Vodka dosing and BB tanks

[kiddboy]

i think i dose the vodka the same period as you. i started 0.5ml for my 100g-BB, 90% sps tank. increase every 0.1ml per day till i reach 1ml and stay there for 3 days. now, i have it increase to 1.5ml today and will stay there for a week. i monitor my n03 every 3 days. the no3 didn't drop when i dose 1ml for 3days.

i dose small among of ozone occationally. didn't see much change. will monitor my nurtrient closely since i have increase it to 1.5ml today.

 

[Creetin]

Well i was dosing a small amount of vodka and 2 of my acro's stned shortly after i started. I have a great deal of flow, and an oversized skimmer. I did have readable po4 at .05 and 05 ppm of nitrate before i started. Be carefull and start slow as i dont believe i started slow enough. I added 1 ml a day in my 190 and i thought i was low enough. Needless to say i stopped it and the stn stopped.
I have 2 acro's with just the tips left. The others are fine.
though. Did anybody notice dark green almost black particulates in the skimmate when dosing vodka?

 

[my2girls]

Did anybody notice dark green almost black particulates in the skimmate when dosing vodka?

Interesting observation. I started dosing about a week ago. When I get home from work I'm going to check my waste collector.

 

[my2girls]

I was dosing at 0.45 ml/day. I really feel that this is a light/water clarity issue because the corals most affected were directally under the MH bulb, and there was bleaching involved as well.

I have made a lot of changes in a short time (dumb) so it is impossible to say, but in the last month my rock came out of cooking and went back in the tank, and I started using vodka. Putting the rock back in made the water clearer, and so did the vodka, so it could be a combined effect.

Thanks,
Whiskey

The dosings recommendations for 80 gallons is:
day 1-3 .3 ml
day 4-7 .6 ml
week 2 1.1 ml
week 3 1.6 ml

Whiskey, I know you started slow and .45 ml is not that much (according to the recommendations). I wonder if the cooked rock void of nutrients sucked up all the remaining phosphate and nitrate. What other tinkering did you do to your tank? Iknow it is hard to be patient. I tinker too much myself.

 

[Wiskey]

Ok, if you want the story, here it is,

I had a SSB, never had any real detectable phospate, but I did have 1.5 PPM nitrate, since I wanted this to be an SPS tank I decided I may as well do this right before I got too much SPS coral in there.

I added 1 250W MH bulb to my tank, and kept the 2*55W pc bulbs.

one month later:

I took down the tank, removed all the coral/sand/water, from the main tank, added more flow and replaced 50 gallons of water. I took all the coral and put it on a prop rack and cooked the rock for 2 months. I then added a better skimmer (Turbofloater 1000 in sump with a oceanrunner pump) and my skimmer sump, and removed the macro from the fuge because it was dieing.

Two months later:
I put the rock back in the tank, decided I did not like the flow again and changed that to 3 maxijets (2 on the bottom to keep crap suspended) one on the right side, and 1 seio 1500 on the left side. This kept everything off the glass bottom.

Two weeks later:
I still had nitrate, worse then when I had the 1/2 to 1/4 inch sand (5-10PPM) so I decided to try the vodka method after some research.

I started at .2 ML, 2 days later went to .35 ML, 3 or 4 days later went to .45 ML, I felt I was going slow, maybe I was, but with all the changes my corals have had to endure (some frags were bought in the prop rack period), perhaps they just got ticked.

Like I said, it was stupid to do this all at once, and my current problem could have nothing to do with vodka at all, but with the current problems I am going to stop dosing to get the corals better again, and then perhaps try this one more time.

Thanks,
Whiskey

 

[MarLooney]

if your fish don't like the taste try dosing OJ.

seriosly, if it ain't broken don't fish it. i like going w/ the KISS method myself.

 

[reeftec]

i am up to .3 ml now i started from .1 ml total water volume close to 100 gal,no noticable difference as of now,i am also running ozone & uv,i am gonna keep it @ .3 for 3 days then go up to .4ml for 3 days & so on hopefully this be slow enough for my system

 

[Wiskey]

I saw this thread pop back up as a link in somebody else's thread and I wanted to update. The problem with my tank was not the vodka, the problems continued after I stopped using it.

I found the biggest problem to be light related, in order to get one 250W MH to cover the whole 4 foot tank I had to have it really far off the tank, so after I got a light meater I found I had nowhere near enough light anywhere in my tank (1/4 what could be concidered low light). I overestamated the power of 250W MH by far, and now that I have 2*250W MH my tank is doing far better.

I don't at this time dose vodka, but I may start again in the future as it was not my problem.

Whiskey

 

[RichConley]

Why vodka? You're tying to introduce an easily metabolized carbon source right? Why not sugar? Its cheaper, and definitely has less impurities. Why not RO/DI sugarwater?

 

[boxfishpooalot]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6754951#post6754951 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by RichConley
Why vodka? You're tying to introduce an easily metabolized carbon source right? Why not sugar? Its cheaper, and definitely has less impurities. Why not RO/DI sugarwater?

You got that from Randy! Im experimenting with sugar right now in my tank. I think sugar would be safer than vodka because have you ever drank vodka and got that burning feeling in your mouth? This sensation could burn fish and corals is my guess. Sugar taste better too. Also, ever had an alcohol wipe to kill bacteria...! Pure alcohol kills bacteria.

Anyways, In my bb tank im dosing about 1/2 teaspoon daily of sugar. So far my rocks have turned whiter, they are "cooking" in the tank. Shedding faster.The rock are getting pure white spots all over them, internally cleaning themselves. I suspect.

Im also getting some bacterial "snot" on rocks white in color. I have yet to notice a foggy color from a bloom yet(in the water colum). I only do worry about oxygen content of my water, so I dose first thing in the morning when the lights go on. Photosythesis will help out tremendously here.