Anyone locally dosing Vodka (for the tank, not you!)

I think you should try it and keep us posted!

 

Yea I've been doing tons of research on it and I bought the vodka last night. I just upgraded the pump on my remora pro so I can skim the supercharged bacteria out better. I'm planning on starting today.

I have a 72 gallon tank(same as you) and a 29 gallon sump, so I figured 100 gallons gross water volume minus 30% for rocks and sand. I have roughly 70 gallons of water to dose. I'm starting out dosing .25ml on days 1-3, .5ml on days 4-7, then every week it will get bumped up .5ml regardless tank volume. I will continue this until nitrates and phosphates start lowering, then I will maintain this dose until they reach zero. From there I will cut my dose in half and continue to monitor nitrates and phosphates and make sure they stay there. If they stay there I can dose my tank with this amount each day and I can feed my tank as much as it wants!

Here's all my links I have saved on the topic:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php
http://glassbox-design.com/2008/achieved-through-observation-and-experimentation/
http://glassbox-design.com/2008/amino-acids-do-they-work/
http://www.njreefers.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=26&topic=12664.45
http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_ViewItem~idproduct~PD01112.html

Let me know if you have more links saved that are worth reading.

Adam

 

I have read many threads on this subject and I have decided for me it is best not to dose the vodka because if my tank is haveing a shot then I would have a few to LOL. If I started drinking it the vodka would not last long!

 

I dosed Reef BioFuel which is the commercial version of a carbon source. I think it did make a difference, but my dosing wasn't consistent enough to say for sure.

-JB

 

I have been dosing for about 2 weeks with no change thus far.

 

I dose Vitamin C and it seems to have helped some things out, mainly the coral that I consider less hardy. I thought the vit C route was easier, but if the vodka method seems better go for it and keep us posted.

 

What are the benefits of vodka and vit c? I know I can go and do research but if someone can give me a quick rundown so I can see if I really want to look into it further that would be great!

 

What vodka does is grow certain bacteria strains that are excellent at feeding on Phosphates and Nitrates. Using Vodka slowly to gradually increase the populations of this bacteria and then having a good skimmer to remove them will lower you nitrates. There are other forms of organic carbons to use that work the same way. The most common is to use Vodka, Sugar, and Vinegar(VSV). They are premixed, but usually there is a lot more vodka than vinegar and a lot more vinegar than sugar. The ratios I found to work the best was 200mL Vodka, 45mL Vinegar, and 1.5 Tbsp of sugar. I'm not mixing this much up at a time but I'm dividing these by 9 or so to make a smaller batch. Make sure you do research before you try anything like this, because it takes carefull monitoring of many different things and patience to achieve great results. The use of a very powerful skimmer is a must.
What Vitamin C does is boost the immune system in corals. It's cheap and fairly hard to overdose. I use two 500mg tablets a day that contain 500mg Vitamin C and 30 mg Calcium each. I chose the tablets that have a little Calcium to keep up with my coral's calcium intake. I also test for calcium weekly to make sure it's at corect levels, but the pure vitamin C powder or tablets don't need any monitoring of mineral levels. Some people dose more than me, some less, it's all up to the user.
Hope you found this helpful.
Adam

 

Very useful. Thanks for the in depth explaination

 

In early April my nitrates shot up to over 100 for some reason. I decided to try vodka dosing in late April. I started off slow and missed a few days of dosing. I have been more diligent over the past few weeks and am happy to report that my nitrates are down to 10. I have an anemone, a goniopora, and some mushroom corals and they have never looked better. The fish also show no ill effects.

This particular tank is a 75 with a model 2 sump and and an octopus skimmer.  I do NOT have a refugium on this setup. I do bi-weekly 10 gal water changes. Started off with a .3 ml dosage, then .6, and finally 1ml. After I hit 1ml, the nitrates started going down. Last week they were down to 40 (from 100+ the week prior) and now 10. I am dropping my dosage down to .8 and will continue dosing in hopes of hitting 0 nitrates.

 

Also with Vit C, a lot of people report cloudiness in the water. That's just means their dosing too much. Reef Central has some really good threads about VSV, and Vit C dosing.

 

I have been going the vite C route with micromacter7 and brightwell AA for about 2 months and it has worked wonders for my groth and color. I had a small dino outbreak due to doseing to much but quite doseing for about a week and it went away. Cut my dose in half after that and all has been well.
-Bill

 

No real reason I am actualy thinking of trying vodka sometime. My skimmer was pulling out some nasty gunk before I cleaned it now it is working ok but that vinager cleaning totaly screwed it up and hasen't been the same sence. I am getting a new skimmer rated for 350gal after the swap. Po4 was always undetectable on a api test but I beleave that was a false test due to it being bound up in macro. No3 was around 5 to 10 ppm before I started on API but now is undetectable. There was some crapy red turf algae before I started and it was spreading now it is almost gone. My chaeto is still growing at a slow rate. I am going to take my GFO off line soon as I don't think I realy need it anymore.
-Bill

 

I switched to vodka today was the third dose. I think I like it better than vite C for the simple reason that you can more acurately fine tune the dose. Per my concere earlyer in this thread I have dosed my tank with 1.5ml so far and dosed me and the wife with most of the rest of the bottle!
edit: And my cheato is showing a few dead spots. And skimmate has picked up in the last three days.

 

I would try to limit nightly dosing, better to dose when lights will be on for awhile

 

did you by chance read this artical

http://reefbuilders.com/2010/05/10/warner-marine-unveils-ecobak-solid-vodka-dosing-pellets/