vodka dosing for phosphate removal

[918noah]

Has anyone on here done vodka dosing? I have read a ton about it but just curious if anyone has experiented done it. I am having problems with my phosphates now for about a month and a half and now have an algae problem and this is what has caused me to look at it.

I think that several things have contributed to my problem and any other suggestions to bring them down are appreciated.
1. my skimmer was not adjusted correctly and was not skimming too much after I cleaned it.
2. I was overfeeding. and on top of that I was not rinsing the frozen food and feeding flake and pellets and frozen food.
3. I bought a used tank with a dsb and think that perhaps it is saturated and therefor starting to show up.
4. I have added calerpa to my fuge as well as the chaeto that was already in it.
5. I know that my tank does have a large bioload and I missed my water change and had two go two weeks between changes twice in a row.
6. I also added a second icecap ballast and 15 more feet of VHO's. (cant wait to get the par meter at next meeting)
I have been running seachem phosgard since the algae became noticeable and my phosphate was off the chart on test kit.
7. When I checked the phosphate yesterday it was .36

Thanks for all your help I know I kind of went off topic all on my own

 

[jjmcat]

What test kit did you use?Did your rock come with the tank as well?

 

[R_Hudson]

What are you using for top off water. Going two weeks between water changes isnt going to cause that much of an issue. I have gone a month and a half currently, and it will honestly be another 2 weeks before I get around to it. Also I havent been able to get to my basement to get RO so Ive been topping off with tap. 115 Tds. Shame on me I know, but currently thats my only option. My only negative effect has been the cyano thats showed up. And Currently Im running skimmerless and have been for a while now with no issues. So Id say from experience you can eliminate those two from your list.

The stuff in the will help out, it may take a while for the algae to disappear but those two with the phosguard will, in time make a huge difference.

You said you got a new ballast, how old are the current bulbs? inadequate lighting can cause algae issues.

If I were to guess Id say the DSB is the primary culprit, during transport the sand got stirred up and released all kinds of nasties in the water column. Nothing but time and the above mentioned will solved this issue.

Now on the Vodka dosing, I have played with it a little bit on a past tank. I never noticed any major difference so I quit. the amount you HAVE to use is very very small. and I wasnt all that comfortable adding alcohol to my tank to begin with. There are some people who swear by this method and I wont argue with them on it. If this is something you are looking into pay close attention to what you are doing as its very easy to overdose and then you will have much bigger problems than algae!

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

Phosphate reduction is nitrate limited.
About 16-1 nitrates to phosphates.
Dosed until nitrates were -0- and stopped.
Measure phos in the tank, suck some water from the sand, let it clear & measure that.
SURPRISE!!!!

 

[AquaSump]

I considered it to reduce nitrates but chose to run a reactor with sachem denitrate. After 4 weeks nitrates fell to 0. I also run a reactor with phosban and phos is also at 0. When I heard vodka can cause serious bacteria blooms I was out!!!!

 

[imnotanerd]

phosguard is a good product but the higher your phosphates the faster the media is exhausted change it often and do weekly water changes and it will come down in no time.

 

[918noah]

Sorry for slow replies. I use a ro/di system that is at 0 TDS mixed with Salinity salt. I did not say that my tank has been set up at my house for about 9 months now with steady water readings until the phosphate was way high a month ago now. I think i am just going to continue to use the phosban until my phosphates test to 0. I am at school right now and I cant think of the test kit name right now. Vinny I am not sure that I understand what you are saying about the correlation between the phosphates and nitrates. Is there a root cause of the natrates that someones knows or does everyone agree it is a combination of all of the things I listed here?
Thanks

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

Correlation

Correlation

Nitrates are reduced in a 16Xto1 relationship to phosphates.
When nitrates get to -0- phosphate can no longer be reduced with vodka dosing.
Then you need GFO or equivalent.

 

[918noah]

Thank you for replying. The. In that case vodka would not help me out at all since my narrates are already low.