Yes, skimmate production will increase over time with using vodka, but after a while it subsides and you wind up skimming normally after the vodka has taken your tank to low levels of nitrate. This of course would change if yo fed more and stocked the tank with more fish like many vodka dosers do. Vodka does have a tendency of promoting cyanobacteria, which I along with countless others can attest to. I switched to vinegar but didn't like the drop in ph and wasn't willing to slowly drip the dose over the course of the day. I dosed MB7 from Brightwell for the recommended 2 week seeding period and currently use 5 ml. of Reef Biofuel per day in a 150 gallon display with 40 gallon sump. Every time I do a water change I dose 5 ml. of the MB7 once weekly. In my tank, nitrates were easily brought to undetectable on my test kit (Salifert) but bringing down phosphate was a whole other ball of wax. I had a hair algae problem, started running GFO but it only minimally helped, and I wasn't willing to spend hundreds of dollars on GFO changed almost daily to bring down PO4. I changed bulbs, changed RODI filters, tried almost everything under the sun including large water changes. I laugh at those who suggest pulling the rock out and scrubbing it. This is not even a viable option in an SPS reef where over 30 corals have encrusted the rock work....unless of course you want clean rocks and white coral skeletons when you're done scrubbing.
At one point I had green hair algae, dinoflagellates on the sand bed and a weird turf algae growing in a small area behind my return outlet. I think things compounded when a couple of Turbo Snails perished from trying to raise magnesium over 1600 using Kent's TechM. I didn't find the snails in time and they only made the algae and smell worse!!!
I read about hydrogen peroxide dosing and decided to give it a try. Within 2 weeks the dinoflagellates were gone, the hair algae was turning brown and now able to be siphoned and the turf algae had disappeared as well. I'm sure Randy can speak to the uses and recommendations/warnings of Hydrogen Peroxide in a reef tank far better than myself, so I won't even try.
For me, the hydrogen peroxide did the trick and worked wonders. There was also a clarity in my water that I haven't seen from carbon dosing and granular activated carbon use. Many who have used ozone report this as well, but I can honestly say that if you didn't look at the surface agitation in my tank, you would have never known there was water in it. Plus, I feed my fish about 2 teaspoons of NLS pellets per day, and after using hydrogen peroxide my magnet cleaner wasn't needed for the glass for over 2 weeks.
After 4 weeks I returned to GFO use and things are humming along. If I could intelligently explain hydrogen peroxide's use I would...but alas, I can't. This is also why I returned to using GFO, something I can understand and correct in usage if things go astray.
