

simply because the article was originally written based on Vodka at 40% proof ( carbon form is Ethanol) and distilled white vinegar is 5% (carbon form is Acetate)

0.8 mils per 25 gallon can be Bolus dosed ( added all at once) IME
as it will have only a minor if noticeable at all effect on your PH

as you work through the programme, you may want to spread the doses out

Im currently dosing 24 mils into 75 gallons (equal to 3 mils of Vodka)
I break this up into 8 doses per 24 hour period (dosing pump)

thus 3 mils of vinegar gets added to my set up ever 3 hours
I have a PH probe and monitor and can tell you from my experience, the PH will drop by less than 0.01 (from 8.18 to 8.17 for example during morning dose ) but within 1 minute this has been reversed and the PH is back at 8.18 and then continues to climb throughtout day

Steve

 

Here is a link to the article, Maybe this will help figure out what the measurements are graded in

Reefkeeping Magazine - Vinegar Dosing Methodology for the Marine Aquarium

 

Ok I have a RSM130 and will soon be adding a sump to it, So should I just stick with the dosing recomendation for 25 gallons so as not to overdo it or should I add the dose for 25 gal PLUS half of the difference between the 25 and 50?
So instead of adding .8 ml's I would add 1.2 ml's

 

Without derailing the thread, could I ask what the purpose of vodka/vinegar doing is?

Thx.

 

tinctorus, the RSM 130 is 130 litres or about 34 gallons, without the sump you are adding
so starting with the dose based on 25 gallons is a good idea, as some of that 34 gallons will be rockwork and not water
better to start slow and build up slowly IME, the weekly increases are also not something you should stick to rigidly, see how the aquarium and inhabitants behave for a bit longer before deciding to increase

you can ask fsukum

in simple terms (because simple is easy for me to understand and thus write about)

it has long been a general understanding that you can only accomodate as much bacteria , as you have nutrients to support
the theory is good, until you find you have an aquarium with plenty of bio capacity, but still have nutrients - thus bio load or nutrients in themselves cannot always be the limiting factor

the availability of free carbons, from which all life forms including bacteria exist from, is considered by many to be the limiting factor governing the amount of bacteria your aquarium can contain and maintain

thus sources of free carbon such as, Vodka, Vinegar, Sugar, Bio Pellets, and commercial brand carbon sources (Brightwell, Red Sea and others)
are introduced to the aquarium in order to increase your capacity for bacteria, and thus reduce the excessive nutrients you have

but , this is not something I suggest everyone needs, and to be honest, there are other less risky methods of nutrient reduction, that could be tried 1st ( fuge with macro, care with feeding, do not overstock, chemical media such as GFO for phosphate and possibly nitrate removers etc)

but as a method of fine tuning a reef tank, once you are familiar with the occupants and can spot potential issues resulting from the carbon dosing
then any of the sources of free carbon mentioned are a fine method of achieving much better water quality IME

nb - sugar is not a form I would suggest, due to having noted many previous users of that form of free carbons experienced cyno bacteria issues

Cyno , being a bacteria can also benefit from the free carbons being added
Vodka , is reportedly also more likely than Vinegar to be preffered by the bacteria that is Cyno

hence I use, and believe Tinctorus , has made a good choice with Vinegar as his carbon source

Steve

 

Hey Steve, I have a question and this MAY sound silly but I'll ask it anyways LOL

I have been following the vinegar dosing chart for my tank and dosing it as a 25 gallon tank since I figure my RSM130 W/ rocks and sand probably only has 25-30 gallons in it, I need to know WHAT do I do what I get to week 17?
The chart only goes to week 16, so do I continue stepping it up by the same amount or is the amount dosed at week 16 the MAX you should ever be dosing in the tank?

That seems to make the most sense to me that at some point you would hit a peak amount of Vinegar/carbon taht you should be adding to the tank in order to just maintain the bacterial growth that has already occured over the last 16 week as opposed to conitually adding more and more until say at 60 weeks you'd be adding a gallon of vinegar a day LOL
I just wanted to verify this before I got to week 16, thank you for your help

 

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


Hi Tintorus

above thread, re Randy H Farley finding his vinegar dosing limit within his aquarium may interest you

he got up to 2 mils per gallon and thinks started going downhill

My opinion on your question is

if you are still not in control of nitrate and phosphate before you get to week 16, then you probably have to major a problem for considering carbon dosing to cure

carbon dosing 1st came into being as a method for fine tuning reef set ups with existing low nutrients, thus people where only have to use very small doses in order to erradicate the residual Nitrate, and alongside GFO the surplus phoshate

there are many examples of people with Nitrate at 40ppm or more deciding to use Vodka or AN other carbon dosing system in order to reduce those levels

I am not saying it is ineffective, but I will say, there are far less risky methods of dealing with trates at those types of levels

if your trates are low, you should see noticeable results within the 1st month IME

Steve

 

Ok thank you, currently I am at 13.8ml's a day and my Nitrates and Phosphates are staying at 0 and have been since last week when I was dosing 9ml's a day

So I think I may stick with either 9 or 13ml's a day and just continue checking my No3 and Po4 to see where they stay at and if they continue on this route then I dont really see a need to go with a higher dosage as it would obviously serve no benefit for anything

Also FWIW I cant view that link because I have a permaban from reef central for apparently saying they were retarded on ANOTHER FORUM LOL, I was a bit annoyed about that at first considering I wasnt even saying that on reef central but whatever, theres a ton of jerks on that site anyways

 

ton of really nice people also - they are the majority IME

you may have overshot your maintenance dose
if if you are at 0 N and P then you could half your current dose from 13mils to 6.5 mils and continue to monitor
if the N and P start to register, you start increasing again slowly
if they stay at 0 that is your maintenance dose

you do not have to increase or even stay at same level once the numbers are down

the exception is if you are working towards a cleaner aquarium in which case your fighting some minor algae issue
in which case maintaining current dose in order to ensure bacteria out compete the algaes for the nutrients in order those algaes are eventually starved out , is a good plan

but if you have a clean tank and zero N and P reducing the dose is also a good plan

Steve
if you find you are