Who vodka doses?
 

So I'm reading on vodka dose and a lot of people are getting good results in riding of hair algae and increase in coloration of corals. Both things I'm in dire need of achieving. So for those who are vodka dosing have u had any good results? What brand of vodka u using? How much and how often are u dosing and how big is ur tank? Oh and should gfo be stopped if ur vodka dosing?

I have just begun vodka dosing so I have no answers for my tank yet, but im in to hear more from people and update as I go. I used this link to start...
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php

I used to dose all flavors of absolut.
then I used belvedere.

with 2 kids now and less free time, scotch is where its at!

sorry, but this was bound to happen at some point in this thread!

i may tag along this thread though... i'm a pretty old school reefer and haven't tried vodka dosing, biopellets etc... i'm behind in the times, but if it helps us reach our goals of a healthy colorful reef environment it may be worth looking into eh?

if you are starting out, perhaps you can take some pics of your tank as you go along so we can all see the differences. just a thought!

I'm just looking into the same thing. I'm looking at vinegar dosing though. You need to add more as its less of a carbon source than vodka, but seeing as I can get gallons of the stuff from Costco for $5 then its going to be cheap.

I have also read that people had less of a problem with cyano when using vinegar.

Here's a vinegar article worth reading:

http://reefkeeping.com/joomla/index....arine-aquarium

I haven't started yet so anything I have learned has just been from reading, but I'm always interested in seeing what people think/do.

Following along,
Dunc

I'm also quite interested in this. I'll be following this thread for results. Thanks OP!

I was also having issues with hair algae. I've had issues with nitrates and phosphates since I started my tank a few years ago. Nothing I've done has really brought my numbers down to an acceptable level. Not sure if it was just a crappy batch of rocks or what. But looked into some kind of carbon dosing and came across red sea's 'nopox'. Been using it not quite 2 months now, and my levels are now near 0. My hair algae thinned down to the point where a turkey baster can blow it off the rocks. I do that once a week and catch the floaters with a fish net. It's more expensive than vodka or vinegar, but has worked awesome in my tank.

Vinegar does not encourage cyanobacteria growth and may in fact inhibit it; vodka has been shown to encourage growth of cyano, at least in the short term.

I've been dosing vinegar for a couple of months, keeping nitrates and phosphates stable but I'd like to reduce them; since vinegar can have a pH reducing effect at larger doses (more than 1mL per 10 gallons), I've just started to add kalk to the vinegar so I can dose larger boluses. No dosing pump ATM so this is the easiest for me. Gives the added bonus of a little supplementation. Just started today so we shall see...

have dosed vinegar in our zoanthid beds for a long time , works great :)

I've been using VSV, no adverse affects. NO3 is 0, PO4 near 0. Overall happy with the approach.

Brad, whats VSV?

Denny, so you keep your zs & ps in a low nutrient environment?

Vodka/Sugar/Vinegar mix

Vodka/sugar/vinegar

I think the idea is that strains of bacteria can become dominant and out compete other Bacteria in a closed system , certain bacteria use certain carbon sources so when one is plentiful often the other gets starved out So to say. By adding these carbon sources you'll hit a larger target audience and offer them equal chances to compete.

I think so anyways I've never really dabbled in vsv but mixing carbon sources and playing with the ratios is something alot of people are doing now adays and vsv or carbon dosing period is Def not new:)

Yes I do , I've tried it all and at the end of the day the same conditions we would keep acros is the same for zoanthids;)

Too low isn't good , too high isn't good:)

Im dosing vinegar now. On about 200 net gallons, ive been upping the dose 5mL every week. Im currently at 40mL per day, and its working awesome. I started with loads of hair algae due to a new tank with completely dead rock (acid and bleach bath). I now have almost no algae whatsoever. All corals seem super happy. So far im extremely happy with the results.

Brad, can I ask how you mix your VSV solution (how much of each?) And what your dosing schedule is?
Thanks

Each batch is 200ml vodka, 50ml vinegar and about a tsp of white sugar. There is a vodka dosing schedule online that I followed, working up to a max dose of 2.4ml daily, then cutting to 1.2ml as maintenance.

Thanks. I've been looking online but can't find a schedule as easily as I can find one for just vodka or vinegar

Oh, sorry, just used the one for vodka. Same total volume, slightly lower carbon level, so figured it was on the safe side

Perfect. Thanks

I've been dosing sugar, just because I don't regularly have vinegar around. It really tastes terrible in coffee... ;)

I've never really looked, but is there any sort of long term results comparing the three?

I've been using Vinegar and Vodka for several months now with great results. I still get random algae in my frag tank but that is more a result of overfeeding and GFO being depleted. When I change out my GFO algae disappears. I probably should up my dose as my maintenance dose doesn't seem to be cutting it anymore as I'm having to change out 1 cup of GFO every two weeks on a 275 gallon system

I've considered going VSV or even adding Vitamin C to the mix, just haven't been home enough to risk fiddling with things.

I have dosed Vodka, Sugar and Vinegar for quite a while. I discontinued the sugar portion about a year ago as I read somewhere, maybe RC, that it was not good for corals. I am now working on another type filtration that gets rid of PO4, NO3, Dinos, Cyano, Bryospis etc. More later...

yeah there seems to be a fair bit of people who report issues especially with lps and dosing sugar based products exclusively:)

based on this im guessing I should switch to vinegar or maybe both. does anyone know the ratio?

Same ratio as what Brad mentioned, just no sugar.

I wonder if the negative reaction of corals to sugar has anything to do with white sugar now being GMO?

if you go on RC theres a few threads where they have broken down some products to find the ratio , for example nopox was 6: 1 ethanol to acitic acid

Is there a minimum time for a tank to be running before you'd want to start dosing vodka? My tank has been running for about 8 weeks and is still very lightly stocked and only a few coral frags. Should dosing wait until the tank is more established?

I've read that organic carbon sources eventually break down to acetate, which is what the bacteria use (whether it be vodka, sugar, vitamin c etc), so you might as well just dose vinegar. This is possibly also why some other carbon sources can encourage growth of cyano, as n&p reducing bacteria can't take them up immediately but perhaps cyano can.

I think the only real justification I've heard for using vodka, for example, instead of vinegar is volume and ease of dosing. It can be difficult to dose a large enough volume of vinegar at one time without affecting pH, so unless you're using a dosing pump, you need to manually dose multiple times during the day. However, saturating the vinegar with calcium hydroxide eliminates this problem, and gives the added bonus of a small pH boost and some additional elemental supplementation. Win, win, win.

I don't think we want to open that can of worms in this thread...


Good to know :biggrin:

no there isnt , as long as the bacteria are present then you can start. randy says as soon as the first foods are added you can begin carbon dosing .

i started mine the minute water became salty and rock was in the water :)

Good to know. I'm very new to all things salty but vodka dosing was recommended to me and I'm doing the research. Seems fairly straightforward as long as you follow the ratios

if your going with the vinegar chart ( or vodka conversion)_....16 weeks is a bit over careful ...most do it in four weeks and similar to this

0.1 ml per gallon for 7 days
0.2 ml per gallon for 7 days
0.3 ml per gallon for 7 days
0.4 ml per gallon for 7 days


and going on up from there if needed , if nutrients are high to begin with then you can go as high as 1 ml per gallon , once your no3 and po4 drop to zero then you cut the dose back to a maintenance dose.

most people have it by week 4 unless they were pretty high to begin with.

no3 and po4 can become limiting in a closed system and bacteria need both in order to build mass so you may not hit zero if one or the other isnt available in numbers needed.

cheers

denny

I vodka dose since being overrun by HA in March. Nothing now. My total volume is 132 litres... I dose a total 2.5mls daily divided between am and pm. Coral colors are good.

Typically, you become limited by nitrate unless you are using GFO or lanthanum chloride. This is because of two things: bacteria use nitrogen in a high ratio as compared to phosphorus, and bacteria also convert some additional nitrate into nitrogen gas. Sometimes, though, some people have found they don't need to use a phosphate remover, or at least use a very small amount

yes becoming nitrogen deficient is more common naturally but both issues are common as alot of people do run gfo and po4 removers either before starting or during or both.

whether you need to run one or not would depend on the amount imported , and the ways they are exported......you can certainly out compete the bacteria in a closed system as they can only do so much , but yes i agree with the statements:)

both nitrogen and phosphorous can become limiting but both can also be added to the mix:)

Oh man I didn't expect this thread to become so popular lol. Thx guys for chiming in on ur 2cents! And then there's crazy ppl like brad that uses all 3 things vsv to dose. Jesus didn't no u can do that. I might just try the vodka and vinegar mix. Anyways my question is to ppl who do this. Do u still use GFO the same time? And most importantly, my tank is always reading 0 pO4 and nO3 cuz I have a lot of algae so it's consuming it as fast as it is created so how do I know that while dosing VV that it is working and when will it become the maintenance dosing zone?

you may have to run gfo ( or other means of removal ) or you may not , in a case where both read zero that doesnt mean it doesnt exist thats just the limitations to your test and doesnt take in account the fact you add both.

eventually bacteria will out compete macro algae, you do have to be careful and watch your corals as some corals dont appreciate the aggressive export of nutrients ( bacteria are pretty efficient )

its a very fine line between what corals need, plants and animals need and what bacteria needs....they all have similarities yet all require different things:)

as your dosing you keep an eye on your livestock , it may sound counter productive but there will come a time where you will either have to cut dosing down to match your current load or add to the existing bioload and boost your bacteria numbers and export, adding to your bio-load also has benefits to weigh against the downsides;)

Should I hold on doing this if it is that aggressive then? My tank just recently recovered from a crash due to gfo overdose that killed almost all my sps. But my hair algae is smothering the rest of my corals to death slowly. I'm manually removing as much as I can on each water change but they just bloom again.

or proceed with caution , it doesn't work overnight and nutrients have to be available for it to work so you can manipulate what it needs and uses :)