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Cultivated Reef

15G Nano - starting vinegar dosing


gogeta

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35 minutes ago, TILTON said:

It's going to be quite a bit though right? Like over 30ml a day?  Are you following the dosing procedure?  Think I have seen one somewhere.

 

nevermind, it's not even close to that much haha.  You are dosing a ton according to this.

 

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That's for vodka. Vodka carbon is roughly 8ish times more than vinegar. That's why I like vinegar particularly for these smaller tanks. It's easier than dosing less than a ml or 1-2 ml

 

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Thrassian Atoll
Just now, gogeta said:

That's for vodka. Vodka carbon is roughly 8ish times more than vinegar. That's why I like vinegar particularly for these smaller tanks. It's easier than dosing less than a ml or 1-2 ml

 

Oh dang, I didn't even catch that.  Good call.

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Just now, TILTON said:

Oh dang, I didn't even catch that.  Good call.

haha yeah, although i think i'm still a tad high than normal it's a percentage ive started from a few times and worked out well. a mate asked once how to to start on and i said do this for vinegar he just assumed vinegar and vodka were interchangeable he had a bad time haha. 

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Update

- First week of vinegar dosing in the books. Everything seems pretty good. Decided to test my nitrates prior to water change. Tested between 2-3 so looks like they are already being affected by vinegar. because of this I'm going to keep vinegar dosing at 5ml per day to see if it stabelizes around 2. If it does I'm happy with that level.

- sps seems to be continuing in a good path just keeping an eye on them.

- finding the sweet spot for skimmer in its new location has been challenging but I'm nearly there!

- alk seems to want to stabilize at 8.6 so if that's were it wants to stay in happy with that.

 

Maintence

- even though it's not needed I want to get back to the weekend water hangs routine so 20% water change.

- vacuumed sand

- cleaned unwanted algae off acrylic

 

Dosing/feeding

frozen food - because I want to try to get the mandarin on other food other than pods, I am trying a few different frozen foods (chopped cockle/mysis/cyclops) 1/2 cube per day

pellets - small small amount once per day

alk - .75dkh per day

calcium - 10ppm per day

magnesium - 10ppm twice per week

Amino acids - .5ml twice per week

reef roids - half dose once per week

 

Water Chemistry

nitrate - 2-3

phos - 0.03

alk - 8.6

calcium - 420

mag - 1350

salinity - 35

 

i'm happy with my water chemistry to stay exactly where it is there. That's the challenge now stability of these!

 

 

 

 

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Update

- nitrates staying stable around 3, will continue dosing vinegar at 5ml per day

- alk staying stable around 8.6

- bought a couple new sps corals corals

- found my birds nest been knocked over and on the sand in a hole where it wasn't getting any light. It's not too happy should recover though say 30% tissue loss.

 

Maintenance

- big equipment clean today! Cleaned skimmer, wave maker and return pump with hot water and vinegar and a toothbrush

- cleaned acrylic with plastic scrapper and magic eraser

- replaced activated carbon

- 20% water change

 

Water chemistry

Nitrate - 3

Phosphate - 0.03

alk - 8.6

calcium - 420

magnesium - 1350

salinity - 35ppt

 

 

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Update

- nitrates holding at 4, maybe increase vinegar to 7.5 ml see if I can't drive them back down to 2.

- nothing exciting just cruise control now

 

Maintenance

easy one this time 20% water change, scrap glass, that's it.

 

Water Chemistry

Nitrate - 4

Phos - 0.03

Alk - 8.4

Calc - 420 

Mag - 1350

Salinity - 35

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Update

Haven't been around much lately been a bit preoccupied with the new house!

- removed all lps and soft coral except for the Duncan, couldn't bring myself to take away the clownfish's home!

- vodka dosing has reached its maintenance point and couldn't be happier. 7.5ml/day is keeping my nitrates at 2ppm and stable!

 

Maintenance

- scrapped acrylic

- halved cheato in the fuge been growing like a weed

- 25% water change

 

Feeding and Dosing

- .75ml ammino's x 2 per week

- reef roids 1/4 dose x 2 per week

- half cube frozen food every day

- pellet food every so often when walking past

 

Water Chemistry

nitrate - 2

phos - 0.03

alk - 8.6

calcium - 420

magnesium - 1350

salinity - 35

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Been a while tank is on cruise control and doing well! Carbon dosing using vinegar is been going really well, settled on maintence dose of 7.5ml keeping nitrates at 2ppm stable, phosphate at 0.03 stable. Everything else has been dead stable for months and so just letting the tank go on cruise control.

 

Water Chemistry

nitrate - 2

phosphate - 0.03

alk - 8.6

calcium - 420

mag - 1350

salinity - 35

 

Feeding and Dosing

alk - 1dkh per day

calcium - 20ppm per day

magnesium - 15pmm per week

vinegar - 7.5ml per day

Ammino's - 0.75ml 2 x per week

reef roids - 1/4 teaspoon 2 x per week

Fish food - 1/2 frozen cube per day

fish food - couple pellets per day

 

 

I moved skimmer to a different chamber of the AIO couple months ago. Took forever to get it to tune again but last month has been running better than ever. Pulling this kind of skimmate every 4 days.

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And a tank shot couple new pieces have been added.

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Oh one thing I forgot was my sw-2 which I had absolutely zero problems with bit the dust from my error not its manufacturing. I accidentally plugged the wrong power source into it and fried it!

 

bought a coral box QP-5 as a replacement couldn't be happier! It's rated upto 5000LPH/1300GPH. I have it on the second lowest speed and is greater movement than my sw-2 at full speed. And this thing was $65! Which will serve me well as by maybe march/April I intend to make another nano but maybe 30g to replace this one.

 

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Maintenance

massive maintenance this morning! Finally got around to cleaning out all the gunk in the rear compartments and fuge, considering throwing a snail or two back there to help keep it clean.

 

- cleaned rear compartments (scrapped and vacummed)

- cleaned skimmer

- cleaned return pump

- cleaned uv filter

- removed 75% of cheato

- cleaned and removed dirt/dust and build up off lights and fans.

- 30% water change

 

I've also every major water change been trying out the bubble scrub technique. (5-10% mid week as minor water change and 20-30% water change weekend as major water change) basically I hook up an air stone to my return pump just prior to water change and let mass amounts of micro bubbles fill the display apparently it's meant to help lift stubborn detritus and other debris. Hasn't been harmful so I'm gonna continue it and see how it goes. I should have taken a photo but I will next time! 

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Update

TANK IS FINALLY 6 MONTHS OLD!!! It has reached a really good homeostasis state where everything is really stable especially in the last month it's actually become difficult to through its parameters out of wack. I dunno how happy I am with the scape these days though, I'm glad that in a few months this tank will be shut down and inhabitants will be transferred to either the new slightly larger nano to replace it or my +300g system being built.

 

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Update

- tanks still doing well of cruise control parameters are staying super stable. Everything's happy and healthy.

- been continuing the micro bubble scrub with water changes. Not sure if it helps or hinders haven't really seen any benefits/detriments yet but I'm willing to keep doing it to see how it goes. Remembered to take photo while bubbles were in the tank this time.

 

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Maintenance

- cleaned acrylic with scraper and then magic eraser

- vacuum sand bed

- 20% water change

- micro bubble scrub

 

Water chemistry

Nitrate - 1-2

phos - 0.03

alk - 8.6

calcium - 420

magnesium - 1350

salinity - 35

temp - 26.5c

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  • 1 month later...

Haven't been around much, tank has been on major cruise control. Do water changes dose feed walk away. Only testing once a month now and everything is staying stable testing that far apart.

 

Tank

8 months old 15g cube aio

 

Equipment and filtration

Return pump - aqua medic D.C. 1.1

wavemaker - coral box qp-5

light - 165w Chinese led on timer

cooling - 4 fan clip on

heating - 100w eheim jager

temp controller - AC211

skimmer - 100L/H needle wheel made from scrap parts and various skimmers

9w UV sterilizer

1G refugium cheato

Chemipure blue run passive in return

 

Maintenance

- 10% bi weekly water change

- clean equipment monthly

- vacuum sand once per week

- bubble scrub tank once per week 30 minutes

 

Water Chemisry

alk - 8.3

calc - 420

mag - 1400

salinity - 35

nitrate - 0.75-1

phosohate 0.03

 

Current fish

2 x black and white occy clowns approx 2 1/4 inch

1 x flame angel approx 2 1/2 inch

1 x mandarin  approx 1 1/4 inch

 

Current inverts

1 x coral banded shrimp approx big mofo

1 x crocea clam approx 5 inch

2 x strombus snail approx 2 inch

3 x hermit crab approx 1/2 inch

6 x various smaller snails

 

Current Coral

various sps acropora, stylopora, seriatopora, and one Duncan. Favourite being the strawberry shortcake

 

Dosing and feeding

randy's receipy alk, calc, mag

amminos - 0.5ml every 2 days

reef roids - 1/4 dose every 2 days

Red Sea trace colors 0.2ml per day

1/2 frozen cube chopped cockle per day

1/4 frozen cube cyclops per day

ocean nutrition formula 1 pellets when I feel like it walking past

vinegar 7.5ml per day

 

Loses and notes

Since starting this tank the only lose I have suffered was an orange starfish. And I do believe he met his demise from the wavemaker. So all in all not bad so far with a single loss.

 

coraline!! In the last few months coraline has gone crazy, covered my back wall tried to cover the clear acrylic when I've forgotten to clean it, covered the rocks and anywhere it possibly could.

 

Photos

 

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Indiana Reefin

I started vinager dosing on my tank it is the most stable and effective carbon source I have ever used. I am currently dosing 10 ml a day in my 29 gallon and it took my nitrates from 30-50 down to 0-2. My phosphates are at 0 - .02. I have 4 small fish. I have a tunze 9001 that is going nuts. I am planning on drilling the collection cup so I can have it drain into a waste container. My corals look amazing and I have little nuisance algae left. All of my hair algae is being picked off by my Tailspot Blenny and is fading and dyin off. 

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ReefingRelapse
1 hour ago, Indiana Reefin said:

I started vinager dosing on my tank it is the most stable and effective carbon source I have ever used. I am currently dosing 10 ml a day in my 29 gallon and it took my nitrates from 30-50 down to 0-2. My phosphates are at 0 - .02. I have 4 small fish. I have a tunze 9001 that is going nuts. I am planning on drilling the collection cup so I can have it drain into a waste container. My corals look amazing and I have little nuisance algae left. All of my hair algae is being picked off by my Tailspot Blenny and is fading and dyin off. 

Wow! this is the first I've read about vinegar dosing. Did you start at 10ml a day? Looking at the chart, it looks like your supposed to add more and more every week. Are you supposed to be dumping bottles of vinegar in after a year or how does that work?

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Indiana Reefin

I started at 3 ml a day and slowly worked up to 12 ml a day. 12ml was a little too much so I backed it down to 10 ml. The reason why I like vinager over other carbon sources is that it doesn’t promote cyano as much as other carbon sources. 

 

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11 hours ago, ReefingRelapse said:

Wow! this is the first I've read about vinegar dosing. Did you start at 10ml a day? Looking at the chart, it looks like your supposed to add more and more every week. Are you supposed to be dumping bottles of vinegar in after a year or how does that work?

You stop increasing it when you have the right amount of nitrate/phosphate and this becomes your "maintenance dose". Keep in mind you need a powerful skimmer to carbon dose and vinegar does effect your pH. You also want your ALK as close to natural sea water as possible to prevent burning your corals which means picking out the right salt, ect.

 

I did it at one point but it does have its risks and people have crashed tanks so it needs to be done correctly. I would definitely NOT start at 10mL in a nano.

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