glucose solution

[psuedo]

While at the meeting yesterday, I was talking to a fellow canreefer and he mentioned something about Glucose solution and what it does to your tank. I already dose Kalk in my tank now and I know what the effects are of using this product. But I was curious to find out exactly what glucose solution is supossed to do for your tank. It was explained to me yesterday, but I was in a great deal of pain yesterday and on some drugs for the pain, so some things slipped my mind:D

Hopefully someone can chime in here and give a little insight as to the pros and cons of Glucose solution in a tank...especially a reef tank

[trilinearmipmap]

Glucose, sucrose (table sugar), vodka, and any other forms of sugar or alcohol are sources of carbon for the reef tank.

The question is, does adding sugar help lower nitrates. The topic has been argued to death on Reef Central.

The basic idea is that bacterial growth is limited by different nutrients including nitrogen, phosphorus, carbon and others. If there is not enough carbon available to bacteria, they will not be able to grow and assimilate nitrate, phosphate etc. By dosing carbon in the form of sugar or alcohol, enough carbon is supplied to the bacteria to allow them to multiply. When they multiply, they assimilate phosphate and nitrate. The bacteria, along with their phosphate and nitrate, are then skimmed out in the skimmer.

From reading all the arguments on Reef Central there is a consensus that overdosing sugar or alcohol can be dangerous, including causing coral bleaching and coral death. Whether a small amount of carbon dosing is helpful is up for debate.