Vodka Dosing = Cloudy Water

sedor

sedor

New member
I am only on my 4th day of vodka dosing, and have been following the Vodka Dosing guidelines reefkeeping article we've all seen before. My tank is a 72G with a small 13G sump that holds around 7G and I have been dosing 0.3 ml for the first 3 days. Today when my lights came on I noticed the water was somewhat cloudy. Its not ridiculous where I can't see anything, and everything seems to be acting normal, but it is somewhat cloudy none the less. This has happened to me before and was cured by waiting a couple days. IMO its a bacterial bloom and i'm assuming this was caused by the vodka dosing, although this has occurred a little quicker than I would have assumed.

Should I continue dosing the vodka as per the article and start dosing 0.6 ml today? Should I cut the amount in half 0.15 ml and continue that way for a while and consider it a maintenance dosage? Or should I stop dosing all together for a day or two until the water clears up?

My nitrates have never been to high (0.5 when I started dosing and 0 as of today) and I don't test phosphates because I believe without a Hanna photometer testing is pointless. You might ask why I am dosing vodka? I don't have major algae problems, but I am fighting a bit of cyano, and my glass gets fairly dirty every single day. Also I have noticed a distinct browning of my SPS that I am blaming on phosphate levels. I planned on starting the vodka dosing in hopes of achieving better SPS coloration as well as increased water clarity. Other than that, my other water parameters are fine:

Ca = 425
Alk = 8.4
Mg = 1325
 
Not reading PO4 because I don't have a Hannah Photometer, and IMO liquid tests are junk. I am dosing vodka mainly because my corals are brown and I am having to clean my glass every day. It accumulates thick brown algae which I am assuming is because of higher phosphates. I know that milky water can be caused by vodka, but i'm not sure if I should cut the dose in half or continue going.
 
i would stop with the vodka for now untill it starts to clear up. i have a heavily stocked 90 gallon and have been dosing vsv for about 3 months. i never had the cloudy water or bacterial bloom(which i too am sure you have) but i did get cyno a little. it was not untill i started dosing mb7 with the vsv that i really saw a change. i also have not had any cyno since i started dosing mb7. i belive the good bacteria really is the key to this system and if you dont have it in you system the carbon sorce that you are dosing will only feed what ever bacteria you have. also the water cleared up so much it actually bleached out all the coraline algea i had on the back glass in the upper 8 inches of my tank.

i REALLY suggest ordering some mb7 and start dosing that and the vodka together. just follow the directions and dose according to how your tank is looking. but for now just stop the vodka till you get the mb7.
 
Sounds good, better safe than sorry I guess. I had planned to get some mb7 based on a tank build I read, but I thought it was important to get the tank to ULNS before starting with microbacteria. Thanks for the heads up!
 
yeah i would start the mb7 as soon as you can. and start with the high nutrient dose. this will help get you to an ulns faster than just using vodka. i am sure that you will be impressed just like i was. also after i started dosing the mb7 my skim mate stinks so bad that if i let it go more than a couple days if will stink up the living room so you know that you are pulling out some nice nasty stuff.
 
I had major cyano bloom after dosing w/ Vodka (also conservatively per algorithm); stopped and installed phosphate reactor with phosban and couldn't be happier w/ results.
 
Its strange...the bacterial bloom came and went and now my water is clearer than ever. All my cyano is gone and the GHA in my overflows is dying off quickly. Maybe I won't like what's coming but so far I like what i've seen. I've resumed the dosing but knocked the dosage back to 0.1 ml a day and will continue that until I see algae coming back.

Per adambirk's suggestion ive got some mb7 on the way and I will start dosing that this weekend.
 
I thought that the whole idea behind dosing was to get that bacterial bloom to eat up your nitrate levels after which they eventually die off to normal levels and your water is clear again.
 
In essence, yes that is the goal, but your supposed to ramp the dosage up slowly in order to avoid a full on white out. The bloom shouldn't be noticeable unless there was an overdose. In most cases its fine, but the danger lies in the fact that a bacteria bloom will eat up your O2 and drop your ph.

In my case I guess my system was low enough already that it didn't take much to overdose.
 
lordofthereef said:
I thought that the whole idea behind dosing was to get that bacterial bloom to eat up your nitrate levels after which they eventually die off to normal levels and your water is clear again.
Click to expand...

if they were just dieing off it would not help. The bacterial bloom needs to be skimmed out to remove the nutrients :)
 
mb7 is Microbacter7. Its a product made by Brightwell Aquatics and it basically contains beneficial bacteria. The reason we are using it in conjunction with a carbon source such as vodka is because what vodka does is it accelerates the reproduction of the bacteria in your system, which in turn consumed nutrients in your water column and then proceed to die off and are skimmed out of the system. Its not completely necessary, but IMO important to continually seed the proper bacteria into your system so the carbon source continually has something to work with. At least that's my take on it all, someone else chime in if i'm wrong.

I will say i've been dosing mb7 for about a week now in conjunction with vodka and although the results are not drastic at this point, I can already notice a difference in the effectiveness of the vodka dosing and especially in the clarity of my water which was one of my major factors in starting to carbon dose in the first place.
 
steve175 i am glad the phospate reactor is working for you i just got sick of spending all that money on gfo. i can ge a bottle of mb7 and a bottle of vodka for less than what gfo costs and last 3 times longer. like i have said before i did have cyno too when i started dosing vodka alone. the cyno was the main bacteria in the system feeding on the carbon source. once i started the mb7 within a week and a half i noticed the cyno withering away.

only thing i could think of was the mb7 bacteria was over competing for the food(carbon source) and starved out the cyno.

i am setting up my new tank now which will be about 180 gallons total water volume with a 150 display. i plan on running a bacteria driven system on this one too. allthough this one will be 99% sps with a few lps and zoos.

i think this is a real great way to keep an ulns for someone that is real hands on. i also think that this way is much more efficient than the tried and true lots of rock and a big fuge. but that is whats so great about this hobby there are so many diff. ways to set up a healthy beautiful reef.

sedor, i told you you would see a diff in water clarity once starting the mb7 it is amazing at how clear my tank got. expecialy since i thought my tank was really clear before. just wait till you smell the skimmate in about a week. it takes on a whole new and nasty smell.

and yes you are correct. once you get the nutrients under controll then you cut back on the mb7. i still like to dose daily instead of weekly like the bottle says i just use 10 drops per day. every maintence dose will be a little diff depending on the system. i dose acording to how the tank is looking.

hope all continues well for you. and dont forget to feed those fish more now:-)
 
steve175 i am glad the phospate reactor is working for you i just got sick of spending all that money on gfo. i can ge a bottle of mb7 and a bottle of vodka for less than what gfo costs and last 3 times longer. like i have said before i did have cyno too when i started dosing vodka alone. the cyno was the main bacteria in the system feeding on the carbon source. once i started the mb7 within a week and a half i noticed the cyno withering away.

only thing i could think of was the mb7 bacteria was over competing for the food(carbon source) and starved out the cyno.

i am setting up my new tank now which will be about 180 gallons total water volume with a 150 display. i plan on running a bacteria driven system on this one too. allthough this one will be 99% sps with a few lps and zoos.

i think this is a real great way to keep an ulns for someone that is real hands on. i also think that this way is much more efficient than the tried and true lots of rock and a big fuge. but that is whats so great about this hobby there are so many diff. ways to set up a healthy beautiful reef.

sedor, i told you you would see a diff in water clarity once starting the mb7 it is amazing at how clear my tank got. expecialy since i thought my tank was really clear before. just wait till you smell the skimmate in about a week. it takes on a whole new and nasty smell.

and yes you are correct. once you get the nutrients under controll then you cut back on the mb7. i still like to dose daily instead of weekly like the bottle says i just use 10 drops per day. every maintence dose will be a little diff depending on the system. i dose acording to how the tank is looking.

hope all continues well for you. and dont forget to feed those fish more now:-)
 
Ya...my system never really had a problem with high nitrates or phosphates, there was enough in there to brown out my corals though so I didn't actually start with the high nutrient dosage of the mb7. I've been dosing 2 drops a day along with the vodka and it seems to be doing well. I think I will continue doing it this way until I notice the water quality diminishing a bit. Keep in mind my system is fairly light, I have a medium bioload and only about 7 frags of SPS at the moment. Thanks again for the recommendation adambirk!
 
i have a 75 gallon reef- dosed up to 3ml- no issues- no white outs. All the bad stuff went away- corals are happy. Getting ready to cut it down to 1.5ml a day.

Same with 29biocube- its at 2.5ml- no issues with any bad algae- going to knock it down to 1ml.
 
I must have a somewhat low nutrient tank to begin with because my tank bloomed after dosing 0.3 for 3 days. Now i've been doing 0.2 and 2 drops of mb7 for a week and am getting ready to step it up to 0.3 and 3 drops.
 
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