Vodka dosing

[Haulin Oates]

Hi all! For the past year I've been using this to help with nitrates and phosphates:

It's Red Sea brand.
Well, I ran out a few days ago and decided I have enough vodka, sugar, and vinegar to share with my tank, so why spend money? I just need to know what everyone combo everyone is using (ie. just vodka, vodka and sugar, all 3 ect.) and what dose you are dosing daily! Thanks in advance!

P.s. tank is 120 gal w/ 40 gal sump total system volume 125 liquid gallons
Nitrates: 3ppm
Phosphates: .64ppm running GFO in reactor as well.

 

[Wicked Color]

I would say a few productive water changes is a better solution, why are those levels so high? Is this a heavily stocked fish only tank?

 

[djkms]

IMO your nitrate level is fine. Phosphate though, WOW!!! Thats pretty high. You sure its not .06? What test kit are you using? How often do you change your GFO, how much are you putting in the reactor? What does your phosphate read coming out of the effluent?

I dose vodka and vinegar. It took about 3 months before my levels starting coming down. It is a slow process. I currently dose 2.5ml of vodka and 12ml of vinegar per day, I am on my maintenance dose. Stay away, far far away from dosing sugar. You have to be very very precise with it and overdose on sugar is way to easy to do.

 

[Haulin Oates]

Heavy stocked;
5" hippo
4" yellow tang
6" Koran angel
6" lunar wrasse
4" Niger trigger
4" lawn mower Blenny
2x 3" true Percs.
3" royal gramma
3" ugly damsel ( don't know name)
1" yellow tail
2" mandarin
Several softies, ungodly amount of mushrooms, 1 anemone, several Lps, and a few sps, unknown # of standard cleanup crew...
I just started GFO 3 weeks ago, and phosphates were over 1 ppm, saw the drop, but then plateaued last week, so I changed media Monday, and added a little more this time. IIRC, 1.25 cups this time around. I usually do my tests on Friday, so I'll have new data tomorrow. I am sure it's .64, because I ran the test twice to be sure. I use Red Sea nitrate pro and phosphate pro test kits, but I confirmed readings as best as I could with my backup API test kits I have.

 

[MartinsReef]

I would say a few productive water changes is a better solution, why are those levels so high? Is this a heavily stocked fish only tank?

+1 use phosban it works better.

 

[MartinsReef]

Hi all! For the past year I've been using this to help with nitrates and phosphates:

It's Red Sea brand.
Well, I ran out a few days ago and decided I have enough vodka, sugar, and vinegar to share with my tank, so why spend money? I just need to know what everyone combo everyone is using (ie. just vodka, vodka and sugar, all 3 ect.) and what dose you are dosing daily! Thanks in advance!

P.s. tank is 120 gal w/ 40 gal sump total system volume 125 liquid gallons
Nitrates: 3ppm
Phosphates: .64ppm running GFO in reactor as well.

When was your GFO media replaced last?

 

[djkms]

You have some pretty big fish. If it were me I would pull out the big guns on this one. Pellets and GFO.

 

[Haulin Oates]

Djkms: what pellets are you talking about?

 

[djkms]

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/store/brs-bio-pellets.html

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/store/brs-bio-pellet-reactor.html

 

[scchase]

I dose 5ml vodka/day on my 480g no idea what nitrates or phosphates are at mainly doing it to get additional bacteria fro the corals to feed on rather than reduction of wastes.

 

[Calvin415]

IMO your nitrate level is fine. Phosphate though, WOW!!! Thats pretty high. You sure its not .06? What test kit are you using? How often do you change your GFO, how much are you putting in the reactor? What does your phosphate read coming out of the effluent?

I dose vodka and vinegar. It took about 3 months before my levels starting coming down. It is a slow process. I currently dose 2.5ml of vodka and 12ml of vinegar per day, I am on my maintenance dose. Stay away, far far away from dosing sugar. You have to be very very precise with it and overdose on sugar is way to easy to do.

I dissolved 1/4C of sugar in 1/4C RODI and add .5mL a day on my nano... 18g with another 10g in the sump. Not sure why sugar is any different???

 

[Haulin Oates]

Djkms: would I use those in lieu of the vodka or in addition to? Also, I thought you and Will used those on one of your tanks and it stripped it too much?
I try to do weekly 15 gal water changes, but they really don't have much effect on the nitrates and phosphates, maybe just keeping them at current levels, but not lowering...

 

[djkms]

IN lieu of. Yes, we did take the reactor off of our coral tanks since it was stripping out too many nutrients. Gotta remember though, these are coral holding tanks and only a couple of fish producing waste. You have a lot of big fish in a small water volume, pellets are the answer for you. We still have pellet reactors on a couple of our heavily stocked maintenance accounts.

 

[Haulin Oates]

Gotcha! Thanks for the info! I'm gonna see if any pellets can be won on Saturday, if not I may have to get in on the next BRS group buy!!

 

[daverf]

Kris, do you still suggest bio pellets for big fish / heavy stocked?

Curious as to what path is optimal for carbon dosing my FOWLR with big messy fish... I started vinegar dosing, but not sure if this is the best approach...

 

[jda123]

I used to use sugar - like 1/2 tsp per day when I was heavily stocked. I got down to next to nothing in no time. Do you use substrate? If so, consider changing some of it out with fresh - aragonite will bond with phosphate.

 

[djkms]

Kris, do you still suggest bio pellets for big fish / heavy stocked?

Curious as to what path is optimal for carbon dosing my FOWLR with big messy fish... I started vinegar dosing, but not sure if this is the best approach...

I think bio pellets will work fine. Vinegar dosing will give you more control but is more work. Pellets will give you less control but less work.

 

[daverf]

Thanks Kris! Pellets it is...