The Salmon-Vinegar method: Lowering nitrates and Phosphates

[solpete]

Hi.:invisible:snshne:
This has worked better for me than anything in lowering phosphates from 0.03 ppm to 0 ppm and No3 from 10 ppm to 0 ppm in just 48 hours.

This is for a tank with 5-10 ppm nitrates and 0.03-0.05 ppm phosphates:

Recepie:
a.) Check Phosphates and Nitrates.
b.) Day one: For every 100 Gallon of tank with mixed reef (a few small fish and some mixed corals, softies, LPS, SPS etc.) add 1/2 teaspoon of raw salmon for the fish to eat. Approx. everything should be eaten (in my case by my Niger Trigger).
c.) The skimmer should stop working now due to the large amount of FAT from the salmon.
d.) After some time (in my case 24 hours), remove some of the leftofters of fat that might be floating on the surface in your DT and sump. Do this by using a cup or sheets of toilet paper (suck in - replace).
e.) Now add 5-7 ml of STRONG vinegar (by strong I mean vinegar that is 24%, used for cleaning or food pickle / inlay) to the sump.
f.) Wait 24 hours. Nitrates and Phosphates should be 0

This was discovered by accident. I think the fat in the salmon works as a catalysator for the bacteria and vinegar to do its magic!

HTH.

//Peter

 

[PSU4ME]

Interesting idea.....never heard of it before but i'd be interested to see someone try it!

I've just started adding vinegar to my kalk solution (thanks Choff) to help it saturate better and as a form of carbon dosing.......i'll monitor how the tank reacts.

 

[solpete]

An hour after I fed now I checked nitrates at 2.5-5 ppm ... I am going to feed some mixed mussels and spray it over my corals. Also I just added 5 ml of 24% vinegar again. Let's see the values tomorrow

 

[Steve L]

Sounds like a cool idea, I may try it.

I have a 150 that I'm converting from a FOWLR to a reef. It hasn't had fish in it for about 3 weeks, just a few hermits and about 150 pounds of LR and about a 75 pound sand bed. I did three 30 gallon water changes but the trates just didn't want to go below 15-20 ppm. About a week ago I dosed the tank with a half teaspoon of sugar. Within about 4 hours the water began to cloud as the bacteria bloomed. It stayed cloudy for about 48 hours and then went completely clear. Kept the skimmer on a very wet skim and then checked the trates. They dropped almost 5 points from where I started. I figure I'll try one or two more doses and if there is any residual I may try your salmon/vinegar method.

 

[DaveK]

This is not an attempt to come down on the op, but a word of caution is needed.

Before you try anyone's new idea, no matter how good it sounds, consider that if something does go wrong, you can wipe out your entire reef. The method here uses the feeding of salmon which is usually a problem all by itself, and then adding vinegar, another potential problem. To my mind that's a lot of risk to control what seem to be minor nitrate and phosphate issues.

Unless your the experimental type of person, and don't mind the risk, stick to conventional methods to solve your problems.

 

[solpete]

I Agree with DaveK, use caution!

Todays Update: Adding the same amount of vinegar (yesterday) without salmon did not lower my nitrates from yesterdays value. In fact they have gone up to 5-7 ppm again. And I didnt really feed that much yesterday.

Update 2: Added one teaspoon of raw salmon. Skimmer stopped working. Added 10 ml of 24% vinegar. Tomorrows reading will be interesting!

 

[Steve L]

Completely agree with DaveK. If you have well stocked tank with delicate corals, caution should always be taken when playing Dr. Frankenstein and experimenting with water parameters. Since I have a well established tank that currently has no livestock other than a few hermits, I am taking liberties that I normally wouldn't dare do.

 

[ddelozier]

I totally agree with DaveK. Caution is warranted, especially in a reef tank with delicate corals. Now with that said, I've used the sugar dosing myself. in a 65g tank, i added 1 teaspoon of white granulated sugar. Within 24 hours the water was milky. Skimmer producing nasty stuff. 72hrs after the sugger added, the water is crystal clear, nitrates dropped. Apparently my bacteria like frosted nitrates.

 

[solpete]

I tried the salmon vingegar thing again, but this time my nitrates didnt drop. My method does not work. But I have no clue why it worked once.... argh...