Carbon Dosing?

[fishfanatic]

I do not believe in a such thing as a monoculture of bacteria from dosing only one carbon source. Mesocosm (the science guru about bacteria) on reefcentral says that having a monoculture of these types of nutrient consuming bacteria is impossible in our reef systems. I still think though that we should dose multiple carbon sources though, just to keep the bacteria population diverse. Its not like these carbon sources are expensive or anything. I will take some before pictures tonight so I can hopefully show you guys some results a few weeks from now.
Sidenote: I was told at the start that you will know how much vsv to dose on your system based on how much skimmate the skimmer is producing. Every system is different with how much carbon dosing it will need.

 

[jonthefb]

Holy moly!. If only i were in Ireland drinking a Guinness!! I dont check the forums for a couple of days and look what happens!

First I hope that no one feels reluctant to post here. Fishfanatic, this is exactly what this forum, and the club is designed for. The intellectual discourse of information, where everyone has the opportunity to play.

Now, on to my absolutely unintellectual response to the information at hand. I have never really gotten onto the carbon dosing bandwagon. I understand the science behind it, which makes great sense, i have just never had the patience or guile (i am a lazy reefer!!) when it comes right down to it. I have always had great success overfiltering, overdoing the lighting, and overdoing waterflow when it comes to the health (i.e. color, polyp extension, growth, etc) of corals, specifically sps corals. I think that a mature reef has gobs to do with the overall success of keeping these animals, and IMO, sps should really not be attempted until a reef aquarium is at least 6 months old, past the cycle!, if not longer!

I am at the time experimenting with a few of Brightwell's new products, naimly thier Restore, and CoralAmino. I am using them in a propagation tank, with controls on soft corals, lps corals, and sps corals, and am only about a week in on testing. I havent experienced any difference in color between the control group and the test group, but we will see what happens as time progresses. I will be sure to let everyone know. But anyway, now that you have my response out of the way, i am definately having fun reading what everyone else is using. Keep the conversation going!

cheers~!
jon

 

[miwoodar]

I tried to give the :beer: logo but apparently it doesn't work over on this forum!? BTW - I still owe you one since I wasn't able to bring any back from London! I've seen the Brightwell's stuff mentioned a few times lately. I'm definitely interested following your results. Are you taking pictures?

Patience with carbon dosing? Did I mention that my last water change was in January (20 gallons) and my change prior to that was in June or July (15 gallons). I wouldn't recommend this but I am definitely a lazy reefkeeper if there ever was one. I thought about posting a sample to AWT as I am totally sure that some of my parms are out of whack.

Fishfanatic - I agree with your take on Mesocosm's monoculture stance. I do believe that a dominant strain *can* occur (ie. Scoob's tank in the link above) but I definitely believe it's an easy conclusion that people often default to when something isn't working with a carbon approach. I use the VSV combo just to feel like I'm doing something a little proactive but I don't really believe the combo does much.

WOO-HOO!!!! I just found out my office has one of these...looks like I don't need AWT after all!

Check this out: http://www.hach.com/fmmimghach?/CODE:SPECCOLCOMPARE-90610909|1

I'm throwing my Salifert PO4 kit away!

 

[jonthefb]

man, can you "accidentally loose" that and have them order you another? Ill supply you with a case of guinness!

Mike, what have your experiences been with the carbon dosing? Do you have any pics? Are you doing this in your 65? with colonies or frags? Do you have any type of control to compare the results to?

cheers my friend~!

p.s. maybe ill bring some guinness to terri's house tomorrow for the meet and greet and we can raise a pint to the hobby!

 

[miwoodar]

Yes, my 65. Sorry, no control group. FWIW, I'm trying to keep variables to a minimum. DIY VSV and DIY AAs have been the only change. I have been very pleased so far. But you are right - my experience is purely anedoctal and must be taken as such.

Sorry, I can't make Terri's place tomorrow.

Before you look at these - I HAVE become a better photographer since the first set were taken. With that said, I am very pleased with the changes I have seen.

FYI my PE on my digis has gone to crap since I got my flame angel....


January 2nd...

April 2nd (or so)....

January 2nd....(this one still shows my problem child California Tort)

April 2nd...

More current pics...

 

[fishfanatic]

Very Nice miwoodar! Your reef looks very healthy. That is some serious growth! I hope mine looks that good some day! The guys over at zeovit reccomend to people that have the problem with the color green to dose iron. You can buy an iron supplement on the zeovit store website.


Now here is some more information I have discovered.
A lot of people use zeovit to try and replicate the ultra low nutrient environments that are found in parts of the world's reefs. These ultra low nutrient reef environments are typically home to sps corals. If you read up on the history of the zeovit system, Thomas Pohl's (the inventor of zeovit) goal was to replicate the same colors of the sps corals that came in from the wild. In the "typical" reef tank that you see that does not dose a carbon source the corals will take on a darker, richer coloration. If you ever order a sps coral directly from the Indo-Pacific you will notice that when you first put the coral in the tank it will take on a color typical of a system that doses a carbon source. If you have a system that is not an "ultra low nutrient" system the coral will eventually turn to a darker richer, color typical of higher nutrient systems.


Here is a picture of a Green Bali Slimer in a "typical" reef aquarium. Notice the dark rich coloration it displays.

Here is a picture of an assortment of sps corals in an ultra low nutrient environment. This ultra low nutrient environment is the result of dosing a carbon source.

Most people say that these colors look unnatural. The color temperature of the sun can not produce these sort of colors in the wild because the sun does not produce a blue color that artificial aquarium lighting does.

I hope this helps people out a bit more with what the purpose of this method is and what results it is intended to produce.
Anyone considering carbon dosing on their system is welcome to ask any questions.

 

[osprey77]

ok miwoodar, it must be a tank thing. That Red Milli i have from you is barely getting pink 6 months later, but the cali tort i put in at the same time never looked better......

 

[miwoodar]

Fishfan - The first pic definitely says high nutrients to me. The second *screams* ZeoSpur2 dosing which, IMO, is a much different animal than any carbon dosing method - Zeovit included.

There are many methods to have a successful tank and great colors. I do believe that probiotic systems will become much more mainstream in the future though. I will now go knock on wood and wash my foot so I can put it in my mouth.

I'm hesitant to dose for greens because I think my green slimer is looking great. Maybe my tort is overlit?

Osprey - I'll give you another piece of mille if you give me a piece of your tort! What kind of lighting do you have? I'm pushing 20K halides and actinic VHOs (BTW it's nowhere near as blue in real life as I would have expected). It would be really neat to start a thread that compared identical frags and the way they turned out in various local tanks.

 

[fishfanatic]

I was just trying to really emphasize my point about low nutrient systems. The colors that miwoodar's tank has shows that his tank has a quite low amount of nutrients but not insanely low, like the tank in the picture I posted. I definetly would lower the tort. I have seen that color variation of blue tort before in a local's tank and he had it at the very bottom under 400 watt 20k Ushios in a 90 gallon reef tank. It had very good green coloration on it.

 

[fishfanatic]

Also what kind of 20k bulbs are you running miwoodar and on what ballast?

 

[miwoodar]

I definitely want to place the tort in a lower light situation once the new tank is spinning. The poor little green acro that is just behind it needs a better location too. It has been attacked by the tort, by the mille, and by aiptasia all the while being partially shaded and definitely neglected. I think it has potential to be a showpiece someday if I could only give it a little TLC.

Fishfan - you used prodibio for a while, yes? Do you have any before/after comparison pics to add?

BTW - thanks for the compliments. In 13 years of reefing, I am very pleased to feel that I *currently* have the best tank I've ever had. There have been a lot of ups and downs along the way while I experimented though different methods (I have tried a LOT!).

 

[miwoodar]

Also what kind of 20k bulbs are you running miwoodar and on what ballast?

I posted this in your lighting question thread the other day on RC...http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1365972

The magnetic SPS 20K is on the left, the electronic Radium is on the right. Both are 250 watts. Someday, especially since my new tank will be two halides as well, I want bump to two 400 watt radiums. The 400 watters are whiter than the 250s (they are actually 360 watt bulbs that get overdriven by 400 watt ballasts).

 

[fishfanatic]

I will see if I can dig pictures up. Basically everything started looking like that zeospur picture stuff, but not quite that extreme, so I stopped. Then I dosed pappone for about 4 months. Then I went to dosing nothing and lots of feeding. The result? Brown Corals. Now Im going to try this method. I think I need to stop tinkering. lol

 

[jwhyne]

p.s. maybe ill bring some guinness to terri's house tomorrow for the meet and greet and we can raise a pint to the hobby!

Count me in on that for sure!

 

[jonthefb]

When i had my 65 up at home, i was using a magnetic HQI ballast to overdrive my 250w mogul based halides, and the colors that came out of the corals were just phenomenal, all the while with a very low nutrient load and overfiltering (Ev-180 skimmer, Predator Downdraft Skimmer, 30 g refugium running caulerpa/chaeto combo lit 24/7, Phosban reactor with GFO, Phosban Reactor with carbon, Phosban Reactor with purigen, Ca reactor, Kalk doser, etc)

This discussion is the prime example of how this glass (or acrylic) box full of water is a fancy science experiment. It is absolutely amazing.

Man i am really getting the itch to set my 65 back up!

cheers~!
jon

 

[miwoodar]

I totally dig my 65. I will definitely miss it when it's gone.

 

[fishfanatic]

Update: I have been dosing for about 3 days now at 10 drops of a vinegar/sugar mixture once per day. I have noticed that my skimmer has increased its production of skimmate by about 25% and a few patches of cyano I had are slowly disappearing. Should I keep my dosage the same? Increase it maybe? Also, Im dosing this much vinegar/sugar on a system that has a total of approximately 40 gallons of water in it.
Thanks!

 

[miwoodar]

What is the solution strength? Do you have measurable nitrates and/or phosphates? Can you give a quick synopsis of your hardware, livestock, and goals?

 

[Zooid]

I've read about vodka and sugar dosing but haven't heard about vinegar......do you guys have a link, I'd like to try dosing but only to help feed corals....my nitrates are at zero so I don't really need it to lower nitrates.

 

[miwoodar]

I have maybe 50 links - do you want the ones that talk good about carbon dosing, the ones that discredit it, or the crazy ones that break out into fights and result in people being 'moved on'? The vinegar is added to diversify the carbon source. It is debatable if it helps in any way though. The idea is that some bacteria will outcompete others for the 'preferred' carbon source. This will always be the ethanol (vodka). The multiple carbon sources theoretically allow the disadvantaged bacteria something to 'make do with' so you don't end up with an overly dominant strain.

You can start here: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/printthread.php?s=&threadid=1225324&perpage=574

Read the first post on the first page - it provides a quick summary and links you to one of the threads that spawned this one.

My current approach is summarized on page 21 or so.