BIG TROUBLE!! Need advice please.

[chris88]

I have seen carbon dosing absolutely annihilate algae issue in a short time. i have always used vinagar/kalk so i cant talk about vodka but there are lots of threads explain how to dose it. It is a very cheap option, so i say go for it. it shouldn’t interfere with anything else you are running.

[spawn]

Originally Posted by doch

What does this mean? Would dosing zeo bak suffice?

Yes I use zeo bak & once a month add a supplement called bacter boost, I think it's from wiess organics, I also have just recently added biomate to help address a mulm(a residual build up of bacterial smeg) build up in 1 of the dark areas of the tank. It also apparently helps with an alternative bacteria source that consumes low level Po4... Testing with an elos for N03 I get 0, & using a hanna checker for Po4 I get 0 as well, but there is a bit of cyano & a very small bit of algae, so I know that there are traces of both due to heavy feeding of fish & corals. Also the skimmer on my system is a POS it pulls out a fair jag, but it's just the stock skimmer for an RSM 250 which is beginning to be seriously not enough for the bioload in the tank. Just be careful with the vodka. I can't find the link to the site I used as a guide right now, but I'm happy with the method.

[MKLKT]

Originally Posted by chris88

I have seen carbon dosing absolutely annihilate algae issue in a short time. i have always used vinagar/kalk so i cant talk about vodka but there are lots of threads explain how to dose it. It is a very cheap option, so i say go for it. it shouldn’t interfere with anything else you are running.

Months ago there was one single piece of live rock that I had that used to get HA and when I first put in rowaPhos the algae got annihilated in about 3 days with nothing else changing. Haven't seen a peep in nearly a year now.

As for the apocalypse in your tank doch, I'm glad that it's turning around now. That being said I'd be leery to go so quickly into different filtration/media/filter methods all in one go, often the huge shifts in parameters will cause more problems than they solve and I'd personally wait for any big dosing or polymer methods so that you can get the tank just running happily and stable before stressing the animals with chemical shifts. The funny test results will make it more difficult for you to judge if there is even any true intervention required.

[doch]

Yeah, I threw 1mL of vodka in this morning, along with a whole bunch of other maintenance. Full Zeo will be starting in 36 hours. Properly this time... now that I researched it rather than following the instructions on the bottle. Apparently it makes too much sense for the bottle to have the right instructions on it. GRRRRRR!

[Myka]

I don't think I would run Zeolites and the rest of the Zeo system along with vodka dosing. I'd probably ditch the Zeo if you're going to try vodka.