Anyone dose vodka
- Thread starter Craigar
- Start date
Check this out http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php
The salifert alk test kit has one that small. You could also use 40 proof vodka and double the dose or water down some vodka. And yea that little! I use a maintenance dosed.4 ml a day on my 75 and I do needed take some time off sometimes as well as feed like crazy.
Read a lot before starting!!! Don't start on a whim. Think about it for a week or so before you start. Get some good test kits and be prepared to test daily for a while.
In the end I am adding some vinegar to my kalk as a carbon source. Much less invasive and helps with my calcium. Look that up as well.
Start a journal on here with lots of pics if you do start. It would be great so see the transformation... What's your goal?? Algae, color? Good luck!
Read a lot before starting!!! Don't start on a whim. Think about it for a week or so before you start. Get some good test kits and be prepared to test daily for a while.
In the end I am adding some vinegar to my kalk as a carbon source. Much less invasive and helps with my calcium. Look that up as well.
Start a journal on here with lots of pics if you do start. It would be great so see the transformation... What's your goal?? Algae, color? Good luck!
...your more thorough
I've been reading a lot - I'm concerned about long term dosing, and if it is a culprit to crashes down the road. Mike, miwoodar, had an extremely beautiful tank and well documented his dosing. He suffered a crash last year and didn't know what caused it. I've read others who have had long term tanks have crashes too and not know why. We all know there are a million reasons why things go array leading to a crash. I've noticed over time most were vodka/vinegar dosing. Coincidence? Very much could be, but I'm still reading into it. Today I use a sulfur denitrator (DIY) for NO3, and GFO/ Lathium Chloride for PO4. It's incredible how much Vodka increases color..... Sulfur has issues too so it's not perfect.
Folks using it - in addition to answering Craigar's questions, could you state how long you've been dosing? Thanks.
Folks using it - in addition to answering Craigar's questions, could you state how long you've been dosing? Thanks.
I am on week 3 of vodka dosing.
I am a strong believer in making sure fish are properly fed and IMO reefkeepers tend to underfeed their fish to control nutrients and nuisance algae's. At one point with my system I was up to feeding 5 times a day (4 light feedings through the auto feeder and 1 portion of Rods w selcon & garlic). When I had my first alk spike some major chemistry changes (denitrifying bacteria bed crash maybe?) happened and my system couldn't keep up with the feedings so I had to reduce to once a day. Before the spike I was able to maintain 5ppm NO3 and around .02-.04 PO4 with my macro algae's alone.
With the feeding of once a day I noticed my Moorish Idol getting a tad bit skinnier. Not unhealthy but he didn't have the girth he used to. My nutrients still kept creeping up as well. For a while I was just doing massive water changes to keep the nutrients down but the salt was getting expensive. A cheap bottle of Skol is $4 so I read up a lot and started. I have to be real real careful though not to bottom out my nutrients for extended periods of time otherwise my macros will go sexual and if a big enough colony goes I am in big trouble. I followed the guide on reefkeeping; starting with .75ml, 1.5ml and now I am on 2ml.
Observations so far:
Color! Wow, seriously, I dont recall my corals ever looking so vibrant!
Cyano - have always had it, mostly in the fuge but now I find it matting more and in newer places
Skimmate - bearable to "man that is some nasty sh*t!" This stuff is thick and stinks, BAD.
Back up to feeding 4 times a day!
I thought my water was clear before.
My goal is getting my nutrients to hover around 2-4ppm NO3 and no higher than .02 PO4. I hope to get a small maintenance dose going with the macros still doing a majority of the work.
As far as long term effects: IMO anything that builds up over time can crash a system. Sure there are success stories of people never doing water changes but those are far and few between. I think as long as you are still doing 20% water changes every 2 weeks the impact of dosing should be minimal but who knows??
I am a strong believer in making sure fish are properly fed and IMO reefkeepers tend to underfeed their fish to control nutrients and nuisance algae's. At one point with my system I was up to feeding 5 times a day (4 light feedings through the auto feeder and 1 portion of Rods w selcon & garlic). When I had my first alk spike some major chemistry changes (denitrifying bacteria bed crash maybe?) happened and my system couldn't keep up with the feedings so I had to reduce to once a day. Before the spike I was able to maintain 5ppm NO3 and around .02-.04 PO4 with my macro algae's alone.
With the feeding of once a day I noticed my Moorish Idol getting a tad bit skinnier. Not unhealthy but he didn't have the girth he used to. My nutrients still kept creeping up as well. For a while I was just doing massive water changes to keep the nutrients down but the salt was getting expensive. A cheap bottle of Skol is $4 so I read up a lot and started. I have to be real real careful though not to bottom out my nutrients for extended periods of time otherwise my macros will go sexual and if a big enough colony goes I am in big trouble. I followed the guide on reefkeeping; starting with .75ml, 1.5ml and now I am on 2ml.
Observations so far:
Color! Wow, seriously, I dont recall my corals ever looking so vibrant!
Cyano - have always had it, mostly in the fuge but now I find it matting more and in newer places
Skimmate - bearable to "man that is some nasty sh*t!" This stuff is thick and stinks, BAD.
Back up to feeding 4 times a day!
I thought my water was clear before.
My goal is getting my nutrients to hover around 2-4ppm NO3 and no higher than .02 PO4. I hope to get a small maintenance dose going with the macros still doing a majority of the work.
As far as long term effects: IMO anything that builds up over time can crash a system. Sure there are success stories of people never doing water changes but those are far and few between. I think as long as you are still doing 20% water changes every 2 weeks the impact of dosing should be minimal but who knows??
I bolded a line above. Tanks don't last. Even looking through TOTM tanks, the pinnacle of this hobby with massive automation and redundancies, the majority of them will go through something catastrophic sooner than later. The list is enormous and reasons for the crashes is nearly as long. 2011, 2012, 2013...how many of us who are rocking an awesome reef today will be still growing that same reef, w/o a major crash, in 2013? The list will be short. I have my fingers crossed that my current path will last a long time but I no longer feel the invicibility I once did. All we can do is do our best and hope that the tank succeeds. My head conjures images of sending a kid off to college...cross your fingers and hope that you've raised him/her right.
My experience with Vodka was much like Kris'. I never had any nitrate or phosphate problems before, during, or after though. One of my initial intentions was to figure out how many drops of vodka would be needed to neutralize a cube of food. I felt that if I knew that then I could bump up my feeding as much as I wanted and still keep a low nutrient tank. Before long I was feeding ~5 cubes of food to 4 fish every day in my 65 reef and my SPS colors were better than ever. Everything was growing gang-busters it soon became time for a larger tank. That was when I began building my 140.
The transfer to the 140 initially looked like a success. I filled it half way with new water, added a temporary skimmer, GAC, some well-cured live rock, and some sand. I then spent 3 weeks swapping water between that and my 65 then I consolidated everything into the 140. STN set in soon after the move and I failed to knock it back as I had faith that my SPS would recover and beat any ailments. What followed were a few months of decline and I eventually lost all of my SPS in spite of some massive trimmings as I desperately tried to get ahead of the STN. I then threw in the towel and let the tank do what it wanted to do. We were never able to pinpoint what caused the decline. All of the filtration on the 65 was mapped over to the 140 so I doubt it was an equipment issue. The water parms were always good (and double checked by a local guru's kits). It would be too easy to say that vodka caused any of my problems. STN has always been one of those hard to beat/understand things. The only thing I would do differently these days...the first sight of STN...pitch the colony. Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and pitching a slightly STN'ing colony in an otherwise bountiful system seams absurd and goes against my personal inclination to always fight for the underdog. (Don't look at my tank right now as I'm still a guy willing to pull for the underdog. However, I'm currently squatting on a pile of niblets and I'm not risking any large colonies.)
The article linked above is a good one. Regarding dosing rates, it doesn't take much to sway the balance.
My experience with Vodka was much like Kris'. I never had any nitrate or phosphate problems before, during, or after though. One of my initial intentions was to figure out how many drops of vodka would be needed to neutralize a cube of food. I felt that if I knew that then I could bump up my feeding as much as I wanted and still keep a low nutrient tank. Before long I was feeding ~5 cubes of food to 4 fish every day in my 65 reef and my SPS colors were better than ever. Everything was growing gang-busters it soon became time for a larger tank. That was when I began building my 140.
The transfer to the 140 initially looked like a success. I filled it half way with new water, added a temporary skimmer, GAC, some well-cured live rock, and some sand. I then spent 3 weeks swapping water between that and my 65 then I consolidated everything into the 140. STN set in soon after the move and I failed to knock it back as I had faith that my SPS would recover and beat any ailments. What followed were a few months of decline and I eventually lost all of my SPS in spite of some massive trimmings as I desperately tried to get ahead of the STN. I then threw in the towel and let the tank do what it wanted to do. We were never able to pinpoint what caused the decline. All of the filtration on the 65 was mapped over to the 140 so I doubt it was an equipment issue. The water parms were always good (and double checked by a local guru's kits). It would be too easy to say that vodka caused any of my problems. STN has always been one of those hard to beat/understand things. The only thing I would do differently these days...the first sight of STN...pitch the colony. Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and pitching a slightly STN'ing colony in an otherwise bountiful system seams absurd and goes against my personal inclination to always fight for the underdog. (Don't look at my tank right now as I'm still a guy willing to pull for the underdog. However, I'm currently squatting on a pile of niblets and I'm not risking any large colonies.)
The article linked above is a good one. Regarding dosing rates, it doesn't take much to sway the balance.