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Old 07-30-2012, 05:12 AM
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Default Vinegar/Vodka dosing

Well, as some who have read about my tank issues will recall, I've got problems with Dichyota algae. I manually remove about 2 cups or more a week. And it's only getting worse. A chemical solution is illegal in Canada which is just as well because I'm not sure I'd want to use it anyway.
But, I was talking to one of the guys at a lfs the other day and he suggested maybe carbon dosing. If my algae issues are in fact due to too much nutrients in the water this may be a solution to my problem. Any one out there doing this? I've read a couple papers from Randy and others on this and it seems vinegar is the better choice as there's less likely hood of cyano. Does any of this make sense or am I barking up the wrong tree?
Any thoughts, concerns or comments?
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Old 07-30-2012, 05:29 AM
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I vodka (ethanol) dosed for a while and had good results, but having done similar reading (and fought cyano issues a bit) I would probably go with Vinegar were I to start it again. I think you will see positive results and cut back on your algae growth, but I would tackle the problem on another front as well... determine where these excess nutrients are coming from and reduce that input. I would make a couple of suggestions on starting points: buildup on mechanical filtration is decaying (clean daily), detritus buildup in dead zones in your tank or sump, inadequate protein skimming (this will become far more critical with vinegar dosing), over feeding... it's hard to say without knowing a bit more.
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Old 07-30-2012, 05:43 AM
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I have vinegar/sugar dosed for almost 2 years. During that time I had a dictyota outbreak. The Phosphate ranges from 0.02 to 0.05 and nitrate is 7mg/l. It is important to reduce nutrient load but I suspect there is more to algae outbreaks than just nutrients. Nutrients are the fuel but algae also requires the right type of light to convert the fuel into mass. My suggestion would be to use a higher k bulb. I use 20k Radiums with good results.

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Old 07-30-2012, 01:44 PM
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Hmmm, thanks guys.There certainly food for thought. I'm sure I have been over feeding to some extent. Part of my problem lies in the fact that I have such good flow through my tank it's hard to tell sometimes if the fish are eating all the food or if a good portion is being wasted. I've got tons of hermit crabs, various snails, 4 shrimp, 10 fish (one a twin spot goby who moves a ton of sand) a sand sifting starfish and a tiger brittle star. My tank is also a full mixed reef with SPS, LPS and soft corals with 1 clam.
When I feed I turn off my koralia pumps but I'm still probably flowing somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1200-1400 gph through my 77 gal dt tank. The sand looks clean everywhere I can see and I'd imagine my CUC cleans where I'm not seeing fairly well. But I do worry that when I feed some of these creatures don't get enough because it does disappear so quickly.
Because I have a basement sump (80 gal) I don't turn off my skimmer during feeding. For a skimmer I am running an SRO2000INT which works awesome although I don't clean the main body of it very often, just the collection cup.
I have been feeding only once a day, but over the last week or so I've started feeding less 2X a day.

Lighting: this is an area I have definitely neglected. I am running an Odyssea twin 250 W MH/ T5 light with the crappy Odyssea bulbs. I've been wanting to go to a DIY LED fixture and have been reluctant to purchase good bulbs as I would rather that $180 go to the DIY fixture. I had 2 - 20K bulbs in there but one blew on me so I replaced it with a 15K I had on hand. The algae growth is definitely worse on the 15K side. Since I'm not quite to the point where I can afford to drop $1000 on some LED's I may have to buy some better bulbs...

My Po4 last check was running 0.06 on my Hanna checker and I haven't actually checked my nitrates in months. I only have a cheap junky Hagen nitrate test. I am running a DSB in my refugium (6" or so) which I am planning on removing when I switch out my sump for a bigger tank that I just bought off Brad (thanks Brad!). I did read in one of Randy's articles that carbon dosing is a bit trickier in those tanks with DSB's.

Well, that's all the info I can think of to add. If you need any more or have other comments feel free to do so

Thanks for all the help!
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Old 07-30-2012, 08:47 PM
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That's a tough one, looks like you are doing everything right. Only thing that stands out to me is the DSB, which might be a nitrate factory. I started to siphon parts of my DSB out with water changes (maybe just 5 or 10% of the sand) and washing it, then putting my clean water into the bucket with the clean sand and siphoning it back into the tank (this keeps the sand from getting all over the tank when you put it back in). The water that came out with the sand was pretty nasty, so I think this helps. I try to do this with some of my water changes now. Just be careful you don't undermine your rockwork and collapse your reef! I also only feed fish once or twice a week, corals are a bit more often though.
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Old 07-31-2012, 12:15 AM
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I VSV dosed for almost a year with amazing results. Never had any detectable nutients and I fed very heavy 2x daily. BUT it can have its down side...

An overdose can result in a crash
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Old 07-31-2012, 12:35 AM
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OUCH! Yeah that looks bad. How much did you overdose for that to happen? I read on a paper on carbon dosing that you can get bacteria buildup in unwanted areas and sometimes a bacterial bloom in the water column.
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Old 07-31-2012, 01:20 AM
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Thats what it looked like when I came home a week after the 26oz overdose even. 97% death rate
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Old 10-24-2012, 05:30 AM
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Ouch.. that was a huge over dose.. Im also looking at dosing.

Have you started and if so what are your results, thoughts
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Old 10-24-2012, 01:26 PM
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I never did. I got so busy with work I didn't have the time. Then I started helping a friend build their system which is still on going, although we just finished up the majority of the plumbing last night. I removed my DSB in my refugium when I took out my old sump last weekend and replaced it with a bigger newer one. I actually removed the whole refugium and plan on setting up a remote one in time.

I'm still battling dictyota algae but am really only plucking it out when I feel it's getting too big a clump. or it's looking like it's going to over run something. I purchased a used 210 gal that I plan on setting up sometime this winter and want to get a Naso tang which apparently loves this stuff so I didn't want to get rid of it now, just control it. It'll be nice to provide it with a natural food source.
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