Sugar?

[djnzlab1]

HI,
I was wondering if adding a small amount of white sugar would be benaficial for healthy bacteria growth in a tank, I ve read on a couple forums about the use of chemicals (ETOH) to improve the anerobic bacteria growth in the plume, any of you see any studies on this.
Doug

[Reef Success]

I would recommend staying away from sugar. I've read similar posts talking about adding ETOH and sugar to the water to increase bacteria populations. ETOH works incredibly well for reduction of nitrates and phosphates with a good skimmer. You can also use vinegar and get the same results. However, dosing sugar is different because of the chemical nature of it. Sugar is easily broken down into energy by many organisms and will not target the same population you do with ETOH or vinegar. Sugar seems to stimulate bacteria that is not beneficial to the aquarium and ppl report death with their acros or montis.

So simple answer do not use sugar but as for an actual study there hasn't been one.

[inwall75]

I've dosed Ethanol before while curing LR. However, I've never done it on running tanks before.

If you overdo it, you can accidentally make your system too nutrient deficient or even get it out of balance with the Redfield Ratio and become Nitrogen-limited. You can do this with sugar, vodka, vinegar, etc. Basically anything that is a Carbon source will do the trick.

You cannot control which bacteria use the Carbon source....they'll all use it. If you have a DSB, even the Sulphate Reducing Bacteria will utililize it and you can be actually encouraging a Hydrogen Sulphide zone in your bed. Obviously, in a plenum, this is less of an issue.