Vodka Dosing for 55 Gallon tank

[Dyzio545]

What would be the preferred daily dosing amount for a 55 gallon mixed reef.
I've been battling GHA for bout a month now. I've tried Carbon/GFO, less lighting, less feeding....no positive results.

I know I must be very careful when it comes to vodka dosing, that's why I wanted to ask prior to starting.

This is my livestock just for information and could anything get hurt because of this dosing?

Coral:
Purple acros
Montipora confusa
Green birdsnest
Zoas
Fiji Leather (yellow)
Sponges
Duncans
2 Chalices
Frogspawn
Green Favia
Hammerhead

Fish/Inverts:

2 clownfish
Baby yellow tang
Baby hippo tang
Cleaner wrasse
Sand sifting star
2 cleaner shrimp
About 9 turbo snails

 

[JamesJR]

before you start dosing vodka there are several things to consider. First how is your source water? Are you getting 0 TDS from your ro unit? What is the flow like in your tank? What skimmer do you have?

here is a good article to start.
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php

 

[bertoni]

The vodka dosing article should help. I don't know much about skimmers for that size tank, but carbon dosing requires a good skimmer to work.

 

[Dyzio545]

before you start dosing vodka there are several things to consider. First how is your source water? Are you getting 0 TDS from your ro unit? What is the flow like in your tank? What skimmer do you have?

here is a good article to start.
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php

Thanks. Really a great read. I've decided not to dose for now because I have a bad skimmer. The Sea clone 100 HOB (It's temporary). Maybe when I get my reef octopus and the problems still persist then I will try the dosing.

 

[JamesJR]

yeah that skimmer won't cut it. Vodka dosing would likely not improve your tank issues until you can get a better skimmer.
What are your nitrate and phosphate readings?

 

[Dyzio545]

yeah that skimmer won't cut it. Vodka dosing would likely not improve your tank issues.
What are your nitrate and phosphate readings?

I'm using the API reef master test kit for PO4 and nitrate. The PO4 readings are very unreliable because it says I have 0 ppm of PO4, but yet I have GHA:thumbdown

It also reads 0 ppm of Nitrate.

 

[jimmy frag]

you need a Di with the Ro unit. IME you will not see much decline in the algea if its getting out of control. you can have 0 readings in nitrate and phosphate because the hair algea is consuming it vary quickly. doucing vodka will populate a bacteria that will consume nitrate and phosphate but will have to compete with the agressive consuming algea. i would get the algea under controll first.

 

[JamesJR]

I'm using the API reef master test kit for PO4 and nitrate. The PO4 readings are very unreliable because it says I have 0 ppm of PO4, but yet I have GHA:thumbdown

It also reads 0 ppm of Nitrate.

The misleading thing about hobby grade nitrate and phosphate liquid test kits is that they tend to have very high threshold/minimum detection readings so that what you read as a low level is actually quite high in the overall scheme of things. Take the salifert phosphate kit for example. The lowest it can read is about 0.03 ppm. While this phosphate level is often fine for many hobbysts it is actually very high when you consider that many coral reefs can have phosphate levels that are less than 0.005 ppm.

Ideally when you switch to vodka dosing you will need to be able to detect lower levels of nitrate and phosphate than these test kits will show. I believe Dow makes a nitrate test kit that can detect very low nitrate levels and that is about the only liquid test kit out there that I would trust for nitrate. Hannah makes electronic meters that are pretty much the standard in phosphate/nitrate detection in the reef aquarium hobby.

But before you dig any deeper into this route the first thing I would do is check your source water and/or buy a good quality ro di unit. Upgrading your skimmer will also help a lot. These two things will reduce phosphate and nitrate import and increase their export which would help a lot to reducing your algae problem.