I've been carbon dosing since day 1 because I cycled with the Red Sea program, but instead of paying out for NoPox I switched to vinegar in my Kalkwasser top-off. This worked great, my nitrates and phosphates were exactly where I wanted them. But my pH was getting worryingly low. The vinegar at 45mL per gallon was overpowering the high pH of the Kalk. So I mixed a new batch of Kalk with half the dosage of vinegar, and now my pH is looking a lot better...
BUT now my skimmer is basically spinning around doing nothing. I lowered the carbon too much it seems.
I'm going to be keeping a close eye on my Nitrates this week, but I'm trying to plan ahead for how to add more carbon if that becomes necessary. Has anyone used vodka with vinegar in Kalk? Vinegar is the go-to carbon source for Kalkwasser because it helps to bind more calcium hydroxide in the RO/DI water, and it is cheap. I've been unable to find any mention of someone using a combination of the two. The only thing I can find is general rules of thumb, e.g. "vodka contains 8x more carbon than vinegar. " Is that right?
If so, can I find the right carbon dose by simply taking my vinegar target (45mL per gallon) and splitting that in half, then calculate vodka as:
(45/2) / 8 = 2.8mL Vodka + 22.5mL Vinegar per Gallon
I'd really like to hear from anyone that has experimented with this combo in Kalk before attempting it though. I worry that some part of it might not stay in solution.