dosing goes cold turkey

[Michael7979]

Since there hass been all this take of vodka and dosing in general.
I have a question for those in the know.


So what would happen if someone stopped dosing (their additive here) just cold turkey?
Would they have bad things happen or what? I have never found this answer in my looking around into this subject.

TIA

 

[btkrausen]

Always wondered that too. If I were to stop doising vodka right now, I'd slowly back off, instead of just stopping. I'm sure everyone's tank is different, and stopping may not do anything, but I don't volunteer to try it out :bigsmile:

 

[Michael7979]

Yeah I assumed that anyone that changed their mind and wanted to stop dosing would slowly eliminate it.

But what about "cold turkey"?

 

[Paul_N]

Usually nothing since most who stop dosing go back to what they were doing before they started dosing. If you stop then your N and P will begin to rise again. So if you don't start running GFO again or macro algae then you will have issues with your corals. I have went on vacation and not dosed for about a week and had no issues. I just picked up where I left off.

 

[btkrausen]

Vodka feeds the bacteria, so I'd assume that the bacteria would just slowly die off, and like Paul said, would just go back to your water quality you had before you started dosing.

 

[soccerbag]

I dosed Vodka and MB7 for over a year. I stopped 6 months or so ago - cold turkey on both and all of my corals looked better within days. I attribute that to the vodka stripping all of the nutrients out of the tank. Once I stopped, my NO3 and PO4 stabilized at very reasonable rates. I do run GFO from time to time but have not gone back to vodka and don't plan on it. It has it's place in the hobby but I've experienced better growth and color in my SPS since I have stopped dosing. That is just my experience. Please don't take it as gospel. Everyone's tank is different. I do run a monster skimmer and do weekly water changes. My NO3 runs around .5 to 1ppm and my PO4 runs at close to zero.

 

[Michael7979]

I dosed Vodka and MB7 for over a year. I stopped 6 months or so ago - cold turkey on both and all of my corals looked better within days. I attribute that to the vodka stripping all of the nutrients out of the tank. Once I stopped, my NO3 and PO4 stabilized at very reasonable rates. I do run GFO from time to time but have not gone back to vodka and don't plan on it. It has it's place in the hobby but I've experienced better growth and color in my SPS since I have stopped dosing. That is just my experience. Please don't take it as gospel. Everyone's tank is different. I do run a monster skimmer and do weekly water changes. My NO3 runs around .5 to 1ppm and my PO4 runs at close to zero.

Thanks for the response, that's the kinda answers I was hoping to see generated by this thread!

 

[Mr.Firemouth]

The real thing here is if you adjust your feeding to compensate for the low nutrient level you will be feeding heavily(multiple times per day and night). Now if you are feeding like this and stop cold turkey your system will spike in nutrients as the bacteria begin to collapse. So you would need to slow way down on feeding to be able to adjust to the change. Again, the point of bio-pellets is not just better water quality, but to have the ability to sustain a higher bio-load in both aquarium stock and heavy feedings through bacterial action. Almost all successful systems overseas is attributed to maintenance schedules and heavy feedings.(more frequency rather than more food per serving).

Many of the tanks have huge gorgonian seafans, flowerpot corals, and non-photosynthetic corals thriving along with fanworms of different species. If you are running a LNS(low nutrient system) then you should look into adding more feedings to compensate for too low of a nutrient level.

 

[Troylee]

I quit dosing and didn't notice Any thing different to be honest..., I dosed my tank from day one and just recently quit because I got lazy.... I know a bunch of people who have also kicked the bottle with no I'll effects lol....

 

[Michael7979]

Great responses!
Anyone else have a personal experience that they want to share?

Sounds like it is easier to quit then I thought. Was sure I would hear a horror story or two from people that stopped "cold turkey".
But I'm glad I haven't.

 

[Captain Nemo]

In my opnion, I think you should gradually step down the dosing ( assuming you wanted to ) so as to not shock the system. Just my opnion though.

 

[Paul_N]

Great responses!
Anyone else have a personal experience that they want to share?

Sounds like it is easier to quit then I thought. Was sure I would hear a horror story or two from people that stopped "cold turkey".
But I'm glad I haven't.

The main thing is going be making sure you have something in place for removing the nutrients since you will not be dosing. What are you going to use to remove them now that you are not dosing?

 

[Troylee]

i went back to rawaphos myself and just recently started the np pellets... i haven't really done any testing since i quit and i never really do but soon i will try checking my params i guess.... im guilty of never testing i know my tank well enough and only test once in a blue moon if im really stumped.... for the most part my acros are my test kits i can read them and adjust accordingly....:xd:

 

[akabryanhall]

If you stop giving your tank vodka, there are 12 steps that you need to follow to make it easier for it.

 

[Michael7979]

The main thing is going be making sure you have something in place for removing the nutrients since you will not be dosing. What are you going to use to remove them now that you are not dosing?

I'm in the process of thinking about starting.
I currently run a skimmer, carbon, and the occasional GFO.
In my research I just have never read anything about a sudden stopage of dosing. But as I said before I was looking for people that quit and what happened.
I fully understand that nothing should be done quickly in this hobby, slow and steady is always better atleast IMO.

 

[Michael7979]

If you stop giving your tank vodka, there are 12 steps that you need to follow to make it easier for it.

HAHAHAHA!!!
Now that's good! Twelve step program! Are you speaking from personal experiences?

 

[btkrausen]

Man, this thread really has been thinking about stopping dosing, but I don't know yet. I think the dosing has helped my bubble algae problem die down a little, but its still growing back slowly. Even with dosing vodka, I'm having to run my GFO to keep the phosphates down. I'm on day 70 today, and my tank is crystal clean, but it was before dosing too, and it was growing at its best before I started. The only reason I started was to help fight the bubble algae.

What do you think?