Who's dosing vodka? And why?

Re: Oh! O2!

Re: Oh! O2!

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14599111#post14599111 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by herring_fish
I expect to dose vodka only as a food course and since I will not be skimming out the bacteria, I may have to use much less of it.
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Am I missing something? I thought that a skimmer was a must for vodka dosing or any other bacteria driven system? Everything I have read says that if your not skimming enough you will have issues so not skimming at all I would assume you are asking for trouble when vodka dosing.

Paul
 
Does the water changes effect the dosage? In my head, if you do a water change it would seem like you need to start you dosing back at square one...cause you have removed a percentage of the water that was "treated" with the vodka dosing...confused!! help!!
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14600538#post14600538 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by katpurdy
Does the water changes effect the dosage? In my head, if you do a water change it would seem like you need to start you dosing back at square one...cause you have removed a percentage of the water that was "treated" with the vodka dosing...confused!! help!!
Click to expand...

It is my understanding that the bacteria (and perhaps other organisms) assimilate the carbon sources, or the derivatives, fairly quickly, unless there is an insufficient bacterial population (or diversity) to begin with. It's not a matter of keeping the source in solution, but its uptake by bacteria.
 
I'm not looking for the extra horse power.

I'm not looking for the extra horse power.

Paul,
Yes, I think that if you read back through my posts, you will get a better picture of what I am trying to do. I am definitely swimming up stream with this experiment and I don¡¦t suggest that anyone follow me. You might want to simply watch with amusement.

In short, I do want to grow more bacteria to feed other organisms but not to lower the nutrient levels. Instead of skimming bacteria off right after it has done its job, I hope that a large percentage of the bacteria will be consumed before it dies.

I want to grow a wide array of filter feeders (also referred as non-photosynthetic corals) in the midst of light loving corals, many of which feed on the foods that I will be adding to the tank in large quantities. Take a look at the results that I enjoyed in my old tank. http://asaherring.com

Algae scrubbers are purported to raise the dissolved oxygen level to near the saturation point so I hope to be less concerned with those issues. When I used a scrubber in my old tank, I experimented with sugar vinegar and alcohol along with enzymes. I got the white strands of bacteria in the very high flow areas but they were short lived. I never did get the cloudiness in the water so I was quite surprised to see it showed up in my new tank. I thought that what I was seeing was the bacteria itself, not oxygen depletion. Thanks again to Marc.

Like I said in previous posts, the scrubber is not mature yet so I have to remember that my tank is not quite bullet proof ¡K.yet. Æ'º
 
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Sounds like a fun experiment herring_fish. It'll be interesting to see what you observe with various doses of vodka and if you see any detrimental issues without a skimmer.

With the current thinking, I don't know how much the vodka will actually help. It could work either way; with advantages and disadvantages. I think with low amounts you could tease out a benefit but with higher amounts you'll most-likely run into issues with O2 depletion or create a jelly-like ball of bacterial biofilm.

The twist is the use of the algae scrubber. With this, you'll get your nitrate/phosphate export but are tying in the bacterial growth which may benefit many different niches in your little reef ecosystem.
 
herring_fish,

Thanks for the explanation. I understand now. I will definitely be interested in the results.

Paul
 
I just went to the v/v mixture. I am starting to see more cyano. I do have HA and it is starting to thin out and die off. I am not sure if the cyano is from the vinegar or the die-off of HA. I think it is from the die-off since the cyano is concentrated on the patches of HA.
 
Ok, after one week of dosing the tanks colours certainly seem brighter. nitrates 20, phos 0.25 i think but i do some trouble with these tests! Could be less, not more. I feed about four times a day and refill the algae clip each time. Phos i believe has dropped. Gonna up dosage tommorrow.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14596763#post14596763 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by melev
Honestly, that skimmer is not super. That's all I'm saying. I've tinkered with a few of them trying to get them working better, and it wasn't plausible right out of the box.

The LFS by me sells a lot of them, but he's been encouraging unhappy customers to get a decent air pump and forcing air into the pump's intake to get better foam in the body of the skimmer. You might opt to do the same. The airpump, tubing, and that little bit of electricity could make all the difference.
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Take it from someone who had the "Super" skimmer, i'll say it, they SUCK!

I upgraded to a AquaC EV-240 Skimmer w. Mag 18, after discussing a few different options with Marc, and it is by far the best upgrade I have done to my tank....

Even if you were not dosing, I would tell you to switch that skimmer out...
 
It took 8 months (7/14/08 to 3/17/09) to do this:

nitrate0_031709.jpg


This is a brand new test kit too. Perhaps my other one wasn't accurate since I had to actually puncture Bottle #2 to get it to let drops out. I may have been adding incorrectly sized drops all this time, wondering why my No3 wouldn't drop. :rolleyes:
 
Sure is, Nathan. I guess your article was correct. ;)

Ask me how many water changes I've done in the past 184 days... I dare you.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14631236#post14631236 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by melev
Sure is, Nathan. I guess your article was correct. ;)

Ask me how many water changes I've done in the past 184 days... I dare you.
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Mine is lot more orange than that! lol... and How many?
 
Whoops. 8 months at an average of 30 days equals 240 days, plus 3 so 243 days since I started dosing...










































Three 55g water changes. :eek2:


So it appears the vodka works, and works well. I wanted to see if it could do it without lots of water changes (which I feel kind of dilutes the process of lowering nitrates). It isn't that I didn't want to do any, and I've got plenty of water and tons of salt, but I just wanted to see what it could do.

I'll get back to monthly water changes again, because I'm sure there are things my corals could benefit from.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14631236#post14631236 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by melev
Sure is, Nathan. I guess your article was correct. ;)

Ask me how many water changes I've done in the past 184 days... I dare you.
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I could guess but in general I will say it is bad practice. ;) Guess how many I did in my 18mo of having my reef setup. :smokin:
 
I'm game. 32 water changes, you animal. :lol:

What brand of cyano bacteria remover did you use a few months ago? I still have some that I need to nuke, and I'm going to have to bite that bullet.
 
It was UltraLife Slime Remover. I used 0.4x the recommended dose for three days. Didn't affect anything other than the cyano but I did eventually find the cyano had returned to a new place in the tank. Still looking for an inhibitor I can add straight to the vodka.
 
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