Observations on vodka dosing

[goodreef]

It seem that it has become "fashionable" to dose vodka for reefers here in Malaysia. I did the same, and have observed some interesting result to share.

Vodka dosing : when I started out, all my sps seem to improve in color. Color became lighter, and I can see color that I've never seen before!!

Vodka OVER dosing : In trying to rid a pactch of hair algae on the rocks, I increased the dosage. My SPS started to become real pale and some brown out again, and couple RTN. When I finally measured my PO4, NO3, they were 0.00. K was also very low.

K dosing & heavy feeding. To solve this, I started heavy feeding to increase nutrients in the tank. Color started to become darker, but still remain brown. Only when I started to dose Potassium did the colors start to improve. Blue & Green started to deepen significantly.

K OVER dosing : Suddenly, I started to have burnt tips on ALL of my SPS except the Blue variety!! Happened withing 24hrs. Found that it was due to too much K in a short time. Changed 25% of my water!! All bleaching and burnt tips immediately stopped. But surprisingly, my Reds started to deepen, and Blues fade.

K, Minor & trace elements : My analysis is this. K is good for blue SPS. So, during K overdose, the blues "enjoyed" it and became deeper blue. No burnt tips too. However, the other colored SPS are not using too much of K, and had burnt tips. After water change, the K is reduced, and blue color fades. However, minor and trace elements increased significantly. So, the reds deepen in color.

NOTE : It seems as if K, minor & trace elements are removed significantly during vodka dosing. Thus, water change and suppliments are recommended to keep the SPS colors.

Moving forward: I will suppliment my tank, and once stable, slllooooooowwwwllly increase my K levels again.

Any comments?

 

[goodreef]

2nd Observation.

My KH was at 10 before vodka dosing. At that time, pH in my calcium reactor was 6.3, and the drip rate was ... it was not dripping. It spurt about 2 inches from the outlet to the water!! I was burning a jumbo bag of media every 3 months. But SPS growth was GREAT!!! (NO3 =0, PO4 < 0.10)

After vodka OVER dosing, my KH was still at 10, but pH in my reactor has increased to 6.7, and drip rate was at 2-3 drops per second. Growth suddenly became VERY slow. (NO3 =0, PO4 < 0.00)

Now, after all the above adjustments, my KH is now at 7-8. pH in reactor is at 7.0, and drip rate is at 1-2 drops per second. Growth rate is still slow. (NO3 =0, PO4 < 0.00)

QUESTION which no one can answer in my local forum :

Why does the consumption and growth rate decrease so much after vodka dosing?

Has it got to do with PO4 = 0.00? I heard that SPS still need traces of PO4 to grow.

 

[bdbyace28]

Very informative. I too dosed vodka for about a year. I did notice coloration improvements within the first week. I was able to begin dosing more and more as the weeks went on and did notice a steady lowering in my nitrates. When they got down to undetectable I began lowering the dose and didnt notice any adverse affects in any of my trace elements or other elements. I did eventually go to bio pellets because I got tired of dosing every night

 

[BADGUS]

My recent experience with Vodka dosing is that it does have a very positive color change in the coloration of SPS,but in return does infact slow down the growth rate of SPS,what i plan to do is to increase the Bio-load,via adding more fish,i expect to have some PO4's in there and thus enabling the SPS to have some carbon and good ol' fish poop to grow.I will take current pictures and post pictures to show the results.currently i am on .03ML/day which i plant to decrease to .015 every other day and add 2 fish.We shall see where this road leads to.Do you have any puctures to share?

 

[rtparty]

These are a couple observations from me.

You had too high of Alk. You were getting burnt tips from that, not K overdose. Your alk really needs to remain below 8.5dkh when dosing a carbon source such as Vodka.

Second, growth rates only slow down at the beginning. This is more than likely because all of your corals are getting used to the more light (clearer water) and new parameters in the tank. Once they acclimate, growth explodes again.

When you start dosing a carbon source you need to test your water regularly. If you keep dumping in Alk and Ca, you will shoot your parameters through the roof. Keep testing and one day you will see things start to drop quick. That is when growth is about to take off. At that point you can start to dose daily again.

I have also noticed that dosing Strontium help aid growth as well. I dose way under the recommended amount to be safe. Corals don't uptake Strontium all that quick and you can overdose it pretty quickly.

Hope that helps!

 

[Eric45]

So you need to keep your ALK at 8.5 when dosing vodka? That's quite a bit below the 10-12 generally recommended for corals. That's not a problem?

 

[rtparty]

So you need to keep your ALK at 8.5 when dosing vodka? That's quite a bit below the 10-12 generally recommended for corals. That's not a problem?

Yep need to keep it closer to natural sea water parameters.

Natural Sea Water has an alkalinity around 7.5dkh.

 

[scubasteve06]

Yep alk needs to be NSW levels during vodka dosing. It is also recommended to feed more during carbon dosing so that in the ULNS the nutrients that the corals need are not completely wiped out. It is also recommended to never go crazy or heavy handed on any kind of dosing while carbon dosing. Start slow until you see results. They say that dosing Amino Acids and vitamin C will help during carbon dosing if you start to see colors pale out. I am seeing polyp extension I had never seen before in my tank and I am only on day 2 of dosing. I will keep testing for all levels daily and once I find my maintenance dose cut it back to checking weekly or twice a week. That's why it's recommended to use a Zeolite reactor with zeo stones while dosing carbon to make up for those nutrients that the bacteria strain(s) you are creating eat up.

 

[scubasteve06]

Very informative. I too dosed vodka for about a year. I did notice coloration improvements within the first week. I was able to begin dosing more and more as the weeks went on and did notice a steady lowering in my nitrates. When they got down to undetectable I began lowering the dose and didnt notice any adverse affects in any of my trace elements or other elements. I did eventually go to bio pellets because I got tired of dosing every night

You could of gone with an automated doser for the vodka or used a drip to dose it into the tank. Of course the drip would of needed to be filled once a day, but with the doser it wouldn't need to be done until it ran out. Big bottle equals less fillings.

 

[WI reefer55]

These are a couple observations from me.

You had too high of Alk. You were getting burnt tips from that, not K overdose. Your alk really needs to remain below 8.5dkh when dosing a carbon source such as Vodka.

It seems alot of people disagree with that statement.

IDK I have never dosed a carbon source but will soon.

My Dkh is 10.6 now

 

[scubasteve06]

It seems alot of people disagree with that statement.

IDK I have never dosed a carbon source but will soon.

My Dkh is 10.6 now

Yea I still haven't found out why mine is so high either. I've heard that anything above NSW will cause burnt tips, but I don't have any SPS as I said in your thread so I don't think I can hurt anything too bad that I can't reverse by stopping the carbon dosing. I am going to do a series of small 15-20 percent water changes this week and next to try and bring mine down. Then I've also heard not to do big or frequent water changes while carbon dosing because you want to see the results of the carbon source bringing the NO3 and PO4 down and not by water changes. I think I will keep my dose at the 1-3 day dose after I do my water change tomorrow for the next couple days even after I am supposed to double it to .2ml/20g to make sure the results I see are from the vodka and not the water change I did or will be doing.

 

[rtparty]

It seems alot of people disagree with that statement.

IDK I have never dosed a carbon source but will soon.

My Dkh is 10.6 now

Not sure where you got that info.

Go check out just about any thread that has to deal with SPS and carbon dosing and you will see that a high alkalinity causes burnt tips.

If you have SPS and not seeing that, consider yourself lucky. My alk got up to about 9.6dkh and I started seeing the burnt tips. When you start carbon dosing, corals tend to stop up taking cal and alk for the first little bit. If I hadn't been testing regularly, my parameters would have gotten out of whack pretty quick.

 

[crsaz]

when first starting off it would be wise to let your alk slowly drop a little(I dropped to 10.2), but after a few months of vodka dosing I have my alk back up to 11.5 dkh and no burnt tips and growth and color is great.

 

[NaClH2Opgh]

Dosed for 2 years with alk in the 9-10 range and even 11 in the beginning. No issues here.

IME high alk + carbon dosing does not guarantee burnt tips. May happen but not a sure thing.

 

[pinetree]

I understand the latest trends in Europe run Alk much lower than we're use to. - like 7 - 8. It was explained to me by TM rep that hard corals can take up more Ca at lower Alk. as long as Mg is around 3x to 4x Ca.
I dose 1/2 vodka. 1/2 vinegar w/ steady parameters of Ca 400, Alk 7.5, Mg 1300.
I dose TM's 2 part trace every other day, and Koralin amino 1x / week. Sys is approx 160g and sps dominant.

 

[Eric45]

Along these lines, I'm curious as to how much people are dosing of the vodka per gallon. I saw one person say .2 per 20 gallons and another said .03 every other day without saying the size of the tank. I'm currently dosing 2 ml per day (one in am one in pm) and have not seen any reduction in nitrates yet (about 2-3 weeks w/1 ml per day for three months before that) which seems like a lot relative to these others. So, how much are you dosing???

 

[rtparty]

I dose 1 drop per 30 gallons like 3 times a week. Dosing a bacterial source is what really helped me get the nitrates and phosphates way low. When I was dosing just vodka, I always had what looked to be like diatoms on my sand. The more Vodka I dosed, the more brown stuff on my sand.

Since dosing the bacteria the brown stuff has decreased quite a bit. My corals went more pale so I had to start dosing Fuel by AquaVitro to help give the corals some food.

 

[EddieJ]

I dose 10ML a day in my 100-110 gallon system...Been dosing for over a year and it took my Nitrates from 30 to 0 ....

Along these lines, I'm curious as to how much people are dosing of the vodka per gallon. I saw one person say .2 per 20 gallons and another said .03 every other day without saying the size of the tank. I'm currently dosing 2 ml per day (one in am one in pm) and have not seen any reduction in nitrates yet (about 2-3 weeks w/1 ml per day for three months before that) which seems like a lot relative to these others. So, how much are you dosing???

 

[beeker]

This is why i only dose Vodka 2 times a week, you keep the nutrients high and the Vodka effective

the goal for me was to keep Vodka's influence heavy but allow for a few days inbetween to allow the tank to build up nutrients again before dosing the Vodka and increasing the bacteria to remove them, i've noticed the best results when dosing only 2-3 times per week, the dosage is 1 drop per 30 gallons, thus not to overdose but to dose enough to have an effect without saturation

i used to daily dose and at the 2 months mark only had bad things happening, i stopped dosing for 7-8 months and then started again using this method

i will add aminos sometimes when i dose the Vodka either on the Vodka dose day or 2 drops every day every week while i'm doing to Vodka dosing

i still don't fully understand Aminos interaction with the Vodka but feel it doesen't harm anything during the dosing period, i have dosed Aminos with and without Vodka without noticing any effects, but i do feel Amino's keep corals from starving when you start to get ULN

this method works great on my tank, although i would try not to begin dosing until the tank is around a year old to let other things get stable first

 

[180+55reef]

This is why i only dose Vodka 2 times a week, you keep the nutrients high and the Vodka effective

the goal for me was to keep Vodka's influence heavy but allow for a few days inbetween to allow the tank to build up nutrients again before dosing the Vodka and increasing the bacteria to remove them, i've noticed the best results when dosing only 2-3 times per week, the dosage is 1 drop per 30 gallons, thus not to overdose but to dose enough to have an effect without saturation

i used to daily dose and at the 2 months mark only had bad things happening, i stopped dosing for 7-8 months and then started again using this method

i will add aminos sometimes when i dose the Vodka either on the Vodka dose day or 2 drops every day every week while i'm doing to Vodka dosing


i still don't fully understand Aminos interaction with the Vodka but feel it doesen't harm anything during the dosing period, i have dosed Aminos with and without Vodka without noticing any effects, but i do feel Amino's keep corals from starving when you start to get ULN

this method works great on my tank, although i would try not to begin dosing until the tank is around a year old to let other things get stable first

what bad things did you noticed when you dosed daily?