Experimenting with Vinegar at high levels.

[HighlandReefer]

I am now starting to see a change in what I have to scrape off the glass of my aquarium and off the sides of my Pepsi barrel refugium. When I had problems with microalgae, I was scrapping what appeared to be green algae off. Now the green is gone and am scrapping off what appears to be a clear colored growth, which will need to be scrapped of the glass about once per week. I need to clean the sides of the refugium twice per week and if I let it go, the growth will turn to a brown color. Bacteria?

I have a cheap microscope around somewhere, from when I was a kid. I was thinking about looking at this growth using it. I would not know exactly what to look for to ID bacteria from algae. I assume the size difference between the two would be significant.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Yes, that is likely some form of bacteria, but under a microscope bacteria vary a lot. Let us know what it looks like!

[HighlandReefer]

I forgot I have a stereoscope. I was able to rig up my camera on top of this and digitally enhance the pictures somewhat. The magnification is not as good. This is the best I could do:

[HighlandReefer]

Either the size of the picture file is limited or I am doing something wrong in the code?

[HighlandReefer]

The larger more solid things in the pictures are a single celled microscopic animal. There are quite a few of them. I recognize them, but can't remember what they are called. It has been a while since I took Zoo.

[HighlandReefer]

After looking at the samples from my refugium, I think the larger strings where you can see the individual cells & are a green in color are algae. The remaining are too small to see the individual cells, which I believe to be bacterial.

The bacterial only appear to grow on the glass of the aquarium and the walls of the refugium and are easily cleaned off once per week. Not a problem for me currently.

At this point, I still have not removed the crushed coral and plan on doing that when my back recuperates. I plan on letting things ride for now.

[HighlandReefer]

I just read an article by Eric Borneman: "The Food of Reefs, Part 5: Bacteria": http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-01/eb/index.php

I did not realize the importance of bacteria as a food source for corals, sometimes providing 100% of some corals food. I do not understand what seems to be, IMHO, an over concern about bacterial blooms in relation to vinegar dosing.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

IMO, the concern is not the bacteria, aside from unsightliness, but the potential for rapid O2 depletion.

[HighlandReefer]

Would a meter provide an accurate way of monitoring this problem?

[Genetics]

Originally posted by HighlandReefer
Would a meter provide an accurate way of monitoring this problem?

If there was one for O2 that could be on constantly in saltwater then yes.

[kaskiles]

Wouldn't ORP be good for watching for an O2 crash while driving bacteria? The O2 monitors are very expensive compared to the ORP ones...

[HighlandReefer]

When mixing vinegar with kalk at the standard 15 ml vinegar / 1 tsp kalk you will dissolve additional calcium. When you increase the rate like I have, more is dissolved and possibly contaminates as well. Is this comparable to using a calcium reactor?

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Wouldn't ORP be good for watching for an O2 crash while driving bacteria? The O2 monitors are very expensive compared to the ORP ones...

No, I do not think that ORP and O2 levels are connected enough in a reef tank to make monitoring ORP useful to track O2.

[polysynth]

Originally posted by HighlandReefer
I am now starting to see a change in what I have to scrape off the glass of my aquarium and off the sides of my Pepsi barrel refugium. When I had problems with microalgae, I was scrapping what appeared to be green algae off. Now the green is gone and am scrapping off what appears to be a clear colored growth, which will need to be scrapped of the glass about once per week. I need to clean the sides of the refugium twice per week and if I let it go, the growth will turn to a brown color. Bacteria?

Any update on your tank? How does your inhabitants react to all this? good/bad? How's your skimmate?

I recently supplemented vinegar to my tank as well through a kalk reactor and I am having the exact same symptoms you described above. I don't have green algae growing on my glass anymore but I get a more brown growth along with some clear/brown stringy growth on some of my rocks. My tank inhabitant overall though seem to be enjoying the low nutrient, and I can feed more as well. And my water column seems clearer as well. Please let me know how your tank is reacting to the vinegar.

[HighlandReefer]

Everything in my tank is the same. I do not have any bacterial growth on my rock. I get a small amount on the glass of my tank. I have more on the wall in my Pepsi barrel refugium, which I need to clean off once per week. The sps corals are growing well now. The Xenia, Kenya tree & toadstool are growing and look good but are not growing as fast as when the nitrates were high. I noticed the Xenia started to pulse when the nitrates hit 0. My Maxima clam is opening much wider & has grown faster. My Derasa clam opens much better and is growing well. I have noticed that the Derasa clam started about one week ago to elevate a tube up and releases a stringy substance. Not quite sure what this is all about?

If you are getting bacterial growth covering your rocks, you may want to back off of the total amount of vinegar you dose or you could watch it and see if it will go away. How much vinegar are you adding now?

[polysynth]

10 ml of vinegar per gallon of kalk/RO/DI.

[HighlandReefer]

I am not sure why some tanks experience bacterial growth on rocks and sand, while others do not. How much rock and how deep is the sand bed in your tank? Do you have a refugium? If so how deep is the sand and do you have macroalgae in it & how big is it?

You might try reducing the amount of vinegar to half of what you are using and see what happens.

[CHUBAKAH]

Man Cliff, you sure have gone scientific on us. How's you're tank looking now a days? I still haven't seen you're tank thread over at the local group.

If I don't catch up with you soon, Have a great Thanksgiving!

[HighlandReefer]

I'm trying to keep up with your Brightwell Aquatics NeoZeo methods.

Happy Thanksgiving.

[polysynth]

Originally posted by HighlandReefer
I am not sure why some tanks experience bacterial growth on rocks and sand, while others do not. How much rock and how deep is the sand bed in your tank? Do you have a refugium? If so how deep is the sand and do you have macroalgae in it & how big is it?

You might try reducing the amount of vinegar to half of what you are using and see what happens.

My water volume is about ~27 Gal with about ~20lb (rough estimate) of rock. Sand bed is about 1~1.5 inch. Grow macroalgae about a size of a softball in rear chamber of my Solana. But other than that, no fuge.

I am actually thinking of keeping the vinegar level. I want to see what the bacteria will actually do to the tank. Everyone seem to just see the bacterial growth and conclude that it's bad without actually seeing what it does. Of course I will keep a close eye on it to make sure nothing gets out of control. As long as nothing "crash", the system will come to a steady-state. I want to see what the affect of the bacteria is in the long run.

[CHUBAKAH]

Originally posted by HighlandReefer
I'm trying to keep up with your Brightwell Aquatics NeoZeo methods.

Good luck with that.

[HighlandReefer]

Originally posted by polysynth
My water volume is about ~27 Gal with about ~20lb (rough estimate) of rock. Sand bed is about 1~1.5 inch. Grow macroalgae about a size of a softball in rear chamber of my Solana. But other than that, no fuge.

I am actually thinking of keeping the vinegar level. I want to see what the bacteria will actually do to the tank. Everyone seem to just see the bacterial growth and conclude that it's bad without actually seeing what it does. Of course I will keep a close eye on it to make sure nothing gets out of control. As long as nothing "crash", the system will come to a steady-state. I want to see what the affect of the bacteria is in the long run.

Keep us posted on what you see. I am interested in how the vinegar dosing works in tanks without deep sand beds.

[HighlandReefer]

I ran out of vinegar Monday, so I just added the kalk to my top-off. Now it is Friday and I have microalgae growing on my rocks, sand bed & glass again. I also have a small patch of cyano starting to grow. It has been one month since I changed my GFO also. I am tempted to just change the GFO and see what happens for a while and experiment with the cyano & GFO. I need to test my parameters also.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Well, it sounds like your tank is addicted to it.

[HighlandReefer]

I signed my tank up to VA (Vinegaraholics Anonymous). I bought a couple more gallons to help it through this crisis.