Vodka dosing

B

Bwidner

New member
SO I am going to start the dosing today, I have detectable nitrate and phosphates and just can not seem to get them to undetectable unless I do a huge water change, I have been doing double the change each week and running kent phosphate sponge since I found out I had two bad test kits.

Here is the plan(28g nanocube)
.1 ML for the next 3 days
days 4-7 .2ml
After that going to .7ML

and fromt here closely monitoring the levels and adjust from there. I have an eye dropper to measure. I plan on buying the cheapest vodka the store has on my way home, as far as a skimmer mine is rated for a 65g so it should be more than strong enough. Wish me luck lol
 
gonebad395 said:
You are playing with fire mate
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We already are playing with fire by keeping life from the ocean in aquariums, however care to share why you say that? Statements like this are not helpful in anyway without further reasoning on why. Many people treat carbon dosing or bio pellets like the plague while there are many amazing systems that run them....just like anything else there are both sides.
 
Its just my opinion that you should work on the problem not a easy solution. I have heard great stories of vodka working and I have heard horror stories. They way I look at it there is a problem in your tank find it and fix it its your tank do what you will but becareful when dosing. Make sure you have a few test kits on hand we all know that there are bad batches of kits out there so check these against each other. Just watch it close just when you think all is good I've hear of crashed tanks happing really fast again just my 2 cents hope it works for you.
 
EricTheRed said:
Anyone who has seen my tank would not see any ill effects from the biopellets.
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You are correct!!! The tank looks amazing when it had T5s.. Have not seen the new upgrade yet ;) But one question.... Did you have SPS when you started BP or started afterwards?
 
Lil BamBam said:
You are correct!!! The tank looks amazing when it had T5s.. Have not seen the new upgrade yet ;) But one question.... Did you have SPS when you started BP or started afterwards?
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Thanks, the new MH's are doing wonders for my acro's :)

I started the bp's first, about 2 years ago. The sps started about a year ago.
 
You just need to start very slowly when you have SPS, start with only a fraction of recomended biopellets, or smaller dose of liquid carbon source and very slowly build up over the course of a few months. As long as you do it right, the more sensitive corals should aclimate nicely.
 
gonebad395 said:
Its just my opinion that you should work on the problem not a easy solution. I have heard great stories of vodka working and I have heard horror stories. They way I look at it there is a problem in your tank find it and fix it its your tank do what you will but becareful when dosing. Make sure you have a few test kits on hand we all know that there are bad batches of kits out there so check these against each other. Just watch it close just when you think all is good I've hear of crashed tanks happing really fast again just my 2 cents hope it works for you.
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In order to maintan pretty much detectable phosphate and nitrates in my system(that is no where near heavily stocked) I need to pretty much do a 30% water change every week, any less than that and they seem to creep up. Case in point I do a weekly 3g water change(28g tank, cant ever do anythign but guess actual water displacement but lets call it 22g) and they still crept up. Now I found this out because I thought a kit was bad and found out I had two bad kits and nitrates of 50 and .6 phosphate after a water change. Now I could double the water change I do every week, I could buy a GFO reactor etc. I am already building a sump to increase the water volume and since I already have a skimmer that is rated for double my tank carbon dosing is the best route...as with anything if you do it fast you are asking for trouble and 99% of problems I hear with any type of carbon dosing happens off the start(to me it says started out with too much). I have been researching the topic for months and am not worried at all about any negative side affects provided I stick to the dosing plan.
 
Going on over 3 weeks now, holding the dosing at 1.2/ml a day, may bump it up next week if there are any phosphate or nitrate readings prior to my water change this weekend. As of last week with the new test kits and confirmed at MCF phos was down to .15 and nitrate down to 20 right before I did my water change last weekend. All the corals seem happier, skimmer was not going crazy like everything said so I bought a new pump for it, the accela that bakpack reccommends seems like it took a few days to re break in as for the first 5 days it didnt pull anything and last night I noticed a real nice thick foam starting to come into the collection cup.
 
Started the dosing on 5-22, now up to 1.7/ml a day. Phosphates are now undetectable, however nitrates are back in the 25-30 range, this weekend I will do a 9 gallon water change to hopefully get them low enough so that the vodka can help eradicate them. Emptied the skimmer cup for the first time since the new pump, and WOW everything was right about the smell, obviously it never smells great if its skimming somewhat dry but that was quite possibly the worst smell in the world. Overall most corals look happier, although there is something growing on the tri colors rock that I think is irritating it(almost looks like an acan but ill post a pic tonight to determine what to do)and the water looks clearer(although I also started using BRS rox). There has been no sludge in any corners of the tank, although there has been a very small amount of the white stringy stuff over the last week and a half. Fish even seem a bit more active.

I don't see myself ever going above this dose, as i didn't want to go over 1.2 however the levels were still there. Hoping the large water change will drop the nitrates to where the phosphates are at and I can cut the dose in half.
 
I've been dosing vodka for a few months now... It works amazing. I too have a way bigger skimmer than my tank... ASM G3 in a 90gal or so water volume. Just be careful how much you're dosing...
 
I have a mixed reef but slowly making it's way to more or less SPS dominated. I don't remember how much live rock... Yes, i have a fuge. It makes my skimmer go crazy and pull out some NASTY NASTY stuff... it smells really bad... like enough to make my bathroom still stink for an hour when i dump the skimmate into the toilet and flush it.
 
D'oh. I was actually meaning to ask BWidner. I wanted to figure out why his phosphates and nitrates were growing so fast.
 
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