Nopox, Diy Nopox or Vodka

[ZoWhat]

For extreme situations where one has let things get out of hand with NO3 going over 30ppm.... I would dose 80proof Vodka.

Nopox is 2part ethanol (vodka) to 1part 5% Vinegar with RODI. There is no live bacteria in nopox whatsoever.

If you dose let's say 1 capful of 80proof Vodka followed by 1/2 capful of 5% food grade vinegar. Voooolaaah! You dosed homemade nopox.

For situations where you are just trying to control NO3 to hover around 10, I've been using Tropic Marins Bacto Balance. Seems to work well in balancing a number like 10.

Vodka always wants to bottom things out from "xx" to 1ppm too quick. Bacto allows you to find a sweetspot number without blowing past it going down to "1" or "0"

As with ANYTHING you use to control NO3 you are controlling beneficial bacteria which can BLOOM making the water cloudy.

Word of WARNING is blooms can lead to a rapid depletion of Oxygen, making your fish suffer and possibly die overnight.

Oxygenated your water during beneficial bacteria blooms


.

 

[atomos]

What did you start dosing at and did you increase the dosage prior to settling on an amount and what size is your tank?
Thanks

From what I found on various threads here and there, I was basing my program kick-off with the recommended baseline below:

Starting Dose at 0.1mL per 25 gallons of net water volume for first three days.
Followed by 0.2mL per 25 gallons of net water volume for days 4 through 7.
Then, addition of 0.5mL per week (regardless of aquarium volume), until Nitrates become undetectable.

Use 40% ABV or 80 proof only - no flavoring

For the dosing amounts:
So with our 20-gallon, I just kept it at 0.1mL so I didn't have to take out the old Texas Instrument. As for our 55g, I have it at 0.2mL (at 50G to be conservative) and the 125G at 1.0mL (finally).

FWIW, I dose with Smirnoff or Sveda or Skyy...or whichever vodka I can get at a good price at TW, Costco or BevMo....LOL

 

[G Santana]

Well I went out today to purchase libations for Thanksgiving and I picked up a 1.75 liter of inexpensive Vodka.
Per the advice and the dosing schedule I received and I dosed my tank with .5ml to start my dosing regimen.
Looking forward to watching my nitrates diminish.
Who would have thought that adding Vodka to a reef tank would be a Thing lol, certainly not me back in the 80's

 

[atomos]

Well I went out today to purchase libations for Thanksgiving and I picked up a 1.75 liter of inexpensive Vodka.
Per the advice and the dosing schedule I received and I dosed my tank with .5ml to start my dosing regimen.
Looking forward to watching my nitrates diminish.
Who would have thought that adding Vodka to a reef tank would be a Thing lol, certainly not me back in the 80's

LOL---definitely looking forward to the results...

 

[Spieg]

Well I went out today to purchase libations for Thanksgiving and I picked up a 1.75 liter of inexpensive Vodka.
Per the advice and the dosing schedule I received and I dosed my tank with .5ml to start my dosing regimen.
Looking forward to watching my nitrates diminish.
Who would have thought that adding Vodka to a reef tank would be a Thing lol, certainly not me back in the 80's

Is it helping?

 

[MaxTremors]

One thing to keep in mind is that carbon dosing won’t lower your nitrates if you don’t have a decent, detectable amount of phosphates (at least 0.03ppm). I’ve been dosing kalk saturated vinegar for quite a few months and wasn’t getting great results, my phosphates have always been nearly undetectable, so after I started dosing phosphates, the nitrates came down.

 

[Jeffcb]

Well I went out today to purchase libations for Thanksgiving and I picked up a 1.75 liter of inexpensive Vodka.
Per the advice and the dosing schedule I received and I dosed my tank with .5ml to start my dosing regimen.
Looking forward to watching my nitrates diminish.
Who would have thought that adding Vodka to a reef tank would be a Thing lol, certainly not me back in the 80's

If you get the good stuff you can share it with your tank!! Little nip for me, a little nip for the tank!

 

[coral_joe]

Thank you for this discussion, I have been reading up along with all the good advice and decided to go with NOPOx.