Vodka dosing, Im at a loss!! HELP!!

[BroccoliFarmer]

Ok. Background. I had a nitrate and phosphate spike about three months ago and it caused my tank to slow motion crash. Levels were so high my Hanna HR eggs laughed at me and said..nope, not even gonna try!! so here I am doing water changes like mad and not even making a dent (well...probably did..but still not enough to register on my Eggs). I had to watch in horror as I had a slow motion tank crash losing Euphyllia after Euphyllia over a course of 4 weeks. I was not happy.

I then decided to see if my good friends on R2R had any suggestions and low and behold I hear about this thing called carbon dosing and by scanning the thread titles, it seemed like Vodka was the way to go. So hear I am trying to do this miracle of vodka dosing over the course of a few weeks. I followed the dosage based on my sized tank. No changes. Nothing. No effect what so ever. Not going to lie to you, the amounts of vodka seemed ridiculous low. After a couple of weeks, I decided to dose vodka on what I figured was appropriate volumes. Started off with 50ml a day. Nothing. Two days later, I doubled the dose. I continued down this path of doubling the dose every other day and continued to measure the levels of my tank. So here I am 3 weeks after my custom dosing schedule began, drunk as hell and my nitrates are still through the roof. I honestly dont think I can do another shot!!. Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong?!?

[edit by moderator: this is a joke. Do not follow this procedure on a reef tank]

 

[Dan_P]

Ok. Background. I had a nitrate and phosphate spike about three months ago and it caused my tank to slow motion crash. Levels were so high my Hanna HR eggs laughed at me and said..nope, not even gonna try!! so here I am doing water changes like mad and not even making a dent (well...probably did..but still not enough to register on my Eggs). I had to watch in horror as I had a slow motion tank crash losing Euphyllia after Euphyllia over a course of 4 weeks. I was not happy.

I then decided to see if my good friends on R2R had any suggestions and low and behold I hear about this thing called carbon dosing and by scanning the thread titles, it seemed like Vodka was the way to go. So hear I am trying to do this miracle of vodka dosing over the course of a few weeks. I followed the instructions based on my sized tank. No changes. Nothing. No effect what so ever. Not going to lie to you, the amounts of vodka seemed ridiculous low. After a couple of weeks, I decided to dose vodka on what I figured was appropriate volumes. Started off with 50ml a day. Nothing. Two days later, I doubled the dose. I continued down this path of doubling the dose every other day and continued to measure the levels of my tank. So here I am 3 weeks after my custom dosing schedule began, drunk as hell and my nitrates are still through the roof. Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong?!?

Have you confirmed that nitrite is 0? Nitrite throws off the nitrate test.

If you follow the vodka dosing table on the internet, you are under dosing. The table was improperly scaled. For vinegar, the upper limit is 1-2 mL gallon and that is when you should see white slime forming all over. For vodka the number is about 1/8 this amount per gallon.

What is your dosing rate?

 

[Dbichler]

You started with 50ml of vodka on an 80 gallon tank wow. You had to have had a severe bacteria outbreak with that high of a dose. I dose a diy vodka and vinegar and rodi at 50ml a day on my 210. If you haven’t seen nitrates drop in a month of dosing you’re probably bottomed out on phosphates and have to dose phosphate In order to get nitrates to drop. Just so you’re aware dosing should be incremental slowly going up until nitrates get to desired level then cut in half as a routine dosage.

 

[neo1738]

You're putting the vodka in your mouth not the tank

 

[Lavey29]

I honestly don't understand this approach. How did your nitrates and phosphate get so high? What caused this and were you not checking weekly? Did you do any water changes? Now your solution is to overdose vodka into the tank hoping to slam those numbers down to zero? You have recipe for another tank crash to start for sure.

Slow down, figure out what caused your problem. Correct that issue. Initiate a proper remedy but start slow and then increase as needed.

 

[Tamberav]

So here I am 3 weeks after my custom dosing schedule began, drunk as hell and my nitrates are still through the roof. I honestly dont think my live can take this anymore. Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong?!?

 

[BroccoliFarmer]

So here I am 3 weeks after my custom dosing schedule began, drunk as hell and my nitrates are still through the roof. I honestly dont think my liver can take this anymore. Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong?!?

You're putting the vodka in your mouth not the tank

Ok. bout darn time someone got the joke!!

 

[G Santana]

I started at almost 80, it took weeks before I saw movement following the chart I got here and then bam it started to move down, it took 12 weeks to lower it to single digits.
This process is not a fast process but it does work and all that was achieved without a single water change.

I just checked my notes and it took 4 weeks before I saw change, it first dropped a little over 2 points and several weeks later I saw a 5 point drop and slowly it dropped.
Hope this helps

 

[aggrofish]

People don’t read the whole post do they?

 

[CNDReef]

Never lol

 

[Koh23]

You have skimmer, right?

Votka dosing is verry efficient, i always dosed per chart, accuate or not, there is always risk of problems.....

But, dont improvise on dosing, on much larger tank i newer under any circumstances didnt come to dosing above 15-20ml daily..... And it worked like charm....

 

[JGT]

I started at almost 80, it took weeks before I saw movement following the chart I got here and then bam it started to move down, it took 12 weeks to lower it to single digits.
This process is not a fast process but it does work and all that was achieved without a single water change.

I just checked my notes and it took 4 weeks before I saw change, it first dropped a little over 2 points and several weeks later I saw a 5 point drop and slowly it dropped.
Hope this helps

I’m in the same boat as you were. Was using the Salifert NO3 test and thought my nitrates were around 20 or so. Got the Hanna and nitrates were at 60! Some water changes got it down to low 30’s. Started slowly ramping up DIY NoPox and got omid 20’s but stalled. Realized my PO4 is .01 which is limiting further NO3 reduction so just ordered some trisodium phosphate to get my PO 4 numbers up. Hopefully that will resolve the issue.

 

[Lavey29]

Ok. bout darn time someone got the joke!!

Do you think the vodka makes the fish more festive too? Kind of like a fish happy hour.

 

[G Santana]

I’m in the same boat as you were. Was using the Salifert NO3 test and thought my nitrates were around 20 or so. Got the Hanna and nitrates were at 60! Some water changes got it down to low 30’s. Started slowly ramping up DIY NoPox and got omid 20’s but stalled. Realized my PO4 is .01 which is limiting further NO3 reduction so just ordered some trisodium phosphate to get my PO 4 numbers up. Hopefully that will resolve the issue.

Funny that you say that, I was also going by Salifert and the week I got my Hanna I freaked out and started to search for info on Vodka dosing.

 

[Lavey29]

Also from the internet for the OP:

The increased bacterial biomass and growth will decrease your dissolved O2 levels in the water column. Too much vodka can result in a drastic decrease of O2 and can cause stress to your reef inhabitants, if not death.

 

[Lyss]

I carbon dose, but w/Nopox b/c that's what I have and it lasts forever for me. ANY way, it took months for me to see a difference, and then finally get to where I want to be -- VERY slowly increasing the dose until I arrived there, then slowly lowering it until I got to a maintenance dose. I really feel patience is key w/this so you don't end up w/the opposite problem and bottom out your nutrients or cause a bacterial bloom that wipes out your tank.

Just recently I had a small nitrate spike and a what the heck-is-going-on crazy high phosphate spike. Here is what I did, in case it might be helpful to you:

1. Upped the nopox dose slightly until I saw nitrates beginning to drop again
2. Swapped my usual chemipure blue for chemipure elite.

Instant difference w/the chemipure elite, and phosphate is on its way back down again.

Be careful w/dropping nitrates -- I had to stop dosing alk b/c my alk always climbs when the nitrates are actively falling.

 

[JGT]

Funny that you say that, I was also going by Salifert and the week I got my Hanna I freaked out and started to search for info on Vodka dosing.

Yes, I read your thread. Same sitch.

 

[Manny’s Reef]

Love it. Don’t you know that tequila is better than vodka for your liver. Plus, you can triple the dose.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

it seemed like Vodka was the way to go.

I personally think vinegar is a better option than vodka, but both work as long as cyano does not become a problem.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

After a couple of weeks, I decided to dose vodka on what I figured was appropriate volumes. Started off with 50ml a day. Nothing. Two days later, I doubled the dose. I continued down this path of doubling the dose every other day and continued to measure the levels of my tank. So here I am 3 weeks after my custom dosing schedule began, drunk as hell and my nitrates are still through the roof.

So the whole thread is a joke?

I am concerned about folks reading the first few posts only and following this procedure.

I feel strongly enough that I'm going to edit the first post to make that clear.