Looking for feedback, Vodka / Carbon Dosing, Big Tank, Big Nitrates

[juanlien]

Following!this seems like a very interesting thread

[kwirky]

I tried dosing vodka and it just led to dinos and it threw everything out of whack. The bacteria consumes the nitrate in an unbalanced manner, which led to other problems.

Since you already have a fuge have you thought about bumping the lighting on it WAY up and then dosing nitrate/iron/phosphate to keep up with the macro growth? If you have high nitrates then it means your fuge is probably light and/or micro nutrient limited.

What's the light on the fuge? For a 200-ish gallon tank, if you want it to out-compete your display lights, you need lots of light over the fuge. Get yourself a 100W COB grow light ( with a cree CXB3950 3500k, used for growing/vegging the marijuanas) with a dimmer knob (important) and you should no longer be light limited. Start it at half output. You might need two of them but the nice thing is you can add another one later.

You might see more success with chaeto in the fuge. Make sure there is adequate water flow, too, in the fuge. If it's stagnant then you're not bringing nutrient rich water to the macro algae & it'll starve itself out as it's photosynthesizing. About 10cm/second of water flow through the macro algae should be adequate, with a powerhead of some sort.

Theoretically, once your light is strong enough in the fuge and if you're keeping up on iron, you'll end up nitrate limited and will need to dose it here & there to keep it above 0.0ppm.

[Bill1119]

Thank-you all for your replies, this is great,

An update on progress, I have completed 9 weeks of carbon dosing so far,
Week 1 - 1.2/2.4ml, Week 2 - 3.6ml, Week 3 - 4.8ml, Week 4 - 6 ml, Week 5 - 7.2ml, Week 6 - 8.4ml, Week 7 - 10ml, Week 8 - 12ml, Week 9 - 14ml.
I intend to change the increase by 1ml every two weeks, ie, Week 10 - 17ml, Week 11 - 20ml, Week 12 - 24ml, etc.
This goes against my previous statement, I have went with the more aggressive dosing based on the stability of the tank parameters, and the fact that the NO3 value has not wavered till now. I will reduce it if my tank parameters start to fluctuate, or the N03 start to deplete more than incrementally.

My tank paramters have been stable with two exceptions,
1)my pH fell initially but has been stable since. I am guessing it had more to do with shutting off my UV sterilizer than the vodka dosing.
2) I feel that my NO3 climbed up initially when I turned off my UV sterilizer, The testing samples came back darker, but I was not going to try and dilute the red sea testing past 0.25ml tank water to 15.75ml RO water (I test my RO water every time before I use it to dilute)

At week 9 I am just starting to see signs of change, I have had to change my skimmer settings to get good skimmate production and the macro algae growth has tapered off. I have also got my first NO3 test that may be just on 250ppm.

I will keep you updated on progress!

Houlisam87 - For the water change comments, I have not tried a 90% water change, I am a little uneasy about changing the water parameters that much at once. Previous to Vodka dosing (the first time I tried) I had tried 50 gallons water changes at 3 times per week and saw little to no effect. But that is still far short of 90%. I think I still have a problem with NO3 saturation in my sand bed and live rock, this was pointed out in another comment. I think your method would get me there but I would have to repeat a few times, and likely suck out the sand bed at the same time. The cons that keep me from going this route is cost, a 26 of vodka is far cheaper than 800 or 1200 gallons of salt, and water parameter stability, I have one or two sensitive fish species that I do not want to risk.

I would be glad if you could comment how the livestock did in your tank when you did the 90% change, as stated before I wanted to get aggressive with water changes once I seen the NO3 starting to drop substantially.

MrNaso - I will check these out!

LifeIsGreat - I think you are probably right, I do not vacuum the sand bed, and I am confident that the NO3 is being released from something as I remove it, It would be an easy target to remove as I ramp up water changes.

Kwirky - I like this feedback, I hadn't really thought about dialing in my fuge. I only had ambitions for better lights currently. I had previously ran a 48 inch T5 but it quit last fall. I replaced it with a Costco Grow light (50W LED) but I feel it falls short of the T5's. I will check out the grow light you have called out.

My flow is very low, that would be an easy upgrade,
Same with changing to chaeto.
**I think it would be better to get the chaeto started in my fuge before pulling all the caulpera out. What do you think?

I have never had any luck with growing both, the caulpera would always choke out the chaeto.

Long term I do not wish to Carbon Dose, I think I should be able to manage the NO3 with other means, but till I get it down and stable I intend to dose vodka.

I have not read much on dosing iron, I will do some digging on that one, and get upto speed.