Vodka, vinegar,biopellets and other organic carbon dosing

[npsossi@msn.com]

I have been reading thru this hoping to find a formula that would tell me how much vodka and vinegar to start dosing a 90 gallon mixed reef. I am sure it was there but I am unable to find it. Help Please
Thanks
Mark

 

[jordancemery65]

Mark, are you using the apex to dose with?

 

[npsossi@msn.com]

I am sorry but I do not understand the question. I would be dosing by hand twice daily. If that is the question.
Mark

 

[jordancemery65]

Ok, i was just wondering... I have an excel spreadsheet that i used... I will forward it. Can you pm me or e-mail address..

 

[jordancemery65]

Nevermind, If you go to this website, there are amounts to be dosed...

 

[npsossi@msn.com]

Which website?

 

[jordancemery65]

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php

My bad i forgot to paste it!

 

[reckless1]

thanks tom, so if i am currently dosing 105ml of vinegar how much would i reduce that to accomodate a mix with vodka???. If i understand this correctly you are doing 75% vodka and 25% vinegar, so based on my current dosage i would use 21ml vinegar (25% of 105ml) and the 75% would be balance of vinegar 84ml divided by 8 (vodka is eight times stronger) is 10.5ml of vodka. and you said i can mix the two (vodka and vinegar) toghether undiluted and dose from one dosing pump. and i am assuming that every week i will increase the vodka by 0.5ml and the vinegar by 4ml until my nitrates are zero..

thanks,

robin..

 

[tmz]

I have been reading thru this hoping to find a formula that would tell me how much vodka and vinegar to start dosing a 90 gallon mixed reef. I am sure it was there but I am unable to find it. Help Please
Thanks
Mark

The article posted above gives very safe guidelines for vodka dosing. You can go a little faster if you want but watch out for a bacterial bloom. They can be applied to vinegar of a combination of vodka and vinegar with a little math.
. Note: 80proof vodka is 40% ethanol ,ie carbon source, and 60% water ; vinegar is only 5% acetic acid and 95% water ;so, it takes 8ml of vinegar to approximately equal 1 ml of vinegar. When substituting vinegar for vodka use 8x as much and vice versa.
As to how much of each to use there is not set formula;tanks vary in many respects.. Personally, at this time, I've settled on 40 ml of vodka( for 650 gallons; ie about .06 ml per gallon ) and 80ml of vinegar( ie,.12ml per gallon ) daily with good results. That works out to 80% ethanol and 20% acetic acid. Some use one or the other or various combinations. The combination of 40 ml vodka and 80 ml vinegar would equal single source dosing at .62 ml per gallon vinegar or .077 ml vodka pr gallon.

Th vinegar in large amounts need to be dosed slowly, prefeably during photosynthetic periods to offset the H+ it quickly adds and prevent precipitous short term pH drops. The vodka can be bolus dosed, ie dosed at once or spread out . I split the vodka dosing into two bolus doses ;one when the lights come on and one just before they go off. The bacteria multiply quickly and I like to keep the food coming in bulk at 12 hour intervals.

 

[tmz]

thanks tom, so if i am currently dosing 105ml of vinegar how much would i reduce that to accomodate a mix with vodka???. If i understand this correctly you are doing 75% vodka and 25% vinegar, so based on my current dosage i would use 21ml vinegar (25% of 105ml) and the 75% would be balance of vinegar 84ml divided by 8 (vodka is eight times stronger) is 10.5ml of vodka. and you said i can mix the two (vodka and vinegar) toghether undiluted and dose from one dosing pump. and i am assuming that every week i will increase the vodka by 0.5ml and the vinegar by 4ml until my nitrates are zero..

thanks,

robin..

That's right. I'd put a ceiling on the total dose in the ranges noted in the previous posts though( ie, .4ml to .8ml per gallon in vinegar equivalents).You may never see 0 nitrates and don't really want true 0 NO3.

 

[npsossi@msn.com]

So from this site I see that I would start with .4 ML per day for 100 gallons for the first 4 days . I double that thru day 7. If I am going to use Vodka and vinegar do I cut the vodka in half and 8 times the vinegar? Making it .2 ml vodka and 1.6 ml vinegar
Thanks
Mark

 

[npsossi@msn.com]

Thanks for the help!!! I am going to give it a go. So I am looking at 6ml vodka and 12 ml vinegar to start with 100 gallons of display.
Thanks again
Mark

 

[reckless1]

ok so just for clarification, i use a 1000ml beaker for storage of my carbon source (currently vinegar) which is dosed by a perialistic pump. should i then put 750ml vodka and 250ml vinegar in the beaker and then dose starting at 11ml total solution per day (currently at 105ml of vinegar per day) adding .5ml per week of total solution till my levels go down???.. sorry for repeating this but just want to be sure that i am on the right track...

sincerely,

robin..

 

[Boxfish]

Ok Tom checked my P04 with my Hanna checker Im at 0.13 so thats pretty low. I have been running phosban pretty consistently. Any suggestions to check?

 

[tmz]

So from this site I see that I would start with .4 ML per day for 100 gallons for the first 4 days . I double that thru day 7. If I am going to use Vodka and vinegar do I cut the vodka in half and 8 times the vinegar? Making it .2 ml vodka and 1.6 ml vinegar
Thanks
Mark

That would give you a 50/ 50 mix of vodka and vinegar in terms of the actual ethanol and acetic acid in roughly the same total amount of organic carbon as .4 ml of vodka.

 

[tmz]

ok so just for clarification, i use a 1000ml beaker for storage of my carbon source (currently vinegar) which is dosed by a perialistic pump. should i then put 750ml vodka and 250ml vinegar in the beaker and then dose starting at 11ml total solution per day (currently at 105ml of vinegar per day) adding .5ml per week of total solution till my levels go down???.. sorry for repeating this but just want to be sure that i am on the right track...

sincerely,

robin..

No to get a 1004 ml mixture of 75% ethanol to 25% acetic acid , you would need to mix 274 ml of 80 proof vodka with 730 ml of 5% acetic acid vinegar.

This mixture will be significantly stronger than just 1000ml vinegar since each ml of vodka is 8xs as strong as vinegar .

So the 274 ml of vodka is equivalent to 8x 274 or 2,192ml of vinegar .Then adding the the 730ml of vinegar gives you 2,192 plus 730 or 2,922 vinegar equivalents. This mixture holds almost 3xs as much organic carbon in the 1004ml as 1000ml of vinegar alone. So, to keep the same dose you need to redcue the amount of solution dosed to about 1/3 of the pure vinegar solution dosed now.

 

[reckless1]

thanks tom,
i am adjusting the mix and will dose 11ml every hour for three hours at the peak of my lighting schedule which will give me a total of 33ml total solution which is approximately 1/3 of the previous 100% vinegar solution. Do i increase the dosage by .5ml (total solution) every week until my reading's go down???..

sincerely,

robin

 

[Boxfish]

Is the 0.13 level of P04 high enough to cause a problem with cyano?

 

[tmz]

Is the 0.13 level of P04 high enough to cause a problem with cyano?

Absolutely.

 

[tmz]

thanks tom,
i am adjusting the mix and will dose 11ml every hour for three hours at the peak of my lighting schedule which will give me a total of 33ml total solution which is approximately 1/3 of the previous 100% vinegar solution. Do i increase the dosage by .5ml (total solution) every week until my reading's go down???..

sincerely,

robin

I'd set a ceiling between .133 and .233 ml per gallon of system volume for that mixture. That's' 1/3 of the normative average vinegar only dose of.4 to .7ml.