my experiment with sugar dosing.

[rotarygeek]

Well im tired of having high nitrates and my live rock and chaeto isnt working enough to reduce it. ill be the first to admit im horrible about doing my water changes, and im the kind of guy who will look for the easy way to get things right. seeing as i have a fowlr tank, the water change isnt as important as with a reef tank, so give me a little credit. i have been researching sugar dosing for a while now becuase this is my kind of solution. easy, simple, and safe. so im giving it a shot. for everybody who hasnt heard of this, its basically adding sugar to your system to (not 100% sure on this, so dont quote me ) speed up the process by which algea turns nitrates into harmess o2 ( that part too). the actual process is quite easy. start small and slowly up your dose to 1/8th a tsb per 25 gallons. since i have a 55 gallon tank with a 10 gallon sump, and today is the first day of the experiment, i only added 1/8th a tsb. my nitrates are currently between 80 and 160 ppm ( hard to tell the color difference). tomorrow i will retest my nitrates and add another 1/8th tsb to the system. please note that the only known side effects that i have read about are rapid depletion of oxygen and lower ph. so a protien skimmer and a good amount of flow are required for this to work properly. fortunetly i have a skilter 250 that functions better as a way to introduce air to my system than as a skimmer. i also have roughly 2200 gph turnover rate in a 55, so i have the flow covered too. i will be updating this thread as often as i can to keep anybody interested up to date with how well this works.

 

[snakeblitz33]

well, experiment and see how it does. Congrats if you kill your fish

 

[shinobi9119]

should be intersting

 

[fau8]

With nitrates that high the last thing you would want to due is add anything. A 55 is not that big, do your water changes and get your numbers in order. I think it could be more intersting to see if your experiment will keep your nitrates in check but give your fish a chance before you do something that will make things worse.

 

[rotarygeek]

well i guess negative feedback is still feedback. i know i need to get back on top of my water changes but my schedule is kinda hectic and i dont have as much free time anymore and since this is simple and quick i decided to try it. but i do have a break tomorrow morning to start mixing some water for the water change, so dont worry too much. i have also never heard of anybody loosing anything besides corals from sugar, because sugar exists in small quantaties already. as long as i have the proper airation (which i do) it should be fine.

 

[ca161406]

like the sugar wont do anything to the fish? you'd think after a while they'd become like diabetic or something

or like how sugar affects us

 

[dogfaceman]

dont worry about measuring and all that, just float a twinkie

 

[tizzo]

rotarygeek, I'm all for learning something new so I will be following your notes. I hope it works for you. I can kinda see the logic, but it's still a little elusive.
That being said, even if it does work, your still not finding and fixing the source of your trates...
What are you going to do to troubleshoot the cause, if anything?

 

[dogfaceman]

Originally Posted by Tizzo
http:///forum/post/2727920
rotarygeek, I'm all for learning something new so I will be following your notes. I hope it works for you. I can kinda see the logic, but it's still a little elusive.
That being said, even if it does work, your still not finding and fixing the source of your trates...
What are you going to do to troubleshoot the cause, if anything?
if you add sugar you add all kinds of chemicals to your tank, even if its whole sugar cane, it still has tons of pesticides and chemicals it takes from the soil(assuming you dont grow it yourself)

 

[tizzo]

you may be right. But one cannot draw any definite conclusions with that because it is so often contradicted with stories of kids and cookies. My own for example, tossed on a little debbie starvcookie that completely decintergrated when I tried to remove it. I worried about phosphates mostly but all the other ingredients as well, yet no damage was done.
And you must remember how many people put in lettuce before they knew to rinse it.
Hopefully the op has researched it and will be able to vouche for or against it.

 

[oceansidefish]

Originally Posted by dogfaceman
http:///forum/post/2727987
if you add sugar you add all kinds of chemicals to your tank, even if its whole sugar cane, it still has tons of pesticides and chemicals it takes from the soil(assuming you dont grow it yourself)
This is not entirely true. Pesticides would be stored in the root and fiberous systems of a plant would not necessarily come into the sugar which is the energy production. Although you would have to conduct a spectral analysis to determine that for sure.

 

[rotarygeek]

Well i have seen a couple different people doing this with no adverse effects besides the depleted oxygen and the lower ph, so im kinda going out on a limb and trusting this. In a completely unrelated event, i lost my coral banded shrimp today. I know its unrelated becuase i have seen this coming for about 2 weeks now. He lost an arm and just went downhill from there. I noticed that he grew the arm back yesterday, then today he died while i was at work. RIP CBS.

 

[veni vidi vici]

Sugar dosing isnt anything new.Its been used effectively to reduce Nitrates and Phosphates the same way as Vodka dosing does.Good luck Rotary and change your freakin water once in a while lol

 

[rtspeed]

Besides for water changes all of the ways to lower nitrates is some what of a risk. But as long as you do things in small moderation and keep a watchful eye on it, i say go for it.
also look into building yourself a coil denitrator.

 

[rotarygeek]

Well day 2 of my experiment hasn't changed anything. My nitrates are still high, my ph is still 8.4. Oh i forgot to mention that on day 1 my ph was 8.4 also. I can't seem to find my firefish goby either. But he has been missing for about a week now.... I know he comes and goes as he pleases and hides in the rockwork alot, but i haven't even seen him when i feed, so im kinda wondering if he hasn't died. I do have a patch of red slime algea starting on a rock (im guessing thats what it is. Its a dark red, almost a purplish sort of color) and as of today, part of it is bleached white. I know i read on -- that this will starve out most other forms of algea and kill them off, so i wonder if this is already starting to take effect. Also note that as far as i have seen, it doesn't kill coraline algea, but it does slow its growth alot. As for why i have high nitrates in the first place, its becuase of the lack of water changes and i suspect other people feeding my tank when im not around. I feed a strict schedule of 1/2 a cube of mysis shrimp every other day. I don't rinse them off, i just defrost them in a cup of tank water, so that could be a form of phospates coming in feeding the algea. But i don't have a test kit for phosphates yet but i will be getting one. On a side note, my skimmer has gone nuts. It has collected more in just the last 24 hours than it normally does in 2-3 days. I knew it was going to happen, and im kinda happy about it becuase it didn't work as a skimmer that well anyways. So in the end i dosed another 1/8th teaspoon today. Il check it all again tomorrow morning and post more results.

 

[prime311]

I did this for awhile with no issues. I stopped because my Nitrates don't crack 15 anymore anyway. Aside from the oxygen depletion though, theres not a lot of danger in adding sugar.

 

[rotarygeek]

Wow lot of people checking this thread out, but not alot replying. Comeon people, tell me what you think. Ok so day three actually yealded some results. My nitrates are a definete 80 ppm. Before it was almost impossible to distinguish the two colors of 80 and 160, but for some reason it was actually a solid 80 ppm today. Also my ph has significatly dropped from 8.4 down to 7.9. Im not sure if its becuase i checked earlier than i normally do (around this time i guess, maybe a little earlier) but i checked about 10 minutes after my lights came on. I know that your ph swings before and after your lights come on, so that could be a variable. To help combat this, i left the lid on my canopy open to help with areation and gas exchange. Another thing i thought of was that i had been dosing a capfull of purple up everyday. It was working to accelerate my coraline growth, but i noticed i got a GHA bloom after that. Its all along the sandbed and in some high flow areas in my tank. There is a patch growing on a rock about a foot infront of a modded maxijet. It likes really high flow areas i guess. But other than that stuff, i don't really have anything to report. My fish and inverts are all doing fine. Skimmer still skimming its little heart out. White patch on the red slime algea is about the same size today. I did notice alot of small feather dusters on a rock in the back that i have never seen before. I don't know if its becuase maybe they weren't having to work so hard for there food before and now there are, or what, but they are out. I see about 20 of them. Pure white, no real colors. So in the end, i dosed another 1/8th tsb of sugar today. Tomorrow i will check all my water perameters becuase im moving up to 1/4 tsb and want to make sure everything is ok first. Give me some feedback people.

 

[rotarygeek]

Oh i forgot to add that i have stopped dosing purple up. I know i need to get a caclium test kit before i start dosing again, but i wanted to experiment with that and see if it works. It does btw. I have a rock that i covered in a thin pilm of coraline in about a weeks time now. So i will be buying a calcium test kit and a phosphate test kit in the near future before i dose anymore purple up. The phosphate kit isn't really needed becuase im trying to get it as far down as i can, so i don't really absolutley need to know where it is right now, just in the end i need to know that they are close to if not at zero. If you can think of something im missing or something i should be doing, post up and let me know.

 

[sly]

Originally Posted by RotaryGeek
http:///forum/post/2729739
Oh i forgot to add that i have stopped dosing purple up.
Absolutely good move... It is very difficult to maintain proper water parameters with this stuff. The best thing you can do is throw it away and buy the test kits like you said.

 

[mkzimms]

ive noticed everyone at SWF is very against adding anything to their tanks, everyone likes to keep it all organic and whatnot. if you peak around at the other forums you will see these types of experiments and other techniques that people are having tremendous success with. sometimes we have to step outside our comfort zone to make advancements in the hobby.
Originally Posted by RotaryGeek
http:///forum/post/2727467
Well im tired of having high nitrates and my live rock and chaeto isnt working enough to reduce it. ill be the first to admit im horrible about doing my water changes, and im the kind of guy who will look for the easy way to get things right..
i will say however that using solutions like vodka and sugar as well as amino acids and other types of dosing is they need really good attention paid to them... seriously if your not diligent enough to change your water regularly you will not have success using more advanced techniques that need precision.