Do vodka dosing and chateo mix?

[sledge760]

I started dosing vodka on my 180 gallon FOWLR around a month ago, and this past Saturday was given some Chaeto macroalgae. I already have a 20 gallon tank set up as a quarantine tank, which I decided I will turn into a fuge also with the chaeto. My question is will the vodka dosing at 2 ml a day at this time affect the Chaeto, as in kill it?

 

[Samala]

I dont think it will kill it outright from say poisoning but I think you are having competing methods of nutrient export with both vodka and Chaetomorpha. Vodka dosing, if I understand correctly, encourages export via microbes in the tank. Whereas with Chaeto you're going through the alga. I have a feeling your microbes will outcompete the algae if you dose vodka and give the bacteria enough carbon to work with.

This thread might help you out, and I'd love to hear from anyone out there who really knows their vodka dosing. I've never played with it. Dosing Organic carbon.

>Sarah

 

[graveyardworm]

Sledge, I would have to agree with Sarah. I was a little afraid to provide an answer earlier but I've done a little reading, and I dont think cheato and vodka would go to well together except perhaps in a tall glass with some ice. Here is what I read.

 

[Triterium]

Funny, I just dumped a half bottle of rum in my tank

 

[Samala]

Perfectly good rum you dumped into the tank?! What kind of 'student' are you? Is this the 180g that is having hazy water problems? Or the smaller planted setup under the MH + sun arrangement?

>Sarah

 

[Triterium]

They're all connected. The water is yellowish but getting better. Im using ozone, H2O2, and carbon.... and rum

 

[sledge760]

I mainly started the vodka dosing from hair and cyano problems I am having in an attempt to lower nitrates/phosphates which are a little high but nothing radical. Virtually everything I read about the vodka dosing said that it got rid of almost all nuisance algae completely.
Nitrates= 15 ppm
Phosphates= .5 ppm
Either way thanks your response. I think I may just go with growing out the chaeto rather than drowning my sorrows in the vodka.

 

[dalbrecht]

I grow chaeto and caulerpa in a fuge. I also occaisonally dose vinegar with my make up water. both help. I could probably get by with just one or the other but I find that 1) the vodka method works faster than chaeto and 2) macro is more steady.

In my experience, chaeto is less work and more reliable but it takes a while to reach optimal reduction capacity for the tank, I also find that due to the exponential increase in mass as it grows, its reduction isn't consistent between prunings, (highest just before I prune, drops by 50% after I prune). Dosing vinegar helps me fill in the gaps.

 

[sledge760]

I have not heard of dosing vinegar. Are there any threads here. How much do you dose? Amount per day etc...

 

[riotj]

so what is the dosing for vodka? Does it depend on the amount of nitrates you want to decrease? Thanks

 

[sledge760]

Below is pulled from a very large thread on this site. I am using it to bring down nitrates but mostly to get rid of the various types of microalgae that I cannot seem to get rid of.

BTW I am at day 23 of 2.5 ml day on a 180 gallon FOWLR and my algae looks exactly the same. Nothing noticible yet. Nitrates may be down slightly. I will still give this some more time to work.

You can start with 0.1 mL/100 L for the first three days.
Then you increase the vodka volume to 0.2 mL/100 L for day 4-7.
Subsequently to this initial week you increase the vodka dose by 0.5 mL per total tank volume (this is important, do not dose on a per 100L basis, but on the total tank volume!) every week.

So, e.g. for a 500 L tank:

day 1-3: 0.1 * 5 = 0.5 mL
day 4-7: 0.2 * 5 = 1 mL
2. week (day 8-14): 1 mL + 0.5 mL = 1.5 mL
3. week: 1.5 mL + 0.5 mL = 2 mL.

 

[Biogirl361]

i have a 40 gallon tank with high nitrates from a recent die-off of algae and a half of heaven hill in the freezer - would giving the tank a little drink help with the nitrates? if so, how much could i add? i've never heard of this before!!

 

[Samala]

I'm confused. I thought vodka dosing was for nutrient export via microbes, not for nutrient export via macro / plants. I dont see how dosing vodka would help the plants pull out more of your nitrates. Did I miss something critical behind the theory of ethanol dosing?

>Sarah

 

[graveyardworm]

i have a 40 gallon tank with high nitrates from a recent die-off of algae and a half of heaven hill in the freezer - would giving the tank a little drink help with the nitrates? if so, how much could i add? i've never heard of this before!!

I'm trying to figure out what the half of heaven hill in the freezer is, and why it might be relevent. Why did the algae die off if nitrates are high?

I think in your case water changes would probably be more appropriate.

 

[Biogirl361]

a load of cyano and other stuff died off because I treated the tank, this left high nitrates. I am doing water changes and skimming like crazy but still have some nitrates, so i just wanted more info about what this method is all about because it sounds interesting heaven hill is the kind of vodka that comes in the big plastic half gallon bottles it is in the freezer keeping cold.

 

[graveyardworm]

Read this, it may help to answer any questions you have.

 

[dalbrecht]

Sorry for the delay in re posting.

Dosing vinegar is the same basic principle as dosing vodka (vinegar is just fermented ethanol)

I dose it for 2 reasons.

1) because it's cheaper & easier to buy industrial bottles at sams club
2) because mixing it with kalk allows me slightly more calcium at a slightly lower ph. It also causes the kalk to be a bit more stable in solution (not by much).

It does primarilly benefit nutrient export via microbes in the water column. But, It also encourages growth of soil bacteria.

 

[wong BANTEN]

If you familiar with Soil bacteria, the YEAST is the answer for cycle of organic matter.
without fermentation glucose to alkohol ,......the cycle will be OFF

 

[sledge760]

I am going to 4 ml of vodka today, up from 3.5 on my 180 fowlr. Been almost a month of dosing now. Overall, not related to the chaeto, I really do not see any changes in my microalgae growth. Still have the hair algae and some cyano. Maybe I am not dosing enough?