Is There a Point Vodka Dosing?

[irishmarine]

So in my situation, I wondered is there a point in dosing.

After 10 months of admitted neglect to do any water changes and pretty much neglect in general with the exception of occasional glass scraping, feeding and RODI top up, I have tried to re-energize my reef keeping effort.

Long story, bought a business had a baby etc

Anyways, I bought nitrate and phosphate test kits. I was expecting some levels, but no, pretty much undetectable levels with the stores ‘very sensitive high end kit’

I do have macro growing, and admittedly had red cyano on the sandbed and algae green and brown looking on the glass.

So in my situation is there a point in Vodka dosing? I mean if it’s undetectable ‘right now’ is there a point in dosing right now?

I’m running chemiclean to rid the cyano, I bought two maxspect gyre 250 to improve circulation, and all new RODI gear I am also changing out my LED lights to the original Red Sea Max T5, bought ATI T5 bulbs, heard Red Sea ones are not so good

Any suggestions?

[irishmarine]

I should also say

It’s a Red Sea s650, total system volume 175G, accounting for rock displacement let’s say 150 gallons.

Does anyone just add an amount for that size tank or go through the calibration method ?

[bertoni]

Dealing with cyanobacteria and other microbial pests can be tricky. In some tanks, seems to be able to reduce the bloom, possibly by outcompeting the cyanobacteria for nutrients. Other tanks show no effect. I'd probably give it a try, since it's cheap to dose carbon.

[Dan_P]

Some arm chair advice...

On the principle of minimizing the number of simultaneous changes to a system, skip the carbon dosing for now.

The primary reason for carbon dosing is nitrate reduction. Every other purpose for carbon dosing seems highly speculative.

Finish the Chemiclean treatment, get back into a maintenance routine consistent with your new life (congratulations) and evaluate the need for further changes in three months (just an arbitrary wait and see period).

Good luck.

[mcgyvr]

Carbon dosing is one solution to reduce and maintain low nitrate and phosphate levels...If yours arent a problem you dont need a solution. Plain and simple

[irishmarine]

Carbon dosing one solution to reduce and maintain low nitrate and phosphate levels...If yours arent a problem you dont need a solution. Plain and simple

Problem is I can’t now find a reason for the purple cyano mainly! I was almost hoping the water results would point to a problem

[mcgyvr]

Problem is I can’t now find a reason for the purple cyano mainly! I was almost hoping the water results would point to a problem

For the most part the cause of cyano is largely unknown...its basically something we cant test for..

[Gregg@ADP]

Problem is I can’t now find a reason for the purple cyano mainly! I was almost hoping the water results would point to a problem

What other algae do you see evidence of in your system?

In succession situations, a general rule of thumb is ‘easy come, easy go’. Without posting getting into a whole big thing about competition vectors and L-isoclines (although I would be happy to), let’s just say that in instances of competition, the fewer different resources an organism uses, the less it’s able to compete. Simpler ‘algae’ (cyano, diatoms, dinos) are not very good at competing against more complex organisms.

The problem we often run into in our reef tanks is that we’re hell bent on minimizing algae growth and keep populations of organisms in the tank to consume what might grow. That’s all well and good, but eventually the consumption of higher algae leads to situations where it is all but eliminated from the system. That opens the door for the lower stuff.

I moved away from refugiums at least a decade ago, but in recent years I’ve come back having some sort of algae scrubber in the sump. Not really for nutrient uptake (although that is certainly a benefit), but more so that I can maintain functioning populations of some of the higher algae. I’ve also cut back on herbivorous animals just enough to allow for some pockets of more desirable algae (eg turf).