Help: Carbon dosing side effects ?

[Macdaddynick1]

Ok so here is the story, my nitrates are at about 40 , I do many waterchanges. But I think it might be from missing some detritus since I no longer feed much(working on fixing that.) It's been like that since I remember my tank. Now I decided to start carbon dosing on dec 15. I've been slowly ramping up my vinegar , literarily going from 1ml->2-3-4-5 . /week Etc well extremely slow. (8ml atm/55gal) I started dosing MB7 a week ago. Even since I started dosing my slimer browned out, I've never seen it brown, my other sps also browned out , I've lost a big colony of Blastomussa , 3 rainbow plates and a rainbow brain (all of which had a minor damage and dissolved fast losing flesh that spread like a wild fire) undamaged corals look great, also 2 of my fish got ick (bad) . A hippo tang and a royal gramma. Note my nitrates have been this high for a very very long time while those exact corals and fish showed no signs of distress and the corals kept growing as well as kept their color. So my question is , could the carbon source be fueling ick just as well as other bacteria? Since I've never seen my fish getting ick this badly before and nothing had changed in my tank(no temp, ph swings etc) and is it possible that I'm losing coral because of the bacterial infection is much stronger with the extra carbon source so the coral can't fight it off? P.04 A.9 CA.400 MG 1250.

So I'm just looking for some wisdom from those who know Carbon dosing a little better than me. Should I continue dosing or should I drop the dosage and keep on adding microbacter in hopes that it would outcompete other bacteria. Or should I completely stop? Any help would be appreciated . Thanks.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Macdaddynick1]

Btw I'm not even sure if carbon dosing caused those things . Pic of my tank


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Emac909]

Stop dosing vinegar and switch to vodka. Unless u was to keep dosing vinegar then state doing a mixture of vsv (vodka, sugar, vinegar).
http://www.coralmagazine-us.com/content/do-it-yourself-carbon-sources

Personally I like Red Seas nopox (no3;po4X). It's an all in one carbon dosing program that has pretty descent and easy to fallow directions

 

[janiners305]

Red sea is the way to go i use it my nitrate isnt readable

sent from this awsome galaxy note 4

 

[jessesoto33]

I agree with Eric, and Janine, NO3PO4X is the best for me, much safer. Also did you switch to MB7 or did you simply add it to the weekly Vinegar dosing?
Here's a link to my earlier thread http://www.socalireefs.com/forums/showthread.php?65778-Red-Sea-NO3-PO4-X&highlight=

 

[Six2seven]

Just wondering, do you have an excess of vinegar built up at the water line of your tank? I've seen something similar with vinegar, have to check my texts but i remember someone having a similar story.

 

[rayray]

Btw I'm not even sure if carbon dosing caused those things .

your tank volume looks large, imo 5ml of anything wouldnt have killed your colonies in 1 week. probably just coincident with too high nutrients for too long.

I urge you to read up on carbon dosing before buying a magic fix-all bottle. No matter what you choose there will still be a ramping up period.

 

[Macdaddynick1]

The reason I chose to use vinegar was that I've heard vodka can fuel cyano , Also since vinegar is 8 times waker, I get to start much slower, while dosing larger volume ( which was a big deal for me, because I want to play it safe ) Im using BM and it doses 1ml at a time now I’m at 10 which took me 8 weeks to get up to and with vodka i believe that equals to 1.2ml (less wiggle room).

I’ve read other people dose vinegar throughout 24hrs day/night with BM and have no adverse effect on the PH. Neither have I my range is 8.3-8.0

To be honest I’ve read pretty much every article On carbon dosing, every forum i could find , for the passed 3 months. I even read the article about the effect of simple sugars/ excess carbon on the health of the coral reefs that states that damaged corals can be overwhelmed by the bad bacteria as they get damaged and have no chance to recover. Which led me to hypothesize that this is what happened to my corals. ( i need to link it here)

I do admit i have not looked in to NoPox yet. I might do it

I have started MB7 3 weeks after starting Vinegar dosing, looking back i should have done that in reverse.

Im not sure how to test the excess vinegar but i assume that could be the possibility since I have very low Phosphates and that could be a limiting factor for denitrifying bacteria.

 

[SchnitzelReef]

Nopox is carbon dosing with a manual, and Vinegar is carbon dosing with out one. That's the only difference.

 

[SchnitzelReef]

I dosed vinegar and vodka for a year + and never had one issue. Had great results too. Only switched to bio pellets so that I didn't have to manually dose carbon

 

[Emac909]

Nopox is carbon dosing with a manual, and Vinegar is carbon dosing with out one. That's the only difference.

Have u used it nick? Maybe try it before u knock it. I've done both and nopox is way easier. Why u hating so hard? Aren't the king of "haters going to hate"? So take an effing chill pill b**** and e yes u have pushed my muthafucking button

 

[SC50964]

Nopox is easy to use, and is from a trusted brand. It's no fun to revisit chemistry as that's not relaxing. Nopox is about $20 so the cost is quite affordable.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[SchnitzelReef]

Have u used it nick? Maybe try it before u knock it. I've done both and nopox is way easier. Why u hating so hard? Aren't the king of "haters going to hate"? So take an effing chill pill b**** and e yes u have pushed my muthafucking button

Could u explain why nopox is easier?

 

[rayray]

I dont think Nick was trying to insult anyone. Some people get into the biochemistry more than others. People like different aspects of reefing.

My buddy loves to shoot precison rifles. He reloads cartridges & stresses over grains of charge, weights, dimensions, etc. But hes so fat he would have a heart attack if he had to defend himself or carry a rifle off the bench...

 

[M3ace9]

Nopox is carbon dosing with a manual, and Vinegar is carbon dosing with out one. That's the only difference.

I agree with Nick on this one lol. In fact, Nopox has its risks in a sense that any small mistake in dosing could cost you big time. But then again this is just from what I hear.

 

[Jerry Williams]

NoPoX is the combination of vodka, white vinegar and glucose with a little ipecac. I started with Red Sea's NoPoX and had good success. For the same amount of money I made my own brew with 225ml of 80proof vodka,25ml of white vinegar and 1 tbs. of liquid glucose.This made the same amount and I had plenty of Vodka left for other things, like me. I check my parameters daily. Within a few days I noticed an amazing clarity in the water. It took about two weeks @ 40 ml daily dosing to get my Nitrates from 180+ppm to 10ppm. I now just add 10-15 ml daily, depending on whether I've been nuts with phytoplankton or other sh!t. Nothing has died or even weakened. I have 180 plus gallon tank with a 60 gallon 'fuge. Today I was counting to see that I have 20+ fish and load of mushrooms and a few lps and sps. I did remove all carbon granular packs and installed a new Bubble Magus Curve 7. A good skimmer is a must.
The Red Sea 'kit' is easy because you get a graduated measureing cup and good instructions to follow for starters.
On my smaller 50 gallon tall, I did the same routine and its down to 2ppm with a daily dose of 5 ml. of my home brew carbon dose.

 

[SchnitzelReef]

Have u used it nick? Maybe try it before u knock it. I've done both and nopox is way easier. Why u hating so hard? Aren't the king of "haters going to hate"? So take an effing chill pill b**** and e yes u have pushed my muthafucking button

I dont think Nick was trying to insult anyone. Some people get into the biochemistry more than others. People like different aspects of reefing.

My buddy loves to shoot precison rifles. He reloads cartridges & stresses over grains of charge, weights, dimensions, etc. But hes so fat he would have a heart attack if he had to defend himself or carry a rifle off the bench...

NoPoX is the combination of vodka, white vinegar and glucose with a little ipecac. I started with Red Sea's NoPoX and had good success. For the same amount of money I made my own brew with 225ml of 80proof vodka,25ml of white vinegar and 1 tbs. of liquid glucose.This made the same amount and I had plenty of Vodka left for other things, like me. I check my parameters daily. Within a few days I noticed an amazing clarity in the water. It took about two weeks @ 40 ml daily dosing to get my Nitrates from 180+ppm to 10ppm. I now just add 10-15 ml daily, depending on whether I've been nuts with phytoplankton or other sh!t. Nothing has died or even weakened. I have 180 plus gallon tank with a 60 gallon 'fuge. Today I was counting to see that I have 20+ fish and load of mushrooms and a few lps and sps. I did remove all carbon granular packs and installed a new Bubble Magus Curve 7. A good skimmer is a must.
The Red Sea 'kit' is easy because you get a graduated measureing cup and good instructions to follow for starters.
On my smaller 50 gallon tall, I did the same routine and its down to 2ppm with a daily dose of 5 ml. of my home brew carbon dose.

Hmmmmm?? Something to think about [MENTION=4195]Emac909[/MENTION]

 

[Ddavies564]

It seems as tho u have read enough to understand about how carbon dosing works, but 8 ml is not nearly enough I feel to bother any thing in the tank. Especially with nitrates that high. For now I would stop all dosing (vinegar and bac) and let the tank stabilize and keep the fish fat.

Idk if it's possible for ich to thrive due to an extra carbon source. Ich is a Protozoan not a bacteria. But idk.

When u were dosing did the nitrate drop at all? If it didn't then u surely didn't over do it with the vinegar. Was there any kinds of bacteria bloom or cloudy water?
Any white string grows on the rocks or power heads? These would all be signs of over dosing vinegar.

Any issues with inverts? They would be the first to stress due to nitrate issues. With nitrate that high maybe the test kit was maxed out and not in range to measure accurately and the nitrate creep up too high? If no invert issues then probably not.

Also vinegar is what seems to be the most used and recommended carbon source by many of the chemists that actually can understand what's really happening when adding extra carbon to the tank. So don't dwell on your decision to use vinegar over the other products that people are suggesting. Vsv dosing seemed to be fazed out a while ago by vinegar. Due to issues with cyano.

It's hard to say for sure but maybe it was just a coincidence that this all happened during ur dosing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[rayray]

Carbon dosing side efeects? Ill try to answer your question directly, as scientifically / objectively as i can without too many "in my experience" type answers.

Your stated questions asks what are some unwanted effects from dosing "carbon". The desired effect is healthy coral. Some common undesired effetcs are bacterial blooms, stringy film on the water surface, bleaching coral, browned coral, dead coral, exacerbated infection on fish, etc.

By carbon you mean carbohydrate dosing (CH2O), beacuse there are other forms of carbon "C" added to the tank like new living fish & inverts (which die), coral / fish food (carbs + protein/nitrogen/amino acids + fat + ash), CO2 from the carx, bicarb / "alk" (HCO3), amino acids (acropower), fatty acids (selcon), dissolved "organics" (garlic, tropic marin bioactiv salt), live rock (just giant chunks of bicarbonate), etc.

So your real question is how to get carbon dosing work for you? Trial and error. But the better you undrstand what your doing, the better your odds of success. It took a while for reefers to understand that biological filtration (like in the sewage treatment plant) was the most effective. They maxed out LR & LS. They tried zeovit to really control & optimize what they thought was happening (you should understand this as well to really understand carbon dosing), now reefers think they can pull the overall tank biochemistry / fauna into overdrive waste nitrogen processing by putting in excess carbohydrate. Last i read, we arent sure exactly which bacterial species or strain we are encouraging to grow with all these carbs we are adding. Confusing? Well, it is.

 

[pandimus]

NoPoX is the combination of vodka, white vinegar and glucose with a little ipecac. I started with Red Sea's NoPoX and had good success. For the same amount of money I made my own brew with 225ml of 80proof vodka,25ml of white vinegar and 1 tbs. of liquid glucose.This made the same amount and I had plenty of Vodka left for other things, like me. I check my parameters daily. Within a few days I noticed an amazing clarity in the water. It took about two weeks @ 40 ml daily dosing to get my Nitrates from 180+ppm to 10ppm. I now just add 10-15 ml daily, depending on whether I've been nuts with phytoplankton or other sh!t. Nothing has died or even weakened. I have 180 plus gallon tank with a 60 gallon 'fuge. Today I was counting to see that I have 20+ fish and load of mushrooms and a few lps and sps. I did remove all carbon granular packs and installed a new Bubble Magus Curve 7. A good skimmer is a must.
The Red Sea 'kit' is easy because you get a graduated measureing cup and good instructions to follow for starters.
On my smaller 50 gallon tall, I did the same routine and its down to 2ppm with a daily dose of 5 ml. of my home brew carbon dose.

Is there a dosing chart for this? How did you come up with the recipe? Where did you get the glucose? Is it the diabetic packets to get them back from a low?