Vinegar dosing

[QUIG]

Anyone do it or have a lot of experience with it? I had high nitrates around 100 ppm and did weekly changes to bring it down to about 50 ppm now. I started dosing 15 ml vinegar to see if I could bring it down from there without changes. I noticed my hammerheads aren't as happy and unfortunately had a floating hippo tang this morning. I am thinking about backing down to 5 ml a day. 125 gal display with 40 gal sump

 

[Bobbofin]

What about dealing with the reasons your nitrates are so high, cause and effect. Use of tap water, overfeeding etc. Maybe consider bio-pellets.

 

[QUIG]

Cause was a FX5 canister filter I was running. I don't want to keep doing water changes if I can bring it down naturally.

 

[reefstarter]

There is a chart online that spells out the dosage for you . You must go very slowly randy Holmes made the chart

 

[QUIG]

I know of the chart and used it. I'm looking for people who personally dose vinegar or have dosed it.

 

[reefstarter]

You would need to change 200% of the water over 10 changes to get them down for me that's 1000 gallons

 

[USMC2897]

Ive been vodka dosing off and on for several years now and i recently started dosing vinegar a few weeks ago. Both are dosed VIA a dosing pump vodka is at 15ml and vinegar is currently at 10ml (week 3). My setup is a 80gallon DT with a 20gal sump and 10 gal refuge. I never had a nitrate problem and originally started so i could generously feed my fish and corals without compromising my water quality. I feed my fish at least 1 cube a day and feed corals every other day.

From my experience vodka is a little tougher and needs to be added very slowly. Vinegar is much more forgiving and there is some room for error. If you dose too much you could have a bacterial bloom so take it very slow (backing down to 5ml is probably a good idea). I have also noticed if done too fast it will slime up the inside of your pipe work and can restrict your flow.

As for the dying fish i have read that bacterial blooms can deplete the oxygen levels and suffocate your fish. Dosing 15ml right off the bat may have caused a small bloom but with that tank size i wouldnt think it would suffocate your fish. I have never had a problem with fish dying but i did try a maxima clam which enjoy water that is a little dirty but died about a month after i got him. I suspect my water was too clean for a clam.

 

[Roccus]

I dose 20ml daily in a 75 g tank with a 25 g sump.... but my nitrates were< 20ppm at the onset and have been undetectable for months... I also dose kalk from my ATO as part of the program.... part of your problem may have been a big PH swing...especially if your dkh wasn't strong enough to hold it steady...I agree with the above poster about how high the nitrates are and how they got that high...

how much live rock? how deep is your sand bed.. the denitrifying bacteria need a place to grow... all these factors will make a difference on how successful your Vinegar dosing will be... you will also need to maintain your skimmer.. as it will be skimming off the bacteria carrying the nitrate in their cells..

 

[phg1960]

I've been dosing vinegar for about a year now. My system is 150g. Started with 15ml/day and increased 15ml a week until I got to 120ml. At this point I had no detectable nitrates. I backed off to 90ml a day and my nitrate level holds steady at 1ppm. Zoas and other softies did not see to like zero nitrates. The dosage is broken into 8 doses via a dosing pump.

100 ppm of nitrate is awfully high. I would suspect that has more to do with the problem your seeing rather than the vinegar. Get you level down to an acceptable range first. Several large water changes will bring you down to the 25ppm range.

 

[QUIG]

I think you missed that I'm currently at 50 ppm nitrate. The cause of my nitrate problem was a canister filter that I have since removed. I'm glad to hear that 15 ml probably wasn't the cause of the tangs death. I figure it's not that much with the 135 gallon or so total system that I have. I just want to get my nitrates down to around 20 and I will be happy. I am noticing white spots forming on the rock...is that normal?

 

[Roccus]

I dose 20ml daily in a 75 g tank with a 25 g sump.... but my nitrates were< 20ppm at the onset and have been undetectable for months... I also dose kalk from my ATO as part of the program.... part of your problem may have been a big PH swing...especially if your dkh wasn't strong enough to hold it steady...I agree with the above poster about how high the nitrates are and how they got that high...

how much live rock? how deep is your sand bed.. the denitrifying bacteria need a place to grow... all these factors will make a difference on how successful your Vinegar dosing will be... you will also need to maintain your skimmer.. as it will be skimming off the bacteria carrying the nitrate in their cells..

 

[QUIG]

I have the whole back wall of my tank full of rock from right to left and about a 3" sand bed in the display and 4" in the sump

 

[reef87]

I have been using vinegar for the last three years for mostly nitrate reduction and a little bit on phosphate reduction.
Vinegar dosing is very dangerous and should start at very low.
Using vinegar to reduce nitrate now in your tank in a short period of time is not going to work. You will need to do as many little water changes as possible for now to manually bringing down the nitrate level in the tank to an acceptable or desire level.
Once you are at this good level then you can start dosing vinegar to help with the nitrate. But start very low to begin with.
Good luck

 

[JohnK]

I would add that organic carbon dosing (vinegar, vodka, bio-pellets) works pretty well for managing nutrient levels, but it isn't so good for bringing them down. In other words, vinegar dosing works very well to keep already low nitrate low, but it's not as effective or as easy to administer in situations where you are trying to bring a high level down.

Also, I have seen a few mentions of needing to do many small water changes to bring a high nitrate level down. In reality you can typically do quite large water changes without major adverse affects, assuming that the important parameters (Sg, temp, Ca, alk) of the new water are closely matched to the existing tank water. I know this may sound like it would be a major shock to any system, but as long as it's done carefully it's not so bad. If I were dealing with high nitrate as in this situation I would probably do a couple of @ 50% water changes, then work on dialing in a maintenance dose of vinegar to keep the nitrate down once I get it down.

 

[reefstarter]

That is why I posted the water change percentages, I am dosing vinegar in my system at about 48 ml a day now. I will bump it 5 ml a week till I don't see any rise in tested while doing 10 % changes bi- weekly the object of dosing vinegar is not to eliminate water changes or lower already high levels , it's a way to boost natural de- nitrifying bacteria levels among other bacteria good and bad I suppose. I feel it benefits my system and helps my pods grow, with that said take it slowwwwww.

 

[reef87]

if you are on ULNS, zeostart-3 also can help reduce nitrate as well.

 

[JohnK]

That is why I posted the water change percentages, I am dosing vinegar in my system at about 48 ml a day now. I will bump it 5 ml a week till I don't see any rise in tested while doing 10 % changes bi- weekly the object of dosing vinegar is not to eliminate water changes or lower already high levels , it's a way to boost natural de- nitrifying bacteria levels among other bacteria good and bad I suppose. I feel it benefits my system and helps my pods grow, with that said take it slowwwwww.

I maybe misunderstanding your post, but I'll add this in case anyone is confused since this can be confusing;

-Organic carbon dosing feeds/promotes (or rather fills in a limiting factor for) increased bacterial growth, and this allows for nutrient removal when the excess bacteria is removed from the water column via skimming, and potentially through anything that eats up that extra bacteria.

-Denitrifying bacteria is bacteria that naturally grows in your systems, and that breaks down nitrate thus reducing nitrate levels in the water column.

Two separate processes, though the language overlaps enough to make it very confusing.



On the water changes, I just mentioned large water changes because you will dilute significantly more quickly if you do larger water changes vs smaller.

 

[reefstarter]

it is confusing a bit , and I appreciate you helping me with my " language " on the subject . I just don't always seem to get the words out I need to to get my point across

 

[JohnK]

I figured you knew what you were saying, just looking out in case someone else might misunderstand...

 

[QUIG]

Thanks for the info guys. I guess I'll do one more water change and just keep my dosing low of vinegar and see what the nitrates do with time.