Vodka dosing whos doing it?

Ivan Panama · Jul 24, 2017

I use a very low dose of vodka every other day, 4ml per 130 gallon. I used to overdose, 10ml daily and nitrates went almost zero and phosphates were a little bit high. Ciano started to show up. I read about the redfield proportion, stop dosing vodka raise nitrates, now I keep 0.3 phos and 3 nitrates. No ciano. No algae.
Here is a basic chart
https://reefkeepers.cl/2016/04/14/proporcion-redfield/

MIchael10101 · Jul 24, 2017

I've been vodka dosing for about a year, and have had awesome success with it. Took nitrates down from 30 to <5 w/ 3mL daily for a 75 gallon display w/ a 25 gallon sump. I've had a few ups and downs, mainly b/c I changed out crushed coral for fiji pink sand. It's a very effective way at lowering nutrients in the tank. I've recently switched to chaeto though and I'm much happier w/o having to worry so much about the daily dosing. I'm slowly decreasing the dose by 0.5mL every other week. I'm down to 1.5mL daily and still at undetectable ranges.

LouieP · Jul 24, 2017

This thread might be more suited for the Chemistry forum which there is a couple of similar threads there now.
I was thinking about dosing iron gluconate but I think Im going to go Vodka or Vinegar.

Randy pointed out that he had cyano when he dosed vodka but when he dosed vinegar he didnt have cyano out break but it could have just been his system.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/nopox-and-gfo-use.301856/

Im thinking about Carbon dosing and Randy Homles-Farley directd me to this link

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/

Cory · Jul 24, 2017

Waterjockey said:
Just a couple of notes....I'm not sure dosing so much carbon that you see a bloom is a good thing....you could be riding the edge of a tipping point.....I've read a number of horror stories where people have had bacterial blooms wipe out their tanks.

It is also very easy to drive nitrates to zero, and if you dose nitrates along with carbon, you can drive phosphates to zero as well (zero being below measurable levels)....I've done it (intentionally), and it didn't work out well for my mixed mostly LPS tank. I have a Trachyphylia that is still recovering flesh from that incident 18 months ago, and a Wellso that never did recover. I feed very heavy, and dose enough carbon to maintain about 10ppm nitrates or so....I don't even bother testing for phosphate anymore and my LPS corals are much happier.

Yeah I don't recommend anyone experiment like me. Its dangerous to reef life. However i consider myself a bit of an advanced reefer so im not worried. Xenia is shrivilling, lps retract, maybe due to high flow, devils hand doesnt grow in a year with an ats/ or with the new tank. Its very low nutrient. I believe softies need the life of a sandbed. My tanks bare bottom. But sps respond very well with vodka. Im going to take out the softies and dedicate a little tank for them.

Cory · Jul 24, 2017

LouieP said:
This thread might be more suited for the Chemistry forum which there is a couple of similar threads there now.
I was thinking about dosing iron gluconate but I think Im going to go Vodka or Vinegar.

Randy pointed out that he had cyano when he dosed vodka but when he dosed vinegar he didnt have cyano out break but it could have just been his system.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/nopox-and-gfo-use.301856/

Im thinking about Carbon dosing and Randy Homles-Farley directd me to this link

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/

Yeah ive read that article. Imo the super slow dosing insnt necessary. The main concern is oxygen. Thats the danger to carbon dosing. We dont want it getting low. My tanks got 2400 gallon retun, as the water goes over the overflow it creates a massively loud crashing sound and mixes very well. Plus my skimmer. This tank isnt short on o2.

But with a tank with sand, and lots of organics decomposing in it, its an issue. Slow dosing important in that case. Also people who dont got crashing overflows but prefer the completely silent bean animal style overflows or tiny skimmers, be very careful vodka dosing.

SteveO64 · Jul 24, 2017

I've been dosiing vodka, vinegar and sugar for years. I occasionally get a white film. Never have any algae.

Mark Minkowitz · Jul 24, 2017

Any one have experience dosing with hydrogen peroxide. I dosed when had outbreak of ick. Wiped it out. Has kept algae growth to minimum. Didn't seem to effect my corals at all.

Cory · Jul 24, 2017

Mark Minkowitz said:
Any one have experience dosing with hydrogen peroxide. I dosed when had outbreak of ick. Wiped it out. Has kept algae growth to minimum. Didn't seem to effect my corals at all.

Ive dosed some in a bucket with live rock and saltwater. Bristle worms floated. Hair algae fizzled. Bubble algae died after a few days in the tank. Its pretty strong stuff.

Did you dose it directly to the tank? How much were you dosing?

kireek · Jul 25, 2017

I have been using Vodka and vinegar for a few years now.I don't know how I managed without them.As @jsker would say "I'm not busy doing a water change anymore."

Bruce Burnett · Jul 25, 2017

Cory said:
Yeah I don't recommend anyone experiment like me. Its dangerous to reef life. However i consider myself a bit of an advanced reefer so im not worried. Xenia is shrivilling, lps retract, maybe due to high flow, devils hand doesnt grow in a year with an ats/ or with the new tank. Its very low nutrient. I believe softies need the life of a sandbed. My tanks bare bottom. But sps respond very well with vodka. Im going to take out the softies and dedicate a little tank for them.

Why did you stop using ATS

Cory · Jul 26, 2017

Bruce Burnett said:
Why did you stop using ATS

Just because it seemed i couldnt drop po4 low enough to grow sps, Even though po4 showed 0 on hanna. With vodka it gets low enough for good growth, but gotta be careful with it. I may go back to an ats, just if vodka isnt working. The screen was one sided 12x 18" in about 20 gallons of water net. Lit by two red led light strips. Also if I didn't scrape it, the algae would start to decompose. And algae then slowly grew in the tank. The tank was bare bottom, and i got lazy siphoning detrtus. however there were 11 fish in there at one point 10 chromis and 1 yellow coral goby, and the ats completely supported them. This was an ats only tank. They are now in the 240.