Did you automate vodka dosing? How

[JGT]

Start low, gradually increase at a low rate, then if you run into nitrates suddenly dropping and bottoming out, or you start seeing cyano/dinoflagellates, back off the dosage, wait a week or two, and then start ramping up again if they've gone away and your nitrates are again rising.

I'm basically dosing the same way as described above, started at around 1mL/day on a 45g tank that is heavily fed and stocked, slowly ramped up, and then found myself with a cyano bloom and some dinos, ended up cutting back quite significantly, and my optimum dosage seems to be around 3mL a day right now. It may even be wise to slowly increase the dosing until your nitrates drop to the desired level, then immediately cut the daily dosage by 1/3 or 1/2 to a more maintenance level, but I haven't personally tried it - it just may be a good way to dodge cyano/dino issues.

I did the same. Started at 1ml/25, then 2ml/25, 2.5ml/25 and now 3ml/25. Been at 3ml for about 2 weeks and no blooms. Expecting over the next couple of weeks for the nitrate numbers to start to drop. I started around 60 and am now down to 30 but that’s also with weekly WC. My PO4 has gotten as low as .01 so started dosing P04 so I don’t bottom out and become PO4 limited.

 

[DaJMasta]

I don't know if it's my feeding or my system, but my phosphate readings have not been that effected by carbon dosing (vodka only). I'm regularly up near 1ppm phosphate, so I'm adding a few drops of Phosphate Rx every few weeks to keep things in check, but my nitrates are typically 10 or less, and I'm right on the edge of seeing dino growth and sub 5ppm nitrates in terms of how much I dose.

Perhaps an abnormality (I feed heavy with frozen and live phyto), but at least in my system, I haven't seen a strong link between carbon dosing and phosphate reduction.

 

[JGT]

Yeah it’s supposed to have more of an in impact on nitrates than phosphates but my phosphates were .04-.06 to start so I guess the effect it’s having is more pronounced given my numbers were fairly low to begin with.

 

[BroccoliFarmer]

Any thoughts on should you dose the entire quantity at once or should you spread it out over the day?

 

[DaJMasta]

The quantity is going to be tiny, so it shouldn't be particularly detrimental one way or another. You could think of it in the vein of 'what kind of bacteria do I want to be blooming' and dose early for photosynthetic ones or late for not, but even then at a daily frequency, I don't think the difference is going to be big because any bloom you generate by dosing isn't going to be entirely died out by the next dose.

 

[legionofdoon]

I noticed better nitrate reduction when I started to back off the Nopox dose. I was up to 15 ml per day and they kept going up. I saw somewhere on here that the Red sea rep said that on occasion nopox will reduce down to nitrite and I figured that I was getting a false reading. I dropped down to six ml per day and nitrates went from 40 to 10 over a few weeks. I also use Dr tims waste away gels and when I was in the higher dose it would grow a slime shield around it

 

[Tub Life]

Home made nopox on apex dos

Do you still do this?
I have a DOS sitting around and am currently researching carbon dosing.
Do you just follow the homemade recipe described here and follow the RS dosing schedule?