Vodka Dosing--When to begin maintenance doses

jiminy_crime

New member
So, tonight I came home and noticed my tank was cloudy again after 2 days of crystal clear water. I had cloudy water prior to that after my anemone died. I removed the anemone and 2 days later had clear water but here we are again.

I check everything out in the tank and all looks well. All corals were mostly open and fish seemed to be doing ok.

So just to make sure all is doing ok, I started the litany of tests. Here is where I stand:

Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 0(first time in 8 months where nitrates dropped lower than 5 ppm..was bright yellow 0 on API test kit)
PO4: (0 with ULR Hanna Checker)
Salinity 1.025 (refractometer)
Calcium 480-500 (API)
dKh 9.0 (Hanna Checker)
Mg 1440 (Salifert)
pH 8.2 (API)

So here are my main concerns:

1) Have I hit my maintenance dosing level with vodka now that I have reversed my nitrates to 0?
2) I am currently at 5 ml vodka...does that become my maintenance dose?
3) any idea what could be causing the bloom? I didn't see any thing had died...maybe was a little heavy on the feedings yesterday...could that be it? All I did this morning before I left for work was switch out my filter sock..could a clean filter sock have caused this if the previous one was filthy?

Thanks for the help!
 
my understanding is when the nitrates become undetectable, cut the dosage in half. so the maintenance dose should be 2.5mL of vodka in this case.
 
I wound up with 5ml dose daily on about 160g of water. I think the bacterial bloom would clear by 1/2 dose if not stopping for a couple days.

Your dose seems high compared to my experience with vodka.
 
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