Vinegar Dosing question

[bertoni]

That could well be true. I just don't know. Any data that we gather is from a self-selected sample, for starters.

[tmz]

That poll is 14 years old and vague without any details on method or other variables:so extrapolating from it is of dubious value :musing it to a 50% positive experience rate rate vs the reported 82% rate is without any logical basis.

Even though it's age and lack of detail limit it's probative value, since it's been cited ,it's important to represent it correctly without imagining it supports a conclusion of a 50/50 for "real success rate". So , here it is unedited :


Total of 79 votes

I add vodka and the experience is mostly postive : 40 votes

I don't add vodka : 30 votes

I add vodka but don't see any differences : 5 votes

I add vodka and mostly bad experiences with it: 4 votes

===========================================

So 49 people used it and 4 out of them had a negative experience.

I wonder if the 4 are the same as those who used the Zeovit method and made the switch.

In summary for the sake of accuracy:

49 not 40 report using vodka,

5 of the 49 ( 11%) who used some amount of vodka reported no results.

4 of the 49(8%) who used some amount of vodka reported mostly negative experience.

40 of the 49 (82%) reported a mostly positive experience.

[Nanook]

I’m dosing 150cc/day of vinegar and just shy of a shot glass of vodka daily. Nitrate is 15-17 ppm and phosphate is .03-06.

[Nanook]

Skimmer lid is getting blown off with crazy foam! Pain in the griss.

[bertoni]

Hmm, time to get that griss removed.

[tmz]

So, it's about 40 ml of vodka and 115 vinegar for 845 gallons or .51 vodka equivalents per gallon in terms of total carbon;correct? FWIW that's about the same maintenance dose I use but I took a month or so to amp up to it.

Might consider slowing down the skimmer flow and or backing up a bit on the dose for now.I run two large ASM skimmers ; the cups fill up with dark smelly effluent every few days but almost never bubble over.

Seems like the nitrate has stopped creeping up and is going down a bit ; I'd be patient with it ;it should go lower but might take a month or two

[Dan_P]

Originally Posted by bertoni

That could well be true. I just don't know. Any data that we gather is from a self-selected sample, for starters.

It is tough trying to figure out what the dosing success rate is. The forum tends to be reports biased toward “bad news”. Success stories are rare, usually N=1 experiences and incompletely documented when reported, making reproduction of the success difficult and learning about the methodology difficult.

Unlike the success rate for using GFO to reduce phosphate concentration, carbon dosing success seems to be probabilistic. Variable conditions in the aquarium and the range in discipline following a carbon dosing protocol contribute to an apparent hit-or-miss success rate. The former is what I am looking into with small scale carbon dosing experiments. I am currently getting my feet wet performing screening experiments. I ran into my first big surprise when after three successful carbon dosing experiments, nothing is happening in the fourth after 16 days. I might be having a learning opportunity :-)

[Dan_P]

Originally Posted by tmz

That poll is 14 years old and vague without any details on method or other variables:so extrapolating from it is of dubious value :musing it to a 50% positive experience rate rate vs the reported 82% rate is without any logical basis.

Fair enough Tom, but more than a decade later, the issues with this methodology as reported here remain the same.

A carbon dosing success rate of 50%, a coin flip, is a reasonable model of reality given the issues people continue to have with this method. If the success rate were really as high as 82%, I suspect the interest in this topic would be on the level of GFO use.

The value of musing is like brainstorming. Ideas beget ideas. By wondering out loud that we might be having some real issues with this methodology, we might get others thinking differently about it. I hang around this forum because I have learned things in the past, but more importantly to me, I get new ideas when I read the posts. So, if I state challenging notions, I am typically looking for ideas, though I admit the approach can make people defensive :-)

[tmz]

There are a myriad of variables in application and environments today, as there was 14 years ago. The basic science of carbon dosing when understood gives more ways to evaluate it as a choice than a 14 year old poll ,misrepresented at that .
Carbon dosing is not a solution for everyone and everything ; it is an option with some benefits and some pitfalls. Uderstanding what it does and doesn't do is the real ground for discovery.

Personally, it is integral to my main system and has been for nearly a decade ;though, I run several tanks without it mostly for leathers and other softies.

A large amount of very detailed experience and relevant studies has already been recorded and has been posted in Reef Central in many threads and forums , including this one for those who are interested :

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...+carbon+dosing

There is no need to be "defensive" about it ; implying so is insulting and obfuscatory. There is, however, a need to defend against poor and inaccurate information . More so when it's combined with a post devoid of fact based on a misquouted poll. I taught brainstorming techniques in business and government settings for years; the post under discussion isn't it,IMO. There are no challenging notions there just a misrepresented old poll and a muse tainted with unsubstantiated opinion.

[Nanook]

Just an update...

My nitrate was 11 three days ago. Today it’s down to 4-6. Phosphate with GFO IS .05. Alkalinity is 7.1.

My skimmer is still pulling sudsy skim, shoots little volvanoes of sludge out the holes and foam around the lid of the skimmer. Quite messy. Acropora looking okay after light shocking them almost a month ago.

Vinegar remains at 150cc/day and vodka is one shot glass shy per day. Some bacterial mulm noticed on power heads but not much, still getting green algae on the glass but no where else.

Watch should I cut back on and how much?

[Dan_P]

Originally Posted by tmz

There is no need to be "defensive" about it ; implying so is insulting and obfuscatory. There is, however, a need to defend against poor and inaccurate information . More so when it's combined with a post devoid of fact based on a misquouted poll. I taught brainstorming techniques in business and government settings for years; the post under discussion isn't it,IMO. There are no challenging notions there just a misrepresented old poll and a muse tainted with unsubstantiated opinion.

Tom, I apologize for needling you. Dan

[bertoni]

I'd probably try cutting back 20% and watching the result for a while. I think those numbers should be safe as is, so I would be careful about changing the dosing rapidly.

[Nanook]

Thanks. I’ll cut back to 120cc/day of vinegar.

[sensei]

Nanook,

I also started doisng vineger and vodka 2 weeks ago in my 600g system.
I have around 30 NO3 and it did not came down no matter what I did.

I just raised my dose to 100cc of vineger equivalent, NO3 is still 30.

If I understood correctly you were doing 150cc of vineger and 10cc of vodka per day correct?


Thanks

[Nanook]

I started with just vinegar and a month later added vodka at 10 cc/day. The vinegar was 150 and vodka a shot glass daily and now I’m seeing very low nitrate. 10 weeks into dosing the 600 gallon system and I got the reduction.

[sensei]

Originally Posted by Nanook

I started with just vinegar and a month later added vodka at 10 cc/day. The vinegar was 150 and vodka a shot glass daily and now I’m seeing very low nitrate. 10 weeks into dosing the 600 gallon system and I got the reduction.

when you say a shot of vodka you mean 10cc correct?
I ask becuase a shot is ussually one once or 30cc

thanks

[tmz]

A shot glass is about 1.25 to 1.5 oz (37- 44cc/ml).
FWIW, I've been dosing 60 ml of vinegar and 36 ml of vinegar a day( a total vinegar equivalent in terms of organic C of .497 ml per gallon) for many years as a maintenancece dose; I'd start with 25% of that and amp up over a month or so.

PO4 holds in the .02 to .04 range with NO3 under 1ppm withouyt GFo; i do run a small amount of rox activated carbon and two large skimmers to aid organics removal.

[sensei]

Originally Posted by tmz

A shot glass is about 1.25 to 1.5 oz (37- 44cc/ml).
FWIW, I've been dosing 60 ml of vinegar and 36 ml of vinegar a day( a total vinegar equivalent in terms of organic C of .497 ml per gallon) for many years as a maintenancece dose; I'd start with 25% of that and amp up over a month or so.

PO4 holds in the .02 to .04 range with NO3 under 1ppm withouyt GFo; i do run a small amount of rox activated carbon and two large skimmers to aid organics removal.

Tom,
when dosing a mix of vineger and vodka is there a % of one to the other that is better to maintain or it makes no difference??

I have read that some people have experienced more cyano when doing only vodka. Is this accurate info??

do you dose with doing pump and several doses per day?
do you dose the mix of both or do you dose vodka as bolus dose daily?

Thanks

[tmz]

Don't know if there is an optimal proportion of ethanol and acetic acid or if just one or the other is as good or better. Ethanol takes and extra step on the way to acetate as AABs( ethanol oxidizing bacteria ) oxidize it to acetic acid (vinegar). The acetic acid spikes pH down precipitously when bolus dosed ; the ethanol does not. The extra bacterial activity by AABs may have some additional effect on nutrient reduction.

The vodka /vinegar cyano issue is mostly old and doesn't seem to hold up. I've seen cyano at start up with either perhaps related to the extra CO2 or the waning of some competitive organisms due to nutrient reductions giving the cyano a short term edge. In any case that problem tends to go away after siphoning some out IME and seems to be limited to a start up issue; since the acetic acid dumps a lot of CO2 one could argue that would bounce cyano but I rally haven't found a cyano reltionship to either that I can articulate much less prove.

Personally, I don't bother with a dosing pump. 80 proof vodka is bolus dosed twice a day:
30 ml in the am and 6 in the pm( from what I've read the bacteria split every 12 hours or so ; I dose the 6 ml at night in hope of continued sustenance);

60 ml of vinegar is also bolus dosed in the am about an hour after lights on( it's a relatively small amount given the 700 gallon system ) so the pH drop is relatively small and shortlived at that level.

Bolus dosing is more convenient for me and the burst may be better for denitrification in theory.

[tmz]

After thought:

When I started carbon dosing about 9 or 10 years ago; I started with vodka only.. I saw some cyano and read some anecdotal reports saying vinegar might be less likely to enocourage cyano than vodka . Though there was no logical explanation for that distinction, I tried substituting 25% of the carbon from ethanol to acetic acid. The cyano abated over a few weeks which may have been coincidence. Nonetheless, I moved another 25% in favor of acetic acid and the cyano returned. I dropped back to the 75% ethanol to acetic acid proportion and the cyano abated. Ultimately after tweaks unrelated to cyano which dissappeared for good after the first month or so , I've settled in at a proportion of approximately 80% ethanol and 20% acetic acid. Obviously this may vary by tank but has worked in my system for a very long time. I haven't seen cyano in the main system for nearly a decade. aside form occassional spots related to detritus accumulations and/ or coral warfare.

[sensei]

Originally Posted by tmz

After thought:

When I started carbon dosing about 9 or 10 years ago; I started with vodka only.. I saw some cyano and read some anecdotal reports saying vinegar might be less likely to enocourage cyano than vodka . Though there was no logical explanation for that distinction, I tried substituting 25% of the carbon from ethanol to acetic acid. The cyano abated over a few weeks which may have been coincidence. Nonetheless, I moved another 25% in favor of acetic acid and the cyano returned. I dropped back to the 75% ethanol to acetic acid proportion and the cyano abated. Ultimately after tweaks unrelated to cyano which dissappeared for good after the first month or so , I've settled in at a proportion of approximately 80% ethanol and 20% acetic acid. Obviously this may vary by tank but has worked in my system for a very long time. I haven't seen cyano in the main system for nearly a decade. aside form occassional spots related to detritus accumulations and/ or coral warfare.

Thanks a lot Tom.

Ed ( Big E) directed me to you when I asked him a question about this.

I am now dosing 100ml of vineger equivalent ( 25ml of my mix)
my mix with respect to carbon is 14% vineger 86% vodka
I plan to increase dose after 1 week.
my system is 600g and NO3 is around 30

how much would you increase in one step? and how often would you do the increments?

Thanks again,

[tmz]

The most conservative standard for amping up is the chart presented as as a sticky at the top of this forum( see vodka dosing chart under reef chemistry articles) Personally, I go faster. How the tank reacts is tank specific though given variables like surface area for bacteria to growth ; nutrient levels and a number of other things. Having said that, if pressed for a hip shot opinion , I'd say: increase by ten to fifteen percent per week till you reach a .4 vinegar equivalent per gallon per day level and hold that level for a few weeks before going higher; drop it back to .2 to .3 if cloudiness or excessive bacterial growth is observed in areas you don't want it.

[sensei]

Originally Posted by tmz

The most conservative standard for amping up is the chart presented as as a sticky at the top of this forum( see vodka dosing chart under reef chemistry articles) Personally, I go faster. How the tank reacts is tank specific though given variables like surface area for bacteria to growth ; nutrient levels and a number of other things. Having said that, if pressed for a hip shot opinion , I'd say: increase by ten to fifteen percent per week till you reach a .4 vinegar equivalent per gallon per day level and hold that level for a few weeks before going higher; drop it back to .2 to .3 if cloudiness or excessive bacterial growth is observed in areas you don't want it.

Thanks a lot Tom!

[tmz]

You are welcome. Good luck .

[Nanook]

Well, things were going well until the last few weeks when I started seeing acropora Brown, then bleach. This with nitrate levels of 4-8ish and phosphate of .03-.06. Thought these numbers would’ve been okay.

Now, my nitrate is down to 1ppm and the losses are real. I dropped from 130cc/day yesterday to 65cc/day. Im thinking of cutting vinegar off completely and not dosing the shot cup of vodka.

Thoughts?