Hey Ken! (and anyone else)

[David P]

Something I've thought about for a long time but never tried it, that I hear you're now doing is dosing Vodka. By the way you mentioned Absolute I think because its cheap, I got a gallon of Popov (I think its popov....5 in the am and on first cup of coffee, plus I don't know squat about booze) for $10 at Costco. My tank is 120, the overflow splits half into a 60f fuge, which in turns meats back up with the other half of the overflow into a 65g sump. I just started Sunday dosing only 1ml. I cleaned and adjusted my skimmer immediately prior to the dosing and about an hour later I walked by I noticed the foam in the skimmer to be a little different. The skimmer seems to be pulling out more gunk. Have you found any other differences yet? How do you decide how much to dose, percentage, set ml, two fingers?

As an aside, I have a lawnmower blenny who is not real friendly, not that its mean it just doesn't swim up and beg for food when you walk by. (I only bought it because it has a cool bright orange stripe running the length of its dorsal fin and looks kinda cool) Anyhow, I think my fish has a drinking problem. When I dose the Vodka, I squirt it into the jet stream from one of my closed loop ports. As soon as I do that the lawn mover flies over and seems to try to swim in the alcohol! Every day! animals are strange.

 

[Konadog]

Yep, started almost 2 months ago. That is the first thing you will notice is that the skimmer will start working overtime, producing thick foam. Set your skimmer to run wet for best results. Keep adding a little more Vodka until you notice a white film starting to show up on your glass and you'll know just how much you should be adding. It takes a while for it to happen, probably around 6 to 10ml per day. I was up to 20ml per day at one point. Then start testing N & P (Should record initial test prior to dosing) and wait for them to start dropping. Keep an eye on the white film, if it builds up quickly, or you notice white cloudy water, stop until it clears up. The water will clear up in a day or 3, then start dosing again. When your N and/or P start dropping, adjust your dosing accordingly (less vodka).

The reason I started doing this, I started having a hair algae problem. As of last weekends water change and vacuum, my algae is starting to die off, and the rocks are starting to look clean again.