Who's Consuming My Vodka?

[redfishbluefish]

I had a long, tough day and final able to sit down at about 8 PM. I pour myself a little Tito's hand crafted to carbon dose myself and sit and enjoy my tank. While I'm sitting there sipping on the good stuff, I'm saying to myself, you poor sucker bacteria, you're getting the best vodka $11.99 could buy.....Traveler's Club Vodka....but still liking it! I reflect back to my PhD days at the Center of Alcohol Studies at Rutgers University in the early 70's and think about how they are converting alcohol to aldehyde and pulling this into the Krebs Cycle making ATP.....and I say to myself.....wait, if bacteria can do this, corals must be able to metabolize alcohol as well. It never hit me! (I also reflect on wishing I had lab time to isolate the enzymes in my corals). When we carbon dose our tanks, the corals must also be consuming this "carbon" as well. I have a fully mature tank and now wonder if I need to compensate for all those corals so that the bacteria have a pinch of vodka for themselves, while the corals party hardy with the vodka.

 

[ocboat]

Love the post!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

lol

It is certainly known that corals, sponges, etc. take up acetate and metabolize it. Even algae can. That's partly why I chose vinegar.

So it is reasonably likely that the same is true of ethanol, but I don't recall searching on that.

 

[Rick.45cal]

I had a long, tough day and final able to sit down at about 8 PM. I pour myself a little Tito's hand crafted to carbon dose myself and sit and enjoy my tank. While I'm sitting there sipping on the good stuff, I'm saying to myself, you poor sucker bacteria, you're getting the best vodka $11.99 could buy.....Traveler's Club Vodka....but still liking it! I reflect back to my PhD days at the Center of Alcohol Studies at Rutgers University in the early 70's and think about how they are converting alcohol to aldehyde and pulling this into the Krebs Cycle making ATP.....and I say to myself.....wait, if bacteria can do this, corals must be able to metabolize alcohol as well. It never hit me! (I also reflect on wishing I had lab time to isolate the enzymes in my corals). When we carbon dose our tanks, the corals must also be consuming this "carbon" as well. I have a fully mature tank and now wonder if I need to compensate for all those corals so that the bacteria have a pinch of vodka for themselves, while the corals party hardy with the vodka.

Now the question becomes... "Who get's the lion's share?"

 

[redfishbluefish]

I would imagine that bacteria's ability to grow and multiply quickly, they could increase their biomass, sucking up that vodka before the corals even have a chance to pull up to the bar. I've got to believe this is similar to how they over-compete with algae for the nitrates and phosphates.

 

[jason2459]

I don't know about directly but the ethanol will be metabolized partly to acetic acid which as Randy already pointed out will be taken up by many things as it's a very basic carbon source.