Vodka Dosing Vs. Sugar- How??

[ChrisKirkland]

Ok I have been battling nitrates and phosphates for over a year now and have more cyno and nitrates and phosphates than I know what to do with. Would vodka help me? What is the difference in dosing vodka and sugar? Most importantly what are the effects (good and bad).
My Parameters are as follows:
PH: 8.1
Ca: 460
PO4: 1.0-1.5ish
NH4: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 50 or more

Running a deep sand bed in both tanks and skimming like crazy. Using a refuge with maro algae.

 

[ChrisKirkland]

Bumpity bump!

 

[HighlandReefer]

How deep is your sand bed?

 

[ChrisKirkland]

4-5 to 6 in some places.

 

[HighlandReefer]

Sounds like you have a lot of Tangs & feed them good? Do you dose iron for your macroalgae & how many gallons is your fuge?:

 

[ChrisKirkland]

Yes I do feed my tangs a lot, they are all fat and happy. I don't dose iron for my macro algae (Caulerpa)

 

[HighlandReefer]

Your bio-load is to much for your tank. There are somethings you can try first to help get it back in line:

1) Reduce the amount you feed.
2) Remove some of your fish.
3) Increase the number and/or size of your fuge.
4) Dose iron for your macroalgae.
5) Increase the depth of your sand bed to at least 6"
6) Using GFO in a reactor will be very expensive with the level of
phosphate you currently have, but will help once the levels
have been reduced.

If you choose to use vodka or sugar you need to understand that this is an experimental method and bad things can happen. I am aware of at least one case where the reefer had corals that were damaged when trying vodka dosing. Do you want to be a guinea pig?

 

[bertoni]

Unless you're interested in stony corals, I don't think the phosphate and nitrate are going to be a problem. You could choose to ignore them. Otherwise, I agree that reducing the amount of food going into the tank is going to be the cheapest way to fix the problem. How well is the Caulerpa growing, and how much is harvested?

 

[gkyle]

In answer to the original question, I don't think there's any doubt that dosing sugar or vodka will lower your phosphate and nitrate. There's a formula posted here somewhere, but in my system I dose 1 tsp. per day of sugar and I measure 0.00 - 0.01 on phosphate (Milwaukee photometer) with reasonably heavy feeding, no GFO, and no macro. I started at 1/2 tsp. per day and gradually worked up to 2 tsp., but am back down to 1 tsp. now. I've only been doing it for six weeks so I can't speak to the long-term negative effects, but I can say that getting it down to 0.00 wasn't something my sps cared for.

Also, I went the other direction and removed all sand from my system so I could run lots of additional circulation and eliminate a major source of food/nutrient accumulation. I had a major algae issue before, but the combination of sugar dosing, removing sand, and one month where I swapped 200 percent of my water volume eliminated the issue.

 

[ChrisKirkland]

I do not use any type of iron for my macro algae but it is growing like a weed and I have never harvested it.

 

[ChrisKirkland]

Bump for recommendations? Confused!

 

[gkyle]

I'm sure others will chime in, but here's what I know...

- Macroalgae grows better with iron supplementation, but will certainly grow without it. The faster the macro grows the more nutrients it absorbs, but it needs to be trimmed (harvested) periodically to keep it growing and manually export the nutrients it has absorbed.

- In a system like yours with substantial nutrients, macro by itself won't do the job unless you grow tons of it

- The primary (traditional) methods for reducing nitrates and phosphates are to feed less, have fewer fish, change water more often, or add a phosphate absorber like GFO (or all four)

- If algae or coral growth problems aren't bothering you, the excess nutrients aren't that big of a problem

- Both nitrates and phosphates will come down if you dose with a carbon source; usually vodka or sugar or vinegar. There's a huge thread here if you want to see the cautions and benefits. If dosing carbon, it's important to introduce it gradually over a period of weeks, and a little goes a long way. Too much and your tank will "bloom" with bacteria and turn white (potentially causing an oxygen problem for your tank), too little and the numbers won't come down to where you want them.

- Last, from my experiences so far - it's possible to get phosphates too low; some amount is needed for coral growth. I'm trying to get mine back up to .01-.02 and am adjusting my sugar dose downwards trying to find the right maintenance level. In the meantime I'm dosing with Elos amino acids and the corals seem to really like them.

 

[ChrisKirkland]

bump to the top

 

[Rascal1371]

Reducing nutrients often requires a multi-pronged approach. Do everything you can to minimize import (strain frozen foods if you use them, don't over feed, etc.. ), and also do everything you can to maximize export. On the import side, one thing that hasn't been mentioned is to make sure your RO/DI is giving you 0.0 Tds water, or close to it. Cyano in particular likes silicates, so make sure none of that is getting through. There is no sense in stepping up your water changes until you are sure your source water is clear. Once that is done, I would start changing 10% 2x week. I am also big fan of GFO based on my experience, but you like HighlandReefer said you will have to use a lot of and change it frequently until your levels came down. During a HA problem a couple of years ago I ran 1000g at a time and changed 500g/week for 2 months. Expensive--but it does work. As for your macro algae, if you have never harvested it you are not growing it fast enough IMO. Try more light and/or iron supplementation.

As for sugar dosing, I have never tried it personally but the science is sound and a lot of people have had success with it, so it may be worth a shot. As with the GFO though, start slowly and build up from there.

 

[ChrisKirkland]

Thanks. I currently do about 15% water change every week on both tanks. My RO/DI is giving me a TDS reading of 1-2 (cartridges are on order). I have been vacuuming the detrius out of the sump area to keep nitrates down. Anyone Else have any suggestions?

 

[ChrisKirkland]

Anyone Else???

 

[hyperfocal]

I've just started dosing vodka using the protocol described here. As far as I can tell, for this use one pure carbohydrate is as good as another, so I was hoping to switch to sugar.

Vodka delivers 2.2 kcal/ml.
Table sugar delivers 4 kcal/g.
1 ml of vodka ~= 1 g of vodka

With that in mind, for every ml of vodka the protocol would have me dose, I should instead dose 1.8 g of sugar. My current dose is 0.2 ml of vodka therefor I should dose .36 g of sugar.

Unfortunately, it's a lot easier for me to accurately and precisely measure out .2 ml of vodka (using an old test kit syringe) than .36 g of sugar (using my digital kitchen scale that seems hinkey when measuring a small mass and iirc resolves to whole grams). Based on that, I'll stick with vodka.

 

[ChrisKirkland]

Ok have you seen any adverse effects of the vodka dosing?

 

[hyperfocal]

I'm only on day #2, so I'm not seeing much of anything yet.

It just occurred to me (duh!), I could mix up a sugar/water solution and dose that. Easy to make, easy to dose.

 

[ChrisKirkland]

Very True. Keep me posted