Vodka Dosing Questions

[CoralNutter]

Hey I have recently started vodka dosing about a month ago.
So far It was being going great I noticed my corals are growing nicely and looking great as well as my parameters and algae problems are much more in check. My question is that now my Nitrate and Phosphate levels are undetectable with my test kit (Salifert for P04 and API for N03) I still have a few small patches of hair algae that leads me to believe that I do still have some nitrate and phosphates witch are being consumed by the algae. I dont want to overdose my tank but is it a safe bet to keep increasing dosage until the algae goes away? Or Should i get a small CUC to finish the job. I currently only have one cleaner shrimp.

P.S. This is my first post on RC! So nice to meet you all look forward to hearing your input!

Cheers

 

[organism]

The thing is nothing good happens fast in the hobby.

If your nitrates and phosphates are already at 0 then your dosage should be good. If you overdo it you can bleach all your corals and the algae will still be there. As long as the algae isn't growing you're good, just pull it out manually or wait for it to slowly die off.

 

[CoralNutter]

The thing is nothing good happens fast in the hobby.

If your nitrates and phosphates are already at 0 then your dosage should be good. If you overdo it you can bleach all your corals and the algae will still be there. As long as the algae isn't growing you're good, just pull it out manually or wait for it to slowly die off.

Oh alright thank you for the quick response!

 

[organism]

np, I have a frag tank full of bleached sticks at the moment for forgetting that one lol

 

[CoralNutter]

np, I have a frag tank full of bleached sticks at the moment for forgetting that one lol

Ahh sorry to hear that lol I guess it's a mistake you only make once. I have noticed I'm still getting small patches of red slime I think maybe cus I'm not dosing enough microbacter7 but also I'm getting some brown stringy stuff all over my substrate it seems like only where the light hits it directly because where there is an overhang from the rocks it's completely clean ever had anything like this? I vacuumed it out every water change but it comes back right away by the next day.

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[Scorpius]

Right now my PO4 is .04 and my NO3 is 10ppm and all my sps and lps have great color and polyp extension. I'm a little concerned about the NO3 being 10ppm with my chaeto having issues, but everything is good so far.

 

[Raintree]

you might even consider pulling back on the carbon dosing until just before you get detectable nitrate, just in case you overshot the dose. You will need to tweak the dose a little to get it just right. Then continue to test and take note of the algae.

A little algae isn't a bad thing necessarily. Plus it's important to note that it is only advisable to keep nitrate and phosphate undetectable if you are feeding heavily and frequently, otherwise your coral may struggle

 

[organism]

A little algae isn't a bad thing necessarily. Plus it's important to note that it is only advisable to keep nitrate and phosphate undetectable if you are feeding heavily and frequently, otherwise your coral may struggle

+1, imo the main benefit of carbon dosing is you get to feed more.

 

[Tisbe]

You are correct about the still having nutrients in the tank. Good husbandry and time is what you need now. I have been rehabbing a tank for the last 6 months that was neglected for years. I am carbon dosing, running gfo, using filter socks, etc.

What I have been seeing is that my tank definitely goes through algae blooms on rock, then it dies, nutrients are released and the process starts over again. This cycle takes about 4 weeks. Just before the algae dies back I notice my skimmer does not pull as much crap out of the water. After a week the skimmer picks back up and the algae recedes, some comes back but not as much and grows a little slower. Over time the amount of algae that returns has been less and less. My problem is the rock built up a lot of nutrients and have been releasing them.

If you pull more nutrients out than you add you will see the results you desire over time (usually months). Best of luck to you.