Carbon dosing via pellets

[Reef Passion]

Does anyone have experience with bio pellet carbon dosing to reduce nitrate and phosphate.
Watched the speech from Lou Ekus at MACNA.

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[jda123]

What do you want to know? You will likely remove much more nitrate than phosphate and will still need some other way to remove phosphate. I would not do it on a new/newer tank where the whole nitrogen cycle is not yet complete - anoxic areas converting nitrate into nitrogen gas. Any carbon dosing can be useful on an established tank with an experiences reefer who needs to address one or two things.

Just remember that high tide lifts all ships - the extra organic carbon will make all kinds of things/bacterial multiply and not always just good things.

Vinegar, Vodka or Sugar can/will do the same thing in a different form. I uses sugar on my FOWLR and it worked great - cheap and pure.

 

[Reef Passion]

Thank you for the reply. With my 3 tanks and heavy load. I use GFO and dose Brightwell Phosphat-E Liquid Phosphate Remover. I want a more natural and consistent way of controlling Nitrate and Phosphate and GFO removes more than phosphate like other trace elements from what I read.
I was looking for someone other than a manufacturer that sells a product, to give me some feedback and experience.

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[SynDen]

I have personally never carbon dosed, although have considered it before, but for me the cons out weigh the pros. I have seen a lot of crashed tanks as a result of carbon dosing. Either they accidently overdose it and they end up with a huge bacterial bloom, and everything dies, or they end up stripping far to much nitrates/phos out of the water and then their corals lose color and wither away.
I have seen a few use it quite successfully though, although most were expert level reefers, like JDA, who understand the precise balances and take the time to make sure they maintain the balance. If you are a lazy reefer who doesn't test or pay close attention to your water chemistry, or a newer reef then carbon dosing is a recipe for disaster
Although seeing the pics of your tanks, it appears that you may likely have what it takes to be successful at it, so if you decide to go for it, just go slowly, and test often and you should be fine

 

[Reef Passion]

One thing for sure I would start slow with probably a quarter of what would be recommended. I do want to keep my Phos around 0.05
I was hoping someone had experience with the Tropic Marine as they state their pellets are better than others do to the fact they are made out of seaweed. Could make sense or maybe it's just really good marketing.

 

[SynDen]

Haven't seen their pellets but if you considering doing carbon dosing, like using sugar, all natural is the best way to go imo.

 

[jda123]

There are probably better ways to control nitrate and phosphate. Bio Pellets and adding in organic carbon is far from natural. If you have room, add another skimmer, fuge with chaeto is natural. 2+ inch sandbed should be able to handle most nitrates if it is mature and left alone.

Otherwise, you are down to media and chemicals.

If you have a good amount of phosphate on a test kit, then you can bet that your rocks and sand are bound with much phosphate. It binds to equilibrium with the water in an exponential way. It can take a lot of time to get the level down to where it stays down - you remove some from the water and then the aragonite just releases more into the water and brings the level right back up again. For example, I helped a dude with a 150 or 180 that had about .25 phosphorous on Hannah and it took him like 9 months changing the media every day and 2 5 gallon buckets of GFO to get it all out for good.

Phosphate binds to lots of things, but also can unbind. GFO, Al Oxide, aragonite, calcite, just to name a few. Always change your GFO if you change water since if you leave it in there, the GFO will unbind to equilibrium with the fresh water that you added. Nitrate has no such binding, but bacteria can use the oxygen in the no3 and release nitrogen gas - this happens deep in sand and rocks that are mature and not gummed up with gunk or terrestrial stuff (like with dry/dead rock).

If you really want to carbon dose, start with vinegar, sugar or vodka. Each have their pros and cons - some grow cyano, some grow grey film, etc. Nothing is prefect and each will grow more than just waterborne bacteria for you to filter out. Also, you have a skimmer right? Carbon dosing will not really work without one unless you want to change mechanical media a few times a day. Too much will cause too many bacteria to grow and they use up all of the oxygen and can kill your fish, inverts, micro fauna which can sometimes lead to a crash if enough stuff dies - fish are usually first to go even if there is not a crash. Start slow and start smart. The growing bacteria (and other things) also need trace and major elements, which can starve corals some... water changes are a good idea if you are heavy into organic carbon dosing.

Just for an example, I have a very heavy bio load in my 240 - I buy food by the kilo and feed a lot. I keep acropora and clams so I like to have as close to NSW water as possible. I have 4 skimmers in the sump, 2-3 inch sand bed and run a 10g tank where I have to prune the chaeto every 2-4 weeks (depending on how much iron I add). My no3 stays at like .1 and my po4 is at 1-3 ppb on Hannah. This is where I like it. About a year ago, I "rescued" some anthias that were shipped to the wrong store. I fed them like crazy to get them acclimated. This caused my po4 to raise beyond what my fuge could handle to like 5-12 ppb. I saw my coralline growth slow down and some of my acroproa - most acropora did not care at all. I used a single drop of seaklear twice a day for about a month to get the po4 back to where I like it and it has stayed there. This was purposefully slow since I wanted no risk to my corals. The stupid anthias were savages and slowly killed each other down to a pair I have only one left now after one jumped. That is what I get for trying to keep them alive.

Lan Chloride is a good way to lower po4, but you have to go slow. It is cheaper than GFO. Nitrate is best handled by anoxic bacteria. Water changes can help no3 a bit, but is hard to sustain long term. Water changes don't seem to make a dent in po4.

 

[Reef Passion]

Since I did not say it before, thank you! You took the time and seriously responded to my post and that is greatly appreciated.

I definitely aim to have my tanks as natural as possible, using a refugium with chaeto seems to work to a certain point. Yes I do have a skimmer and run it 24/7
Keep in mind I have never done frequent water changes, so dumping chemicals in my system not knowing what long term effects it might have, concerns me. I do send out ICP test once a year and it mostly comes back in the green, some in yellow but nothing in the red.

Based on many articles and the health of my corals I believe my Phosphate is at a good level. Currently with fresh GFO I am at app 0.08ppm, It increases if I add 50 ml of my fresh Phyto. 50 ml seems nothing in almost 400 Gallon of water, put it jumps my Phosphate to app 0.10 to 0.14.
I feed a mix of dry pellets, mostly so my Anthias stay happy and frozen food once per day. On that note, where do you buy the food in such large quantities?
All 3 of my Anthias schools are nice, no savages here, had a set before and know what you are referring too.

Back to the natural way of keeping my phos at app 0.05ppm.
There are many different ways to get that result, GFO and my Chaeto works, but I don't know what else is getting removed or depleted and puts my water chemistry out of balance. As I mentioned before watching the MACNA video and others explaining the benefits of Tropic Marin Carbo Pellets was intriguing. Maybe the "commercial" hooked me. When I hear that their pellets are not like the others, that they are made from a seaweed extract, feeding mostly the "good bacteria" unlike sugar and vodka that feed the "bad ones" that encourage cyano , slime etc.
They also mentioned many times that what comes out of the reactor is what the corals feed on, that no other additional food is then needed to be dosed / added.
Last but not too important, they state that with their pellets no protein skimmer is needed. That seems just the opposite of everything I have read and you also mentioned about carbon dosing, so there must be something different with that product.

Whenever I read or hear of new or different ways, I approach it with an open mind and a good dose of scepticism and reach out to a community to see if someone else has tried it and what the result was. If no one has, then I will have to make a decision on the risk vs reward to try that new way.
Sincerely appreciate your input and expertise.
Chris

 

[jda123]

Please, please beware of claims by manufacturers, which you appear to know. How could a carbon molecule only grow "good" or "bad" things depending on the source? This is pure bunk, and it has been shown as such many times by Dr. RHF on r2r - many companies have claimed that their pellets do this or that which is not possible. Organic carbon will encourage growth from anything that can use it. Carbon dosing without a skimmer needs massive growth to hide-out the no3 (mostly with some po4 attached), but it does not remove them like what you are more used to - this is similar to lowering taxes to raise the economy based on increased GDP when there is no guarantee that it will come, if that makes sense... it could, but it usually does not work.

I grow a LOT of chaeto. I trim often, keep the mass loose and add iron and it will grow at least 2x as fast. Since you are changing water, iron might be OK, but I have to dose it. More often trimming and loosening of the chaeto is good. Larger fuges can be good too, but not everybody has room.

Growing massive amounts of coralline also can keep po4 and no3 lower, but in another cruel joke by nature, they grow faster when po4 and no3 are already lower. Keeping my po4 at 1-3 ppb the corallies grows stupid fast, but if it raises to even 10 ppb, it still grows, but much slower.

SeaKlear swimming pool stuff is the same Lan Chloride that you can buy as a reef product but many times cheaper. GFO by the generic bucket is also cheaper than Rowa or BRS stuff.

Rocks without corals can be added to a bucket or bin to aggressively remove po4 with Lan Chloride and socks - tank or sump. Heat and full strength seawater can keep the bacteria and micro fauna alive. You can get them very low on po4 pretty quickly. When you put them back in the tank, they will absorb po4 again and lower the levels in the water and other aragonite. A rock or two probably won't do much, but some people do this by rotating sumps full of rock and it works well in large quantities... just a constant rotation.

I get food at BrineShrimpDirect. This is a good time of year since 3 day shipping on dry ice is totally fine. Don't order online since the shipping does not calculate right - call them... they are nice. They are in Salt Lake City. I get mysis, caribbean mix (like Rods, or the like), roe and the pacific plankton. They sell cubes, but the kilos are much more affordable, but you have to break/divvy them up, which is no problem. I still feed pellets as a bulk of the diet.

 

[flagg37]

Please, please beware of claims by manufacturers, which you appear to know. How could a carbon molecule only grow "good" or "bad" things depending on the source? This is pure bunk, and it has been shown as such many times by Dr. RHF on r2r - many companies have claimed that their pellets do this or that which is not possible. Organic carbon will encourage growth from anything that can use it. Carbon dosing without a skimmer needs massive growth to hide-out the no3 (mostly with some po4 attached), but it does not remove them like what you are more used to - this is similar to lowering taxes to raise the economy based on increased GDP when there is no guarantee that it will come, if that makes sense... it could, but it usually does not work.

I grow a LOT of chaeto. I trim often, keep the mass loose and add iron and it will grow at least 2x as fast. Since you are changing water, iron might be OK, but I have to dose it. More often trimming and loosening of the chaeto is good. Larger fuges can be good too, but not everybody has room.

Growing massive amounts of coralline also can keep po4 and no3 lower, but in another cruel joke by nature, they grow faster when po4 and no3 are already lower. Keeping my po4 at 1-3 ppb the corallies grows stupid fast, but if it raises to even 10 ppb, it still grows, but much slower.

SeaKlear swimming pool stuff is the same Lan Chloride that you can buy as a reef product but many times cheaper. GFO by the generic bucket is also cheaper than Rowa or BRS stuff.

Rocks without corals can be added to a bucket or bin to aggressively remove po4 with Lan Chloride and socks - tank or sump. Heat and full strength seawater can keep the bacteria and micro fauna alive. You can get them very low on po4 pretty quickly. When you put them back in the tank, they will absorb po4 again and lower the levels in the water and other aragonite. A rock or two probably won't do much, but some people do this by rotating sumps full of rock and it works well in large quantities... just a constant rotation.

I get food at BrineShrimpDirect. This is a good time of year since 3 day shipping on dry ice is totally fine. Don't order online since the shipping does not calculate right - call them... they are nice. They are in Salt Lake City. I get mysis, caribbean mix (like Rods, or the like), roe and the pacific plankton. They sell cubes, but the kilos are much more affordable, but you have to break/divvy them up, which is no problem. I still feed pellets as a bulk of the diet.

What do you use to dose iron?

 

[jda123]

Water changes mostly, but Ferrion for a supplement. Chaeto Gro is a product that is newer on the market.

Remember that high tide lifts all ships. Iron can help hair and other types of algaes grow too.

 

[flagg37]

The chaeto in my fuge seems to be doing its job but I’m keeping an eye on it to see if it’s depleting the iron. I don’t do water changes so food is the only possible source of iron. I’ve got a small amount of brown turf algae but other than that I’m pretty algae free. My po4 is steady at 0.05 and I can’t seem to bring up my no3; it’s reading at 0.0 even though I’ve steadily been increasing my feeding. I took out my skimmer a couple months ago.

 

[jda123]

You are almost certainly iron deficient. Dosing will help the chaeto grow. I know of no other reason to worry about low iron unless macro is growth limited.

Your no3 is likely low because of anoxic bacteria using the oxygen and turning the no3 into nitrogen gas - this is the final step in the nitrogen cycle. If you have more no3, the bacteria will multiply to mow it down. This is good. Low no3 is of no consequence regardless of the people on the internet who think that it is "food" for coral. Nearly all corals (their microalgae) lack the ability to get nitrogen from no3, and those that have hosts that can convert the no3 back into ammonia for the micro algae do it have a huge expense of 30-80% energy - not ideal. Your corals are getting their nitrogen from ammonia or if they can catch some whole food (some can, some cannot). Macro algae can use no3 directly, but they can also use ammonia too. Nitrate in the .1 range is not growth limiting for corals whatsoever. Having higher no3 levels does nothing unless you are wanting to kill or growth limit diatoms or cyano. People think that their tanks "took off" when they let their no3 levels rise, but they missed the point that it was the higher levels of available ammonia during this time that did the work, not the higher no3 levels on the backend. This is a big point that most miss. Heavy import of food for the fish and heavy export is the key.

Skimmers do a ton of good in many different ways. I would turn it back on, especially in a no-water-change tank. Just the heavy metal export is worth it alone.