Question about Vodka dosing

serbusfish

serbusfish

New member
I plan to start Vodka dosing to get my nitrates down, I have worked out how much I need to add, but one thing im wondering is will I need to clean my skimmer more frequently? I have read that the skimmate will most likely be dark black rather than brown, but will there be more skimmate produced?
 
There might be more skimmate produced, but that varies. I don't think you'll need to clean the skimmer much more often, although you might need to empty the cup a bit more frequently for a while. That depends on the organic and nitrate load in the water column, probably mostly the organic load.
 
Cheers for that link, very helpful. My tank is 75 gallons but im treating it as if its a 50 due to the rock displacement, i'll start with 0.2ml dose and go from there. Also can I just check, is regular Smirnoff Vodka 37.5% OK? In the UK most Vodka seems to be 37.5% not 40%.
 
37.5% is close enough to 40% that it doesn't matter which you use. Just make sure it's not a flavored vodka. :)
 
There is something else I am wondering. I have read that KH should be between 7 - 8 when vodka dosing to avoid bleaching/burning tips, etc. My KH is currently at 9, would I be ok to start the vodka dosing now and allow the KH to drop to 8? I figured the starting dose will be so low that it shouldn't do any damage?
 
After a bit of deliberation I have decided to go with the Red Sea Po3 + No4 reducer instead of vodka as it contains multiple sources of Carbon and from reviews and my LFS this should reduce the chance of a getting a Cyano spike. They advise starting at 3ml per 25 gallons but I am starting lower at 2ml even though mine is a 75.
 
N othing wrong with the Red Sea approach. I am just writing to say - your LFS doesn't sell vodka or vinegar. Of course his advice would be for a product he sell. Let's see this prospective purchaser wants to dose carbon, I have a bottle over on the shelf, 1 liter for about $26, let me think what do i recommend?

You can buy a lot of cheap vodka for $26
 
hkgar said:
N othing wrong with the Red Sea approach. I am just writing to say - your LFS doesn't sell vodka or vinegar. Of course his advice would be for a product he sell. Let's see this prospective purchaser wants to dose carbon, I have a bottle over on the shelf, 1 liter for about $26, let me think what do i recommend?

You can buy a lot of cheap vodka for $26
Click to expand...

I have known my LFS guy for over a year, he never tries to sell me anything, he just gives good advice. Ive talked to him about Vodka dosing before and he told me how to do it and the drawbacks etc but never mentioned anything about the Red Sea stuff. I saw it on the shelf today and asked about it and he said its what he uses rather than Vodka.

Honestly I feel more condident putting a product like this in my tank than a supermarket Vodka. Who knows what ingredients are in there that could cause problems later down the line?
 
The Red Sea product is a mixture of vinegar and ethanol, with a bit of a methanol or the like, probably for denaturing. Personally, I would use vodka or vinegar, or a mix, because it's cheaper, but the Red Sea product should be safe.
 
Just as a note, I'm using vinegar. It's a bit more forgiving than vodka, as I understand it. And it can make a so-so skimmer perform much better. Skimmate is nearly black.
 
A number of people seem to have fewer problems after they switch from vodka to vinegar. The most common issue with vodka seems to be a bit more cyanobacterial growth.
 
I have another question, who would recommend turning my GFO off whilst carbon dosing? My LFS guy says he still uses GFO and has a refugium whilst using the Red Sea stuff, yet in the instructions it says to not run GFO whilst dosing. Will this stuff drop phosphate as effectively as the GFO?
 
Every tank is different, but carbon dosing will consume some phosphate from the water column. Whether your tank will do better with the GFO or without depends on the phosphate input rate into the tank. Some food products will tend to be higher in phosphorus than others, measured as a ratio of phosphorus to fixed nitrogen. Leaching from live rock also can skew the ratio. Personally, I'd try backing off slowly on the GFO to see how the tank responds.
 
bertoni said:
Every tank is different, but carbon dosing will consume some phosphate from the water column. Whether your tank will do better with the GFO or without depends on the phosphate input rate into the tank. Some food products will tend to be higher in phosphorus than others, measured as a ratio of phosphorus to fixed nitrogen. Leaching from live rock also can skew the ratio. Personally, I'd try backing off slowly on the GFO to see how the tank responds.
Click to expand...

Due to the fact my GFO reactor is a pain in the *** to open up im going to stop the GFO completely for a few days and monitor the phosphate. If it remains under 0.03 great, although i'll be surprised if it does. If it starts going higher than that i'll remove half the GFO and run it along with the carbon dosing and see what happens.

At the moment my phosphate is zero, I even did the higher sensitivity test and it still came up zero, so im slightly concerned the GFO + carbon is starving the corals of phosphate as some do look a little pale.
 
Here's what I do and it's worked quite well. Take a 1 liter container, find the cheapest vodka you can find and plain white distilled vinegar. Pour 600ml of vinegar into the 1 liter container. Pour 400 ml vodka into container. Shake, dose. You now have basically the same thing that Red Sea sells for a much higher markup. I put my mixture on a dosing pump and got my nitrates to 0 and phos to 0 as well. Now I'm backing the dose off and only dose around 18-20 ml per day into my 150 gallon tank with 30 gallon sump. Skimmate is absolutely putrid smelling and dark like coffee and I have to empty my skimmate locker about once a week and clean the cup of thick green gunk weekly as well. That's the only filtration I employ and it almost works too well. I like to have some nitrate and phos in the system to enhance coral colors.
 
I just wrote a post about dropping from 64ppm to 8ppm in nitrates using Red Sea NOPOX,, and I had HELLLLLLLA skimmate,, I again that LFS doesn't sell vodka,, but peeps have had success with it,, however NOPOX does smell like alcohol ?!? Go figure lol
 
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