vinegar dosing with a scrubber

[greenmachine]

Just as an experiment I started dosing vinegar last week. I started with .2ml and am now up to 5ml. The scrubber is my only filtration. My hope was that the extra bacteria would feed the soft corals. The only changes so far have been a touch more color in some soft corals(could just be due to water clarity) and less algae on front glass. I know a while back Santamonica had dabbled in carbon dosing, I wonder what he observed?

[greenmachine]

do pods eat bacteria? I seem to be low on pods.

[SantaMonica]

Microscopic ones do, which should be part of the food chain.

[greenmachine]

santa , do you still dose carbon at all? what did you note when you did?

[SantaMonica]

No. It worked to bring N and P down but would form a slime.

[greenmachine]

Do you see a problem with carbon dosing with a scrubber and no skimmer?

[SantaMonica]

No, except the work and possible slime.

[Floyd R Turbo]

From the feedback I am getting, you can carbon dose along side a scrubber via biopellets or Tropic Marin Reef Actif and the scrubber will still grow great (at least, it does for my customers using these products) but it seems that vinegar and possibly vodka dosing don't quite work the same, and result in lower scrubber growth. Not sure why this is. There might be another factor. Also the data I have is purely anecdotal and very highly tank-dependent.

[greenmachine]

thanks floyd , I am now up to a 8ml dose. my green toadstool leather got about 10% larger over the last few weeks,I don't know if this is due to the carbon dosing or from the phyto dosing? BUT my water is in fact more clear than before I dosed vinegar. I see no ill effects as of yet. My scrubber is growing fine although I still have that issue on one side of the screen where It grows what I call "paint skin" rather than algae. I would LOVE to get to the bottom of that one!

[SantaMonica]

Vinegar and vodka are immediate spike dosages; pellets and actif are delayed/metered.