Vodka Dosing

[strayvoltage]

As most of you know I began dosing vodka several months back. It does work, the phosphate went to zero a couple of months ago. The nitrates just kept holding on and wouldn't go below 20ppm then they finally began to drop and went to 10 ppm and stayed there for the longest time. I am happy to report that the nitrate reading is now zero and the phosphate is still zero. It took some time but it did work. I know my tank is doing much better, i can and have been able to tell for some time now by the corals.
:celeb1: :beer: :celeb2: :beer: :beer: :celeb1: :beer: :beer: :celeb3: :celeb2:
Oh wow did i get carried away or what? LOL

 

[tzhanks]

Congratulations I have read mixed review about vodka dosing but this makes me want to try it out.

 

[deehz]

So when you dose w/vodka John, is it 2 shots for you and one for your tank? :lol:

Have you thought of an algae scrubber for you tank? It is a pretty neat and simple contraption that eliminates your PO4 and NO3 down to zero naturally. It is all done w/algae. I am going to order one for my tank so I can get rid of my reactor. Here is the link for your reading pleasure:

http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums...ver-replaces-skimmer-refugium-everything.html

 

[jmait769]

So when you dose w/vodka John, is it 2 shots for you and one for your tank? :lol:

:thumbsup:

Congratulations John!! :beer: That is awesome!! Are you going to continue dosing as a maintenance or do you stop cold turkey?

Jay

 

[strayvoltage]

tzhanks, thanks!

deehz, I am going to just keep doing what got me here, thanks for the link and the heads up on the scrubber, I have read about them before but using one of them is going to mean more work than to shoot some vodka in the tank daily. Now it isn't two shots for me and one for the tank, it's more like 5 or six for me then try to remember if I put any in the tank or not. Not really I don't even like the stuff.

Thanks Jay. I will now cut the does in half and that will be the maintenance dose from now on. I will test weekly or test from time to time or if the corals look different. If the nitrates start to go back up then I will again increase the dosage 1ml per week until they go back down, at that time I may have to keep the maintenance dose a little higher. It is still an on going process.

 

[The Juggernaut]

So instead of me spending $80 on a phosband reactor I should just go to the liquor store and buy a bottle of McCormicks for $5 wow.

 

[psuedopimp]

john can i borrow your phos test kit? i want to test my water and my top off Ro/di water to see if that is my problem.

 

[deehz]

john can i borrow your phos test kit? i want to test my water and my top off Ro/di water to see if that is my problem.

Jay,
If you need to borrow a phosphate test, I have one. I only use it about once a month now, my phosphates are at zero or near it since my reactor was installed a few months back. Let me know. I live in north LC--on Del Rey.

 

[psuedopimp]

that would be awesome. you got pm

 

[strayvoltage]

Well after a little over a week of dosing half the amount of vodka the nitrates hve started to go up. So this means I wont be able to do half of what I was at but will have to adjust it to keep them down. It may even be that I have to stay at what was full dose but that won't hurt anything.

 

[psuedopimp]

so where are they coming from? i didn't think you had that many fish.

 

[strayvoltage]

I have 18 or so fish and i feed pretty heavy. I will get them back down and will have to use a different maintenance dose is all.

 

[jtinoco]

Any updates on this John? Are you still dosing?

I have been reading a lot on vodka and sugar dosing and how it works. I am considering trying it since I have been having issues with green hair algae.

 

[strayvoltage]

jtinoco, I do still dose. I did have to increase the maintenance dose from 7ml to 10ml per day. The 7ml was half of the highest daily dose that I had used. If you have any questions please feel free to ask.

 

[jtinoco]

Thanks. I do have a few questions.

Did you see an immediate impact on your nitrates and phosphate?

Did any of your inhabitants have any effects?

Did you experience a sudden bacteria bloom making your water cloudy? If so, how did you treat that?

 

[strayvoltage]

Dosing vodka is not a fast cure to the problem. It takes time to build up the dose. None of my fish or coral were effected in any bad way that I could tell.

I did not have an bacteria bloom. That will happen if you over dose or don't take your time.
It took a few weeks for the phospahte to start to drop and about two months for the nitrates to drop. It took about six months for me to get everything to zero. Nitrates took about twice as long to go to zero as the phospahtes.
HTH :wave:

 

[jtinoco]

Well then I overdosed. Dang it!

I decided to give it a shot yesterday. I'm going to be dosing sugar. I've been reading tons on it. I didn't think I had dosed too much. I did about 1/8 tsp. Everything was fine till this morning. Tank is all cloudy. I started searching and yes indeed it happens when you overdose(bacteria bloom). Apparently there is really nothing to worry about as long as your tank is aerated which mine is, I hope. Skimmer is running and surface is broken a bit by the powerhead's flow. I am going to stop dosing for a day and see if it clears up. Then I'll resume with a lower dose. I'm not sure where the nitrates and phosphate are coming from that are keeping the GHA growing.

Nothing looks affected yet. Just cloudy.

 

[strayvoltage]

I don't know how much you dosed. I have a water vol of 285gal and started with 1.2ml i think.

 

[jtinoco]

According to google
1 US teaspoon = 4.92892159 ml

I dosed 1/8 tsp. So I dosed about 0.62 ml.

My tank is 72 gallons. Seems like a bit of an overdose for my size tank. Shouldve done 1/10. Ugh!

We'll see how my tank does.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[benjabba]

How about some before and after pics John?? Are you still dosing manually? It seems like some of the dosing pumps out there being used for two-part might work nicely.

:beer: