Little Sugar dosing experiment.
 

I have two tanks (see description under my avatar).
Started dosing half of the tee spoon dissolved in a cup of RO/DI water. Half of the cup went to the 6 gal Nano and the other Half in to 66 Gal mixed reef.

Have been dosing for less then a week.
Pros Observed:
immediate change in both tanks such as
• Disappearing of the red cyanobacteria slime film on the some surfaces,
• Improved SPS polyp extension
• And increased skimming.(not foaming but actual skimmate got darker and thicker )

Cons:
• LPS corals such as open brain would Not extend as it was before
• Goniopora only 30% open. Side note (Clown fish is trying to host in it, but it has done so before sugar dosing and coral would open immediately back to 100% after clown fish swim away, but now it will stay closed for longer time and newer open as much)
• Soft coral (some sort of green leather looking like ) would Not open, the other one I have is yellow umbrella is OK no change.

Conclusion:
Sugar dosing does work however with mixed coral reactions. I have stopped dosing because of negative reaction of some corals mentioned above.
I you have SPS dominated tank I can see a small benefit, but this method would not substitute for regular maintenance and good aquarium care such as Strong lighting, small regular water changes, protein skimming and chemical filtration.

I know there are some great minds out there, any thoughts?

I've had similiar results dosing Vinegar with my Kalk. No adverse Coral effects though. Both methods do the same thing-adding a source of Carbon. I'd guess that the Sugar has more impurities though. I may try a Vodka dosing to see if I can get even better results as it is even more pure.

so other then to get your fish drunk why would you dose vodka? and how would you go about doing it?

reply
 

-well i've heard numerous times about how vodka tends 2 diminish phosphate
and nitrate levels 2 undetectable amounts. -if i read correctly the bacteria
use carbon from vodka and then the bacterioplankton is skimmed outta the
aquarium. but then RESEARCH,RESEARCH,RESEARCH first!! dose can be benif-
icial or lethal.

lets keep this thread going im definatly interested in this. has anyone else tried any othe rmethods??? that will help get nitrates to nothing???

Another carbon source alternative is Zeovit - Start2. It's a bit pricey but at least you know thousands of reefers are using it and not many have had their tank crash from it.

I think at less and a week you are a long long way from being able to make any conclusion. I think a more realistic test would be over a few months, then you would need to dose one of two simular tanks to see how one does with it and one does with out it.

Steve

reply
 

-i agree, although vodka is very pure it's lethal, as for sugar that cud be arranged but like stircrazy said give us the details if any good or bad comes out of the vodka experiment.

Andresont,

Did you take any before or after photos? I know you said you stopped dosing in your original post, but how did you do it? Did you just dump it into a high flow area? How did you decide how much to dose? Is there a calculator out there, like there is say for alkalinity, or calcium?

I would encourage people to try dosing sugar but start with much lower doses eg. 1/8 teaspoon per 100 gallons and gradually increase the dose, give it 6 or 8 weeks before you judge the results.

I agree with the finding that sugar eliminated cyanobacteria.

And is that every day?

Everyday, you want to be consistent, so the organisms can always feed off the Carbon. Start low, I found that as I increased the dosage, I ended up with too little Nitrate, my Macroalgae started to shrink. I like my system to have around 5ppm Nitrate, so I stopped dosing. If I get an algae bloom, or Nitrate problems, I'll start again, and slowly ramp up the dosage until I get the results I'm looking for.

what about tanks with no skimmer?

I must apologize , I did not make any photos and started dosing acting on the hunch and no particular calculator. yes in the high flow area
However I wanted to try and see the effect on small dose versus a large one so I was dosing a ½ of tea spoon in cup of RO/DI water and then half a cup went in 6 gal and second half in 60 gal so there is 10 times deference in water volume.

First time I just dropped sugar in my Nano skimmer out flow and it (Sugar) end up right on top of my SPS frag, I was a little upset with my own stupidity but, this sps frag was the one that displayed better polyp expansion 3 days later.
Neon green open brain coral in the same 6 gal Nano tank shriveled and even though I discontinued dosing still not opening now (5 days after)
Some red slime was immediately gone .
That was all I could see in the small 6 gal tank.

In 60 gal tank was even less effect (obviously), all I noticed was disappearance of the red slime (I had very little, tiny spot on one of the pipes) and that’s it did not see any reaction from corals and or other live stock.

Dosing sugar works but else than starting from very little amounts there are some other things that you should pay attention. After consuming nitrates and phosphates bacteria dies and establishes a film on the surface. If you remove this film phosphates and nitrates will be removed. To be able achive this you need a good surface skimming and a realy realy good protein skimmer. High bacteria population depletes the oxygen level so a good PS helps you out . Photesynthetic microalgae provides 40-50 % of coral's nutritional need. When you reach zero nitrates and phosphates corals will starve to death if you don't feed them with appropriate food. Also you should take the power outages into consideration. If you don't have a supplemantal solution for power outages oxygen level will go down very fast because of the high bacteria population and your animals will saphocate. If the reason for high nitrates and phostphates is your equipment or system i don't recommend you to dose any types of carbon source including Zeovit. I think Italian Blue coral method is safer than dosing only sugar. Since it is a homemade recipe that contains sugar as well else than reducing nitrates and phosphates it provides a good food source for the corals.

Good point about O2.
yes ! my ORP dropped about 60 points, i just realised that!

I've have heard of the vodka thing before but I figured after dosing yourself with vodka, just like women at the bar all the tanks look better too.:razz:

:lol:

This is nothing new.

Why not try to fix the problem in a "safer" way than adding a carbon source. You are playing with fire. I have never dosed sugar myself but my brother had for years. He had tried it twice and both times, ended up with tank crashes. Long term, I think after about a year and a half, in one of his tanks, most corals began to get quite brown. I have read about why this happens when you dose sugar but I forget why. I think it was also most soft corals turning brown. IMO, adding a carbon source makes a tank very unstable over the long term. Why not just do things right, get the right equipment and forget dosing carbon all together! Add a refugium if your nitrates are high, get a better skimmer if your skimmer doesnt pull out thick brown skimmate, skim wet if needed, feed less, ect., ect.

Another interesting thing is, I read an article a while ago about how in a few spots in the caribbean, corals were bleaching from from waste being pumped into the ocean. Traced it back to very high simple sugars...same as what your putting in your tank. I think the levels were off the charts and nothing like what people are dosing but still doesnt make sense to add.

Personally, I think you need to find the source of the problem.