Vodka dosing on a nanoreef

Miglessa

New member
Hi guys I have a 15L aquarium from TMC I had have it for the past half a year, before that I only had a 180L ciclid aquarium. I would like to know if there is any advantage to vodka dosing in such a small aquarium, and if any of you have tried it in a nano.
I was thinking of dosing 0,01ml for the first 3 days, 0,02ml for the days 4-7 and 0,10ml for the following days.
I would like to know your thoughts before even starting dosing.
 
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Unless you are skimming there isn't a good way to export. Perhaps you could do daily WCs but then the WC may be responsible for fixing your original issue.
 
nanoreefwanabe is right. inless you have a skimmer, and I mean a good one, you're just going to get a bacterial bloom. learned this the hardway with my old 20long.
 
In a 15 L tank I would IMO not dose vodka or sugar or vinegar. If you have nitrate and phosphate issues in such a small tank IME it is better IMO to use GFO or Aluminum oxide and good quality GAC and do water changes to help. When you use the VSV method a lot of bacteria suddenly grow and cloud you tank and if you do not have a skimmer it is very difficult to get rid of them and when they die off you increase the nutrients in the tanks water again. FWIW
 
I do run 20% water changes weekly, and use the skimmer for 16 hours a day. I heard that high nitrates can be do to the sand bed being dirty and I have a fish that just loves to through sand all over the place. Do you guys think that the fact that the sand is being moved all the time impacts the levels of nitrates? I did dose vodka for the past 3 days (0,01ml) and seen the nitrates reduce from 30 to less than 10, however they are still above the 0,5-1ppm, but my corals seen to be better than before. This friday I'm doing another water change.
 
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+1 for what everyone else has said. Vodka/carbon dosing is not nesescary in a nano. Especially when nitrates/phosphates are high, your asking for trouble.

The great thing about a nano is when nutrients do get high, there easy to get low with water changes and gfo +skimming.

Let me ask, why only run your skimmer 16hrs a day? IME, you want to run an optimal skimmer 24/7 so you keep a consistent foam head. Having your skimmer shut down for 8 hrs a day will dry the inside out and kill your bio film. One of the reasons it takes new skimmers a few months to break in, is because they need to get nice and slimy inside to produce a nice skimmate. I'd say keep your skimmer running 24/7, and skim a little dry.


The only time I would recommend carbon dosing in a nano is if you had all your parameters in check and were just using it to bring out the colors in your sps corals. Other then that, I would not use vodka just to lower your nitrates. There's an underlying problem there.
 
+1 for what everyone else has said. Vodka/carbon dosing is not nesescary in a nano. Especially when nitrates/phosphates are high, your asking for trouble.

The great thing about a nano is when nutrients do get high, there easy to get low with water changes and gfo +skimming.

Let me ask, why only run your skimmer 16hrs a day? IME, you want to run an optimal skimmer 24/7 so you keep a consistent foam head. Having your skimmer shut down for 8 hrs a day will dry the inside out and kill your bio film. One of the reasons it takes new skimmers a few months to break in, is because they need to get nice and slimy inside to produce a nice skimmate. I'd say keep your skimmer running 24/7, and skim a little dry.


The only time I would recommend carbon dosing in a nano is if you had all your parameters in check and were just using it to bring out the colors in your sps corals. Other then that, I would not use vodka just to lower your nitrates. There's an underlying problem there.

I run it for 16 hours becuase since its so close to my bed it makes a lot of noise, but didn't know it would break if it was out for 8 hours, I will let it on now thanks for the advice.
 
I run it for 16 hours becuase since its so close to my bed it makes a lot of noise, but didn't know it would break if it was out for 8 hours, I will let it on now thanks for the advice.

Depending on what it is, there's always ways to silence a skimmer.
 
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