May 2012 POTM voting

"STICKS"! your favorite branching SPS coral

  • [img]http://www.reefsanctuary.com/photopost/data/614/medium/201205RedPlanet.jpg[/img]

    Votes: 11 55.0%
  • [img]http://www.reefsanctuary.com/photopost/data/614/medium/Shortcake.jpg[/img]

    Votes: 7 35.0%
  • [img]http://www.reefsanctuary.com/photopost/data/614/medium/IMG_2580.jpg[/img]

    Votes: 2 10.0%

  • Total voters
    20
  • Poll closed .

BigAl07

Administrator
RS STAFF
Fuel for bacteria. Similar to vodka dosing. Also, depending on whether Kalk is being used, vinegar allows the kalk to supersaturate the ATO water. Only so much Kalk is soluble in RODI. But if you add vinegar, more kalk becomes useful.

BINGO! In the example above by luisgo he was looking for a carbon source to lower N & P in his tank and he determined Vinegar to be the safer of the bunch. It just happens that using it in your ATO reservoir allows you to super-saturate the water with Kalk, I'm probably going to try this in the near future.
 

luisgo

Member
I have some questions in my message box so I will share the information on an answer to BigAl07

Allen first I have to say that my experience with vinegar has been very positive. Very low phosphate and nitrate levels and an overall clean tank with no algae or cyano.

My decision to use it was based on many positive reports at Reef Central. I used vodka but resulted in cyano problems.

After reading on the subject I found that vodka is 8 times stronger than vinegar which means that using the vodka dosing schedule X 8 is the way to go.

According to the vodka dosing article you start dosing .1ml for each 25 gal. of water daily. My tank is 125 gal. which is .5ml X 8 = 4ml daily.
The second week that is multiplied by 2 = 4ml x 2 = 8ml.
From the third week you start to increase 4ml weekly = 12ml
4th week - 17ml

Depending on your nitrate levels you decide where to stop increasing the dose. Since I also use Biopellets that dose works for me. Some people dose more.

I am dosing 1/3 cup = 79ml in my ATO of 5 gallon which will last 5 days = 16ml per day.

I was using kalkwasser in my sump to neutralize the low PH of the vinegar but started to have problems with my Aqualifter so I stopped the kalkwasser. The vinegar is just mixed with 5 gallon of water in my ATO and the Aqualifter will add it very slowly replacing evaporation for 5 days.
 
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