diatoms after vinegar dosing?

How mush water do you have and how much are you dosing?

It took me over a month before my nitrates dropped but every system is different.

 

I had the same thing happen. After it cleared up (diatoms or dinoflagellates, I don't know) I restarted adding vinegar to my kalkwasser at about 1/4 the recommendation ans slowly increased to the full amount after about 4 months. I've never had a repeat event.

I will say that this was the only event my tank had had that actually did damage. The brown stuff caused my frogspawn, Duncan, and even soft corals to close up for almost a month. The tips of sps also were burned. Everything eventually recovered, but damage was done. Keep a close eye.

 

The recommended levels usually are for full strength dosing. You need to start very low and work
Up. Here is a good article. As well as proper water changes when battling nitrates can be found at this site. http://www.melevsreef.com/vodka_dosing.html

 

How are you dosing 45ml already? If your on the first week according to my chart you should only be dosing 6.4ml.

You are dosing waaaaaay to much.

 

yeah you should always double and triple check information before acting so you have a broader spectrum to make a decision from.

 

brings up an interesting point: articles. The best speech I ever heard in the industry was at MACNA and it was about trusting internet 'experts'

The point was take everything you read with a word of caution. There are a lot of so-called experts out there offering bad advice, or repeating advice once read on the internet. Also in this hobby there is a lot of conclusions drawn without science to back it. The whole point is be careful with what you do, because whatever you do to your tank is ultimately on you.

For me early on my cardinal sin was listening to people regarding alk dosing. I burnt the **** out of my tank. I should have consulted more sources before I made that move!

Best example I have seen recently: LA Fishguy. Very popular show on you tube. When he was featuring Bud's algae scrubber, I was appalled by his personal setup at his home. I would assume his system would be in top health, with great equipment, etc but honestly his tank was a mess and a disgrace to the hobby.

All that being said, good luck with this my friend. I have no advice for you really other than to go slow.

 

Best advice I can give you is not to get frustrated and know we all face these kinds of struggles at some point or another.

I do have a couple questions, do you have a deep sand bed? and if so has it been distrubed?

One thing you may consider trying in the future is a remote deep sand bed. Basically take a 5gal bucket and fill it fill of sand about 5 inchs from the top. Install bulkheads above the sand and run water across the top creating a oxygen depleted source of water so anaerobic bacteria can grow which in return can help reduce nitrates.

 

dont know anything about miracle mud sorry.

 

Who's talk was it Jim? Yah you should see Mark Veras home aquarium! lol Not that great either.

 

Yah miracle mud is a gimmick if you ask me. I would do a remote sand bed for sure tho.

 

Here was the speech info: Richard Ross

http://www.macna2011.com/Presenter/19/RichardRoss.aspx

 

I think at the moment it may be another variable you don't want to mess with. When you add new sand, live or dry, you are going to have an influx of mineral nutrients which will cause diatoms and an increase in nitrate production. After a few months a DSB starts pulling its own weight.

Cool thx Jim!

 

yeah I would not do it till you have things under control.