My original water parameters were 50ppm nitrates :eek1: (had a lot of live rock in my sump, a lot of evap over 3 lazy days and caused a mini cycle when I topped off). Phosphates were .78
I have a softie/lps system and EVERYTHING was ****ed. Lots of color loss, brains were angry, acans were becoming nocans :crazy1: . Algae was growing nastily on the back side of the tank, nothing on the rock though. I did a few water changes, nitrates would come down a touch and within a few days would spike back up to 50ppm. To solve my sump/rock/evap mini-cycles I traded some extra rock in @ my badass LFS. I'm pretty sure he's a member here and will probably see this! He tests my phos in his Hannah meter for free a couple times a week, so I have pretty accurate phos measurements.
Anyway, I picked up a Terminator skimmer, which is constantly slammed on other forums and I've seen it slammed a few times here. People complain of it being hard to adjust and to get working properly, but it took me all of 45 seconds to get it running right. The dirties it pulls from the water is disturbing. I went over a year without a skimmer, just regular water changes - but eventually the WC's only didn't help.
So onto Vodka dosing, I went out and picked up the cheap $11.99 bottle of Vodka. Let my skimmer run for a few days to make sure it was working right. The nasty green diarrhea foam & water, improved clarity and cleaner smelling water told me it was working. I started with .5ml and within the first week made it up to 1ml. I noticed no difference, water nitrates stayed 50ppm and phos .78. 2nd week I bumped to 2ml and saw no difference in nitrates/phos, just improved water clarity & my corals were looking a bit happier. 3rd week I decided to get aggressive, by the end of the week I was up to 5ml. One day I forgot to add the Vodka in the morning and around 5pm I added it, shut my skimmer off around 8pm because it was rattling the cabinet and irritating me while I tried to sleep. Next morning I woke up to a milky mess. It looked like someone took 5 gallons of milk and dumped it in the system. I stared at my tank, felt little emotion other than wanting to open my window and jump out head first. I turned the skimmer on, shut my lights back off and went to work defeated. Came home later that afternoon to a crystal clear tank. Nitrates dropped to roughly .35ppm, phosphates were down to .54. The following week I bumped up to 6, saw no more improvements. I made it up to 8ml, finally saw a major change in nitrates. Nitrates are now 0. Phosphates are down to .47. I'm on my 3rd week of staying at 8ml. Yesterday I saw that I have a light white haze on the glass, so I am going to back down to 7.5ml and keep throttling back until the white haze goes away and I keep seeing improvements in my phos. I'm sure I could RO water change it out of the system, but I want to continue being patient and see just how far the Vodka will go.
I'm feeding heavily and have yet to see the nitrates climb from 0. :bounce2:
The tank looks excellent, colors are strong, zoa's are prettier than ever. The low nitrates has seemed to light a fire under them and they are multiplying like crazy. I had a large rock of african blues that died off within days of adding almost a year ago, 3 little polyps were left over and were clinging onto life. In the last 6 weeks or so they have spread like mad and I have over 30 polyps. This morning I noticed there are about 16 new ones beginning to open. :crazy1:
My frogspawns & duncan are going banana's in the low nitrate water. I'm really excited to see what will happen to the tank with the phos is nearly gone.
What is a realistic goal for phos?
I have a softie/lps system and EVERYTHING was ****ed. Lots of color loss, brains were angry, acans were becoming nocans :crazy1: . Algae was growing nastily on the back side of the tank, nothing on the rock though. I did a few water changes, nitrates would come down a touch and within a few days would spike back up to 50ppm. To solve my sump/rock/evap mini-cycles I traded some extra rock in @ my badass LFS. I'm pretty sure he's a member here and will probably see this! He tests my phos in his Hannah meter for free a couple times a week, so I have pretty accurate phos measurements.
Anyway, I picked up a Terminator skimmer, which is constantly slammed on other forums and I've seen it slammed a few times here. People complain of it being hard to adjust and to get working properly, but it took me all of 45 seconds to get it running right. The dirties it pulls from the water is disturbing. I went over a year without a skimmer, just regular water changes - but eventually the WC's only didn't help.
So onto Vodka dosing, I went out and picked up the cheap $11.99 bottle of Vodka. Let my skimmer run for a few days to make sure it was working right. The nasty green diarrhea foam & water, improved clarity and cleaner smelling water told me it was working. I started with .5ml and within the first week made it up to 1ml. I noticed no difference, water nitrates stayed 50ppm and phos .78. 2nd week I bumped to 2ml and saw no difference in nitrates/phos, just improved water clarity & my corals were looking a bit happier. 3rd week I decided to get aggressive, by the end of the week I was up to 5ml. One day I forgot to add the Vodka in the morning and around 5pm I added it, shut my skimmer off around 8pm because it was rattling the cabinet and irritating me while I tried to sleep. Next morning I woke up to a milky mess. It looked like someone took 5 gallons of milk and dumped it in the system. I stared at my tank, felt little emotion other than wanting to open my window and jump out head first. I turned the skimmer on, shut my lights back off and went to work defeated. Came home later that afternoon to a crystal clear tank. Nitrates dropped to roughly .35ppm, phosphates were down to .54. The following week I bumped up to 6, saw no more improvements. I made it up to 8ml, finally saw a major change in nitrates. Nitrates are now 0. Phosphates are down to .47. I'm on my 3rd week of staying at 8ml. Yesterday I saw that I have a light white haze on the glass, so I am going to back down to 7.5ml and keep throttling back until the white haze goes away and I keep seeing improvements in my phos. I'm sure I could RO water change it out of the system, but I want to continue being patient and see just how far the Vodka will go.
I'm feeding heavily and have yet to see the nitrates climb from 0. :bounce2:
The tank looks excellent, colors are strong, zoa's are prettier than ever. The low nitrates has seemed to light a fire under them and they are multiplying like crazy. I had a large rock of african blues that died off within days of adding almost a year ago, 3 little polyps were left over and were clinging onto life. In the last 6 weeks or so they have spread like mad and I have over 30 polyps. This morning I noticed there are about 16 new ones beginning to open. :crazy1:
My frogspawns & duncan are going banana's in the low nitrate water. I'm really excited to see what will happen to the tank with the phos is nearly gone.
What is a realistic goal for phos?
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