Mitrillion Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 Ok so for the past week I've been thinking about starting to carbon dose as I've heard good and bad things about it! I want to hear what you do and what you would recommend for my tank I have a 38 gallon tank. I'm wondering what my starting dose should be and how much to increase by and when is that nessisary! Please feel free to link me videos and articles about it! Thankyou all so much in advance! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caolewis Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 (edited) What are you trying to do with your tank? Is it SPS dominated? Mixed? Or just LPS? Why you try to use carbon? If your stuff is looking good, why bother? Carbon is very good at what it does that is keeping your water clean and strip all the elements ( just like your home water filter ). If you care about your tank cleanliness, run it. If you dip bunch of stuff for bugs and worry about poison/ammonia spike, run it a day or 2. If you care about your LPS/SPS colors, heavy carbon dose will starve their colors in long run. Edited February 23, 2016 by caolewis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pledosophy Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 What are you trying to do with your tank? Is it SPS dominated? Mixed? Or just LPS? Why you try to use carbon? If your stuff is looking good, why bother? Carbon is very good at what it does that is keeping your water clean and strip all the elements ( just like your home water filter ). If you care about your tank cleanliness, run it. If you dip bunch of stuff for bugs and worry about poison/ammonia spike, run it a day or 2. If you care about your LPS/SPS colors, heavy carbon dose will starve their colors in long run. uh... I do not think you understand what carbon dosing is. There is carbon, which is a filter media designed to strip elements out of the water, usually considered impurities or chemicals excreted by corals for warfare/protection and there is carbon dosing which refers to dosing a source of sugar (sugar, ethanol, alcohol, vinegar, etc) that is used to feed the anaerobic bacteria that is present in our systems and by adding that carbohydrate increases the efficiency and growth rate of the bacteria by removing a limiting factor (sugar) from the bacteria to spur its growth. If you are familiar with iron dosing to increase the growth rate of beneficial macro algae, carbon dosing is very similar except it directly affects the bacteria in our systems that process nitrate and phosphate converting it into oxygen. The protein skimmer removes the extra waste and your tank is left naturally cleaned. It is very similar to dosing a probiotic as it spurs a natural event, but it is widely considered faux pau because the easiest source for carbon dosing is vodka. Ok so for the past week I've been thinking about starting to carbon dose as I've heard good and bad things about it! I want to hear what you do and what you would recommend for my tank I have a 38 gallon tank. I'm wondering what my starting dose should be and how much to increase by and when is that nessisary! Please feel free to link me videos and articles about it! Thankyou all so much in advance! Depends on your carbon source. Each source has it's own starting point and benefits. If your Mom won't let you use vodka I would go with white vinegar and start with 1mL once a day. Increasing the dose by 1mL every week (e.g. week 2 2mL a day, week 3 3mL a day) until you hit the point where your nitrate and phosphate drop. Then stick to that dose. If you see a bacterial bloom cut your dose in half and start again to the point where the nitrate or phosphate hit zero. If you miss a day, you start the process over at 1mL and increase a bit more quickly. Don't double dose for a missed day. It will cause a bacterial bloom and in that small of a tank be a very bad thing. If you want to read literature on it google search Randy Holmes Farly, he has a good write up and a 15 page explanation (which I find fascinating) as to the rate and source. I disagree with his initial report but so does he as he has modified it on reef central and reef2reef. Originally it was thought that you wanted to dose much more and cut the does in half as a maintence dose, but I have found that if you go a little bit slower you can reach your desired dose without the bloom or the dose cutting. It takes a little longer and is more conservative but it provides a more natural and sustainable growth for the bacteria. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caolewis Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 (edited) Oh my bad....carbon reactor vs carbon dosing.... But again, my same question why dosing if your system is doing well? And still same main point is that you care about your water or you care about about your LPS/SPS colors? They need right intensity/par, sweet spot of N and P to color up. Zero P and N will starve them. Too much P and N will kill them. Edited February 23, 2016 by caolewis 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lexinverts Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 With a 38 gallon tank, you probably have about 30-ish gallons of water volume after you correct for the volume of the live rock and substrate. If you did a 5 gallon water change once per week, that would be about 17% of your water volume. If you are worried about nutrient levels in your system, this would be a better choice in my opinion. The reason that people often carbon dose is because they have systems of 100+ gallons and it is not feasible or cost effective to remove nutrients via water changes. The problem with carbon dosing is that it requires very close attention to detail and it is easy to overdo it and stress out or kill everything in your tank. I tried carbon dosing in my two 66 gallon Red Sea systems for about 10 months, and it was a lot of work and did not benefit my corals. I really tried to make it work. I added a medical grade peristaltic pump to my systems, and for a while I was testing my nitrates 2 or 3 times every day. The difficult thing is keeping your nitrates high enough to provide your corals with enough nitrogen to grow when you are carbon dosing. It's a razor's edge between too much and too little---at least it was in my systems. As soon as I turned off the pump, my corals stared to recover. Some people on the forum have had good success with carbon dosing, but these folks usually have large systems, and it is probably easier to prevent over dosing in large system. So, I would strongly recommend that you try something else to reduce nutrients, like regular water changes. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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