Vodka dosing for dummies please

[five.five-six]

Everything I have read about carbon dosing has sounded like a bit of voodoo science to me but I find myself with 60PPM nitrate and immeasurable PO4 (salifert)

2 methods I can use:

1) I mix 10 gal of saturated lime-water about once a week, I could add to that.

2) Have a BRS 1.1 ml dosing pump I can control with APEX.

What are the basics? how long can I expect to start seeing improvements? target is 5-10 PPM

 

[miralami]

Vodka dosing for dummies please

Mark,
The best thing you can do is dosing phosphate.
You will be surprised how fast your nitrate will drop.

Flourish Phosphorus from Seachem.

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[five.five-six]

Thanks Omid

I was just chatting with Randy Holmes-Farley and it occurred to me that might help but we work sooo hard to keep phosphates out of the tank that I don't know if I can bring myself to add it LOL

 

[miralami]

Sure Mark,
You can bring over your water sample when you are going to pick up the frag, I have ULR phosphate test.
Have zero phosphate is way more dangerous than high nitrate in my opinion.


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[Sisterlimonpot]

I dosed vodka for years and the only downside was it can quickly strip N and P from your tank, leaving your water crystal clear (which can also lead to burnt tips). With that said I followed this article from reefkeeping magazine. It's a fail safe approach to initiating the process. You have to start off low and build it up over time. If you don't you can promote a rapid bacteria bloom that will cloud the water and possibly add a thick sludge on surfaces.

These days it seems that vodka dosing was a fad that stripped the tank of too much nutrients, finding that healthy balance may take some time. and I'm with you, I have read many times over that people are concerned that there tanks are too clean and start dosing N and P back to the tank.... that still boggles the mind.

With that said, vodka dosing is just another tool we have in our tool bag to combat against high nutrients.

My latest build I went with siporax to control N and P, but if it starts to get out of control, I wont hesitate to start vodka dosing.

 

[Steve175]

Missing the boat a bit, I think. Vodka (like standard bio pellets) is a carbon source to dose when nitrate is the limiting factor for phosphate removal. If your phosphate really is low, you have the opposite problem. Vodka will make it worse. Agree that dosing phosphate is likely the cure. Are you [over]using GFO? If so, completely removing GFO is likely the most stable fix. The goal is not simply to remove p. it is to strike a stable (and low but not immeasurable) balance between n and p. Also reliable PO4 measurement is difficult. I really like the reliability of the Red Sea pro kit for low level phosphate and nitrate both. You won't need the latter for a while, but the former may be helpful.

 

[five.five-six]

I haven't run GFO in months I think it's the food I'm using which is seafood mix from the Asian market blended and frozen in ice-cube trays

 

[ReefWreak]

That's an interesting issue to have, all nitrate no phosphate. Pretty uncommon.

As others have said or alluded to, the vodka fills in the carbon in the ratio of N-C-PO4 to promote bacterial growth that can be skimmed out. If you're still short of PO4, adding more C won't do you any good since you're limited by PO4.

That being said, if you have algae growth, then it's also certainly possible that there is PO4, however tests aren't showing it, because it's being used up as it is released and taken up by the algae (I believe this is the case when people have huge algae issues and yet test low-to-no nitrates or phosphates, but I'm not a scientist, I just play one on the internet).

If you do not have algae, I would consider it a blessing, and then either consider adding PO4, or I'd actually prefer to add a marinepure block or other nitrate-to-nitrogen area (remote DSB in a bucket) because I would rather not add the PO4 that could actually be limiting algae growth. The worst case is that you balance out the N-C-PO4 and the result is explosive algae.

Let us know what you go with and how it turns out!

 

[five.five-six]

I put marine pure blocks in 2 months ago I'm kinda at a loss here

I'm sure there's not "no PO4" in the tank, It's just being consumed as fast as it's available.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

Flake or pellet foods are a good source po4

 

[five.five-six]

So, I’ve had to turn my cacl2 reactor off. Adding vingar to my kalkwasser has made it so much more soluble that my KH and Ca have risen to 11.2 and 460 respectively.


I started doseing once a week Po4 but I still read 0 after a few days.

No3 has dropped to about 35ppm and the brownish reds in SPS are turning back to nice pinks and reds

The skimmer is pulling constant nice gunk, beter tha before doseing carbon

Filter sock loads up a lot more than before.

 

[Anemone]

That's an interesting issue to have, all nitrate no phosphate. Pretty uncommon.

Wandering around and just found this thread, and this is actually what I've been battling for the past 2 months.

A couple months ago my readings were Nitrate 50+ and Phosphate 0, and all my stony corals were slowly dying. Since then, I have been adding a capful of Seachem Flourish Phosphorus every day. A capful is supposed to raise phosphate by 0.15 mg/l in 40 gallons of water. My tank has an overall volume of 112 gallons (but in reality is more likely around 90-95 gallons).

So, after 2 months, my daily readings are Nitrate in the 30ish range (damn Red Sea pink color scale) and Phosphate in the 0.15 - 0.2 range (Hanna). I have a biopellet reactor and a nicely productive Vertex 180i skimmer. I have to clean my tank glass daily, but I have NO problem algae in the tank at all. My lights (Kessil AP700) are on for 12 hours and crest at 85%.

I try to be a patient reefer, but I'm getting really, really tired of elevated nitrates.

Kevin

 

[five.five-six]

I have used an entire bottle of flurish phosphorous in 3 weeks and been dosing 90ml vingar in my 10 gal of kalkwasser and in this heat lasts about 3 days. Po4 is still very low and nitrate is down to 20 ish. Problem I had was that alk and calcium spiked and even thought I shut down my cacl2 reactor 2 weeks ago I hit 10.8 and 480 on friday.

Just topping off with RO/DI till the number get normal again.

 

[jda]

I never had organic carbon dosing make any significant difference on PO4. It would on NO3, though. When you get to N of 10, I would back off... you do not want to strip everything too low.

 

[five.five-six]

I have come to the conclusion: Just use NoPox. It's worth the extra money to remove the guesswork

 

[mcgyvr]

I have come to the conclusion: Just use NoPox. It's worth the extra money to remove the guesswork

NoPox is basically just a mix of vodka/vinegar/water...

Either of the "V's" works fine on its own and the charts are readily available on the internet for the amounts..

 

[five.five-six]

NoPox is basically just a mix of vodka/vinegar/water...

Except that it's not

 

[mcgyvr]

Except that it’s not

So what is it then?

Data I found shows it was analysed through NMR and found to be ethanol and acetic acid

 

[five.five-six]

So what is it then?

Data I found shows it was analysed through NMR and found to be ethanol and acetic acid

It's super secret sauce.

But the ethanol content is much higher than vodka which you can't get by mixing vodka with vinegar.


I prefer NoPox not only because RedSea has done the math for me, but unlike vodka and or vinegar, NoPox doesn't seem to foster Cyanobacteria outbreaks.

 

[mcgyvr]

NoPox doesn't seem to foster Cyanobacteria outbreaks.

Glad the "secret sauce" is working well for you. Ive seen plenty of reports of cyano when using nopox though...

It seems that when attempting to adjust nutrient levels with any method of carbon dosing cyano is always a possibiltiy.. Reports from all camps on that one..