Who's dosing vodka? And why?

I would suggest changing a ton of water for a bit. If you do a 50% water change (75g), the nitrate will cut in half. Do another massive water change again two days later, you can cut those nitrates in half again. Have you tested the Natural Sea Water for NO3 and PO4 yet?

That's good news about the water refilling station with what must be DI water. 0 TDS, 0 PO4 & NO3 is excellent.
 
yup i think ill do massive changes, i plan to decomission my sump for a while then totally clean it too. restart the dsb there. nsw p04 is the same color as the first on the the scale. n03 is at 5-10
 
I have been dosing vodka for a while now. The only reason I do it is too keep nutrients low for nice SPS color, even though I have a high fish load. It was worked well for me. It took a while for my tank to adjust to the amount I use, but now things are running smoothly. I also went through a nasty diatom phase when I added a thin layer of sand, but after a couple months, that went away too.

In fact, it's been so long without an issue, that I'm thinking of trying a muti-species bacterial additive, just to see what happens, since I've got a good "baseline" to start with.
 
I was doing Vodka, was worried about the side effects and quit. Nitrates went up again, coral lost color and I lost one piece. Im back to Vodka and Nitrates are back down and color is better.

I don't think Vodka is the best bet, but is cheap, simple and easy to use.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15457875#post15457875 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by melev
No, I doubt it. Even during all my dosing for the past year, my angled tank (tied into the same system) had a lot of valonia. I put in three Emerald Crabs, and they got rid of it all.
Click to expand...

Marc,

I started dosing Vodka with Nate (Genetics) about 2 years ago and my bubble algae did go away. It did take a long time though. It slowly stopped spreading and over time, wasted away.

I still dose vodka and will continue to do so. I feel it really helps keep my system clean.
 
Hi All,

I started dosing vodka yesterday... with a 100g water volume, I started at 0.05 ml per day. I will continue this regimen and continually post updates on this thread. ;)

My Phosphate has always been low albeit measurable, but my Nitrate is in the 40ppm range! I have hair algae, bubble algae and some of my SPS are browned out. We shall see what vodka could do.

It's quite tricky to dose without spilling some of the booze. I had to pour a small amount to a measuring cup and then use the tiny injection to suck up 0.05 ml. I have done two doses so far, and I could tell that the water has some "haziness" to it. We'll see.

By the way, should I totally stop doing water changes?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15465625#post15465625 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by hollback
Marc,

I started dosing Vodka with Nate (Genetics) about 2 years ago and my bubble algae did go away. It did take a long time though. It slowly stopped spreading and over time, wasted away.

I still dose vodka and will continue to do so. I feel it really helps keep my system clean.
Click to expand...

So, as usually, two totally different responses to a topic. :lol: I'm glad yours went away. Mine wasn't, that's for darn sure. One of the perks of adding those emeralds to my angled tank is that they also devour the pest caulerpa problem I had in that tank. Seriously, that was SO unexpected, and such a boon. Go Team Emerald! :D
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15467078#post15467078 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by xtm
Hi All,

I started dosing vodka yesterday... with a 100g water volume, I started at 0.05 ml per day. I will continue this regimen and continually post updates on this thread. ;)

My Phosphate has always been low albeit measurable, but my Nitrate is in the 40ppm range! I have hair algae, bubble algae and some of my SPS are browned out. We shall see what vodka could do.

It's quite tricky to dose without spilling some of the booze. I had to pour a small amount to a measuring cup and then use the tiny injection to suck up 0.05 ml. I have done two doses so far, and I could tell that the water has some "haziness" to it. We'll see.

By the way, should I totally stop doing water changes?
Click to expand...

No, don't forgo (sp?) them. In my case, I chose not to do them because I wanted to see if Vodka would care for it. And in the past 13 months, I only did 5 water changes. I'll go back to my monthly water change again, starting this week. I just had to know, you know? ;)

Here's how I filled my syringe:
vodka_syringe_tb.jpg


However, once I set up my little doser, I could pour out the right amount of ml right out of the tiny cup into the VDD:
vodka_reservoir_cap_tb.jpg


vodka_reservoir_tb.jpg
 
I'm now on day 5 along with some microbacter7 and prodibio. The absolute crud my euroreefs are pulling out is unbelievable esp considering thy made 2-3" of opaque rancid brown nog before!

I am getting the thick volcano creamy skimmate marc showed in his other posts.

Day5--0.65cc in 60 net gal and 1.4cc in 170 net gal.
 
Melev
ok after that statement we need to know how it went with only 5 water canges in 13 months.
Tell us more ..... Did you get the results we are all looking for? Did you add any trace elements or AA?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15467899#post15467899 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by trueblackpercula
Melev
ok after that statement we need to know how it went with only 5 water canges in 13 months.
Tell us more ..... Did you get the results we are all looking for? Did you add any trace elements or AA?
Click to expand...

It worked very well. By the end of the eighth month, nitrates were zero for about two months. Then I started feeding much more heavily because I knew the water quality was fine. Nitrates crept up a bit, but nothing worrisome. Maybe 5ppm, maybe as much as 10ppm. Tough to tell the difference on the API kit, as 5ppm looks a bit darker than 10 for some crazy reason. What I did was increase the vodka from 10ml to 12.5ml and have been dosing that for the past 3-4 weeks. I need to do a test to see what the number is.

No, I didn't dose much of anything else during that time. Occasionally I'd think to dose Lugol's Solution or Potassium, but nothing on a regular basis.

I just started up the RO/DI unit to collect 55g for the water change I want to do this week. I'll probably do it Wednesday, so the barrel can mix for 24 hours first.
 
Ok..

I am taking the plunge..
Will start dosing today 8-4-2009

I have all SPS,LPS, some softies (xenia/zoas)

Lives stock (Lawnmower blenny/yashia goby/yellow watchmen/small 2 inch blue tang/small clownfish/midas blenny/20+ small hermits/ 6 turbo snails/1 mandarin goby/2 scooter blennies)

-current nitrates @ 10 ppm
will advise on what happens
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15467202#post15467202 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by melev
So, as usually, two totally different responses to a topic. :lol: I'm glad yours went away. Mine wasn't, that's for darn sure. One of the perks of adding those emeralds to my angled tank is that they also devour the pest caulerpa problem I had in that tank. Seriously, that was SO unexpected, and such a boon. Go Team Emerald! :D
Click to expand...

Yeah Marc, it just goes to show that there is no real rhyme or reason in this hobby. I do still ave a few bubbles around but no more than 10 or so. Previously, I was cleaning the overflow slots every few day for fear of them getting clogged and overflowing my display.
 
starting week 5 today, increasing up to 2.8 ml. Still no change in n03 which are around 50+(assuming I'm reading the test kits right, using both salifert and API). Did a 30% h2o change Sunday with no change(slowly removing sandbed since I am attributing detritus buildup in the sandbed as the culprit) and am on day 5 of AZ no3. All with no positive results yet. Plan to add a detritus CUC as soon as I can get up to vivid aquariums.
 
AZNO3 definitely works. I used it in the past, and brought my nitrate from 65 to 0. It took about two months, and I used over $100 in product to do it though. The cyano bloom would make any real hobbyist cry, which I ended up siphoning out a couple of times because I just couldn't take it.
 
I had a cyano bloom, but fortunately I currently have no corals in my tank, so I just left it dark for 5 days and problem solved. I blame my own neglect for the bloom, not the no3 though. My ro/di filters were way overdue for a change(tds 321) so I changed them out(tds now 12). No problems since.
 
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