View Full Version : Sugar???
Lorna
08-16-2006, 11:00 AM
Okay I have been doing some reading.......(perchance in another forum) on adding sugar to your tank to feed your bacteria. An interesting concept and from what I can tell can increase the output of your skimmer......has anyone had any experience with this? tried it and have first hand OBJECTIVE experience and/or researched this topic in depth?
Crown Royal
08-16-2006, 4:00 PM
No personal experience, but I'll one up you and suggest you do a search on "vodka" dosing on this other forum that shall remain unnamed.
lebloom
08-19-2006, 11:56 AM
Just what will adding the sugar actually do? Does it clean up anything other more output from your skimmer? Where did you get this from?
FreddytheFish
08-19-2006, 12:01 PM
Is this from Reef Central?
no not directly. Though I have read their threads on both vodka and sugar. Actually I was reading what Randy Farley Holmes had to say about it elsewhere.......I do believe that there is some merit in the research and it behooves me to toss any idea aside without really giving it a thorough going over from more than one source.
mogurnda
08-21-2006, 4:19 PM
The principle, as I understand it, is fairly simple: to grow and multiply, bacteria and plants need carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorous in relatively large amounts, as well as smaller amounts of other elements. In a perfectly balanced tank, there will be enough carbon so that the bacteria and macroalgae will be able to make use of most or all of the available nitrate. If carbon is limiting, then the other elements will go unused, and nitrate will go up.
It actually seems to work. Years ago, when I first started dosing kalk with vinegar (another carbon source), my nitrate went down rapidly. It had never gone much below 20 before vinegar, but went down to about 5 with it. I would not call it a scientific finding, merely an observation consistent with the theory.
I still dose vinegar for the seagrasses, to make sure they have enough carbon for growth. Cheaper than vodka, less likely to grow fungus in the dosing reservoir than sugar.
Thanks for the input Dave. Exactly how much vinegar are you dosing? I have read about boosting kalk using vinegar but wasn't sure how much to add. I had been dosing kalk at 2 tsp/g in my replacement water but I found that it was jacking up my ph too much. I believe that the vinegar would aleviate this wouldn't it? I am very interested in the vinegar.........do you have any suggested amounts?
mogurnda
08-22-2006, 9:37 AM
A good starting amount is about 15 ml (3 tsp) per gallon. You can safely double that, but it's always good to start low. Even with vinegar, I found that dosing kalk drove my pH pretty high in my old nano. Not as much a problem with the turtle grass for some reason.
Lorna
08-22-2006, 12:36 PM
That is 3 tsp/g in the make up water right? Can you mix it with the kalk and dose it together?
mogurnda
08-22-2006, 1:14 PM
That is 3 tsp/g in the make up water right? Can you mix it with the kalk and dose it together?
Yes and yes. Mixing with the kalk will increase the amount of dry CaOH that dissolves.
I had read that you can boost the kalk using vinegar........interesting and it should help reduce the ph of the kalk mix.....a bit at least?
Just plain white vinegar like pickling vinegar? I think I will try it......
the only problem I was having was the kalk was clogging up my drip line.......
mogurnda
08-23-2006, 12:48 PM
I had read that you can boost the kalk using vinegar........interesting and it should help reduce the ph of the kalk mix.....a bit at least?
Just plain white vinegar like pickling vinegar? I think I will try it......
Yep, just plain white vinegar. I buy it by the gallon at the grocery store.
It should also help with your pH. I have been dosing the two together for so long, I don't remember how much difference adding the vinegar made.
RothChyld
08-23-2006, 3:18 PM
Dave, what I want to know - is your avatar a person swimming with a Jelly, Squid, or octopus? :OT:
hehe
mogurnda
08-23-2006, 3:34 PM
Dave, what I want to know - is your avatar a person swimming with a Jelly, Squid, or octopus? :OT:
hehe
Jelly. It's at the beach at Cow Bay, Queensland. In the summer, they have nasty stinging jellies, plus a mangrove with man-eating crocodiles. It's a beautiful place, just not to swim.
The Irukandji jellyfish along with types of box jellyfish can be deadly. One does not want to run into the stingers of these..........they have been found in Hawaii also.....though they monitor the beaches dilligently for these they have been known to kill people......not something to mess with....interesting and beautiful though they are.