Vodka dosing, for better or worse... till death do us part.

hi guys so ive been having issues with my nitrates in the tank.
of course the first reaction i get is ur filtration method isnt working. well for those of you who know my tank, know that to fix this isnt a small job. so i found a method to Assist me in maintaining my nitrate and phosphate levels.

so the other night i tested all my parameters, everything was fine except my nitrate test looked more like ATF fluid ( 160ppm+ )than the nice pale yellow( 0-5ppm) it should be.
my first reaction>
all tank life and water clarity looked good
hanna phos checker came out at 0.17 -not good, but not the end of the world.
a water change with GC seaway water was my first action.
re testing the next day and i got nearly identical readings.
this is with replacing prefilter every 2 days and cleaning skimmer neck and cup every 2 days.
i am definatly not overfeeding, im lucky to get my fingers back when i do feed.

so i planned to do a 50%water change the next night .. again.
however, i read through a few articles online and it seemed alot of people have tried dosing with vodka with fairly good results, aslong as it is done correctly.
this is one of the articles i read there was a better one but i cant find it. the comments on the bottom were most interesting.
http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/nitratecontrol/a/Reducing-Nitrates-In-Your-Marine-Aquarium-With-The-Vodka-Method.htm

so i started with 1.2ml of smirnoff red label ( it is 37.5%. )
after 24 hours the nitrates had dropped back to more of an orange color( 20-40ppm)
phosphate =0.09
all other parameters were normal

i have done another two dosings of 1.2ml once a day. and will do another nitrate test tonight.

the trick is it seems to start off with the smallest dose you can for you tank size. and monitor that.
too much can cause your tank to crash... hard.
so its a delicate web i weave atm.
also the common factor from every report ive read is once you start dosing vodka you have to keep dosing at least once a week for the life of the tank.
it seems that by dosing you are actually adding a new strain of bacteria into the tank and it becomes a major part of your tanks cycle/ eco-system.
take this bacteria out and your tank crashes.... hard.

the positives if done correctly are low nitrates and phosphates.
great water clarity and improved coral color.

cons - slightest dosing blunder and its tank crash city.

note this is not a replacement for regular water changes or a awesome natural filtration system (insert LiquidG's smiling face here)
it is a method of maintenance only

ill keep you guys posted on my progress as i will be testing regularly until i am confident its working and safe

Mate, whatever people want to use is cool, I actually like seeing all the varieties of what hobbyists use to achieve what ever results.

What I hate is when some one or elsewhere, you know where, will not acknowledge any other way exists but their’s.

Natural bio filtering isn’t for every one, you can get fantastic results from many other ways, but when some one says there is only one way, that doesn’t just tick me off, its just pure loony tunes and is made from a mix of an opinion and a disorder that stops them from realising theirs is just an opinion!

I like my moonshine Minooka honey alcohol I made, powerful stuff,geez it stinks, I started adding it again after the last meeting, just for the organics of it, now the coral will glow their hearts out even more again, like last time.

There would be science behind the other out come from the alcohol dosing, the red cyano that likes to try and cover the racemosa quite quickly in the algae area, disappears during the times of dosing.

I can only guess why but would most likely be wrong.

yeh it will be a great experiment.

btw any chance i could come grab some racemosa of you at some stage.

Yeh its nearly there, the last trim I went I bit over board to give to Danny but it should be growing out of the water again soon, then you can have a trim off it.

cheers mate, keep us posted on how ur home honey moonshin goes this time.

Really looking forward to the results, mate, do keep detail logs of your readings, dosage amount, & dosing frequency and post it up.

I was thinking of dosing vodka as well when I had issues with my nitrates & phosphates, but chickened out when I read about the crashes, still worth finding out about it and may be used as a last alternative.

On a lighter side, you're dosing vodka, LiquidG's dosing his moonshine honey liquor, anyone care to try dosing bourbon, tequilla, martini...?

my blue tangs are lined up at the surface yelling
SHOTs shots shots

yellow tang is dancing gangdam style
and the clowns are duck taping the zebra to a the return pipe lol

on a more serious note
comes down to the bacteria of the achohol. i think bourbon and rum etc may have the wrong bacteria or something not sure

Mate vodka dosing is supposed to be supported by you adding the bacteria MB7 or mircobacter 7,you buy it and the ethanol-carbon-sugar stimulates its growth beyond normal to take out NO3 and NO4,then your skimmer takes out the organic waste as bubble attracting nutrients that the skimmer will get out of the water if you don't have algae some where to do this and that will take quite a bit of an algae area to acheive that.

If these are not working together, it will harm your tank life or just not overly work!!!

If there is abundant algae,then nothing much is an issue.

from all the acticles ive read nobody is dosing anything with the vodka, that they are reporting.
the ethanol is ment to react with bacteria already in your system, causing it to die and be picked up by the skimmer.
thats how i read it anyway

True that’s some of the initial organics-nutrients, there is more to it though.

The high nutrient content is always part of the out put.

ok i think i see what your gettin at.
if you have high nutrient content to begin with then you will have no problem skimming stuff out etc.

however if you have low nutreints and are only trying to maintain levels etc then you need to dose that bacteria you mentioned

am i understanding you correctly?
if i am then the way i see it " why dose vodka to begin with if ur levels are perfect. the pros dont outway the cons in that scenario.

i am only starting this cause my levels are high.

and once my levels are ok then i will back my dosage off to keep pace with my nutrients

If your levels are fine then it’s not for nitrate oxidation, for me chucking in alcohol is about putting more organics back into the waters, my system relies on excess nutrients-organics.

Vodka dosing is only for those with excess nitrate and to some degree inorganic phosphate issues.

I have don’t have either one showing in tests, though I do get a small inorganic phosphate level after trimming, but its gone in two days.

The ethanol from bacterial production from the vodkas sugars, essentially increases the area of the bacterium in a smaller space to oxidise the nitrate and work on the inorganic phosphates back to organic and the skimmer takes that out before the organic phosphates from the dosing get converted back to inorganic by the tanks standard aerobic oxidisers.

So you could say the dosing brings these back to substances that your skimmer can collect and then you get rid of.

With out a skimmer it is useless; with abundant algae it’s all-good.

If you have been dosing and things are going well, you can’t just stop or the nitrate will rise even quicker then before.

Why do you think i do things the way I do, its all one huge fail-safe system.

Dave still can't figure out how I have 0 nitrates always, its just natural ways of doing things and vodka dosing is sort of natural, just getting more happening in a smaller space that’s all.

The bacteria this encourages is not a normal part of your nitrate oxidising part of the system and will cause issues if over stimulated.

dendrobate wrote:

On a lighter side, you're dosing vodka, LiquidG's dosing his moonshine honey liquor, anyone care to try dosing bourbon, tequilla, martini...?

Vodka I can understand - but bourbon....now that's just a waste of a fine liquid. Tell ya what, give me the bourbon and I will do your water changes.....problem solved!

Ignobolis wrote:

dendrobate wrote:

On a lighter side, you're dosing vodka, LiquidG's dosing his moonshine honey liquor, anyone care to try dosing bourbon, tequilla, martini...?

Vodka I can understand - but bourbon....now that's just a waste of a fine liquid. Tell ya what, give me the bourbon and I will do your water changes.....problem solved!

Was wondering when you're gonna take the bait

Good on you guys.

parameters

ph - 8.4
ammonia - 0. 1~ ppm ( hard to tell on api never looks completely 0)
nitrite- 0ppm
nitrate- 20ppm
phos- 0.12 ppm
KH - 8'dKH
Cal - 440

temp 24 'C
Salinity - 1.024~ (dont know exactly as i dont have a refracto yet)

the water is already looking clearer.
ive had to clean out the skimmer twice since sunday.
algae that was starting to form on substrate etc has started receeding.
ive increased the dosage to 2ml per day.
all coral especially all the SPS are really colouring up. greens are really poping .

scottatwello wrote:
(dont know exactly as i dont have a refracto yet)

I still use the same specific gravity tester my brother gave me when I started marines and I have tested it twice against refractometers and it is not even one point out.
If the temps are normal they work fine, if that’s what you have.
Salinity doesn’t have to totally stable, its good if it can be, but a point either way makes no definable difference to anything.

That ammonia concerns me though?

There should be none at all,it could be the reaction from added sugar,maybe

the api test kits can never get totally yellow. so until i can test it otherwise that what i put.
im bloody sure its 0ppm tho.

???? um G whats with all the random crap?

scottatwello wrote:???? um G whats with all the random crap?

Bwhahahahaaaaa

Just copying zhyr, putting in a link or two with no explaination or words of any kind on the link,lol.

Well i thought it was funny

The tiny horse is so cute,but no vodka there,lol,my wife loved that one.

liquidg wrote:Just copying zhyr, putting in a link or two with no explaination or words of any kind on the link,lol.


Well i thought it was funny

So did I......