Carbon dosing certainly is not a new concept, but it has become more popular in recent years as hobbyist have been learning more about it and seeing some good results.  It can be argued that this topic must be researched just as you would any other aspect of the hobby, but I would suggest this would require a little more detailed research as carbon dosing requires a good understand of: maintaining good water chemistry (water parameters), the factors that affect water chemistry, and how to quickly recognize changes in the appearance of your corals and/or the behavior of your fish.  I would even go as far as to suggest using this article to guide your further research into this topic before deciding to start carbon dosing.

In addition, if your only goal for carbon dosing is to reduce very high levels nitrates and phosphates, then I would suggest carbon dosing may not be for you.  In this instance, carbon dosing is only addressing the symptoms of high levels of nitrates and phosphates and not the causes of them.  You could still have a problem with your set-up that is just not noticeable now and possible has even been complicated even more.  After all, your very high nitrates and phosphates were not caused by a lack of carbon dosing.

I’ll try to explain what I have learned about carbon dosing and share some of my experiences with it.  I prefer to explain things in layman’s terms as much as possible as I usually just give myself a headache when I try to correctly spell all of the scientific terms or all of the different scientific names of all the different types of bacteria.

Continue reading →