Alcohol Dosing in a Reef Tanks
 

I started using vodlka in my reef tank 2 months ago after reading the comments on RC. While some dosed to the point of bacterial overgrowth, I chose a slight different thinking. I wanted to use this a a secondary carbon source for coral feeding. My first choice was vinegar but I have to neutralize first, too much trouble. Acetate ion are more readliy incorporated in to the coral biochemical pathway. First of all I don't have a very high bioload...no fish. I use ozone and dose with salifert supplements once a week. The total volume of the system is about 100g. I started dosing at 2ml/100gallons over a period of 6 hours. I stopped when I noticed changes in the tank. This was a a dose rate of 10ml of alcohol/day. Here is what I saw your results may differ:

1. Tank clarity was better
2. No algae except for this fuzzy ball stuff and even it has slowed down
3. I can no longer grow cheato in the sump or anything else
4. My pod population has exploded
5. Brown fuzzy SPS's started losing hair(not all of them), instead there are now white polyps waving in the water
6. Becasue of 5, colours in the corals are now staring to show. Starting to look like Snappy's tank

I will add more comment when I start seeing any changes

Any pics?

I was just reading this article earlier. Has some merit to it.

Yup, just started doing this today. I'll be dosing 0.4ml VSV (Vodka-Sugar-Vinegar) mixture daily. I'm also adding an Amino Acid Supplement daily, as well as, of course, maintaining proper tank parameters.

are you adding the zeo amino supplement Drew?

Cool - I cannot afford to get the fishes and corals wasted. Can barely afford it for myself. Kidding!

No, I looked for it here but couldn't find it anywhere. I bought the Seachem product in the interim. Any experience with this?

Oh, I should also note that I'll continue to dose Zeobac @ 2 drops twice per week, to sustain bacterial cultures.

After talking to several people with "super" SPS tanks most have amino acids as a supplement. No pictures, Just those brown acros started getting colour

I have used the seachem one but not with enough regularity to notice any differences in my tank. Currently I'm using the FM UltraAmin product. Haven't noticed any differences with that one either. Kinda feeling a bit let down with the FM system, although it has killed off a goodly portion of the rampant brown wafer algae I was dealing with earlier in the year but that S on my forehead is like a beacon these days so I'll continue with it for awhile longer I guess :razz:

I'm hoping for this very thing :) I have to say that some SPS I have been attempting to rescue have showed improvement (first, the polyps turned from brown to bright green, and one one, the tips are a bright blue as opposed to brown). But my problem was always with the nuisance algae.

Maybe it's the FM system killing off your wafer algae, or maybe it's your increased diligence due to the strict adherence to a system? I don't know. Anyway, I'm interested to see what happens here.

I'm a closet vodka doser too. Been doing it since mid-May. I'm upto 3ml in my 24 and 3ml in my 45. Haven't seen much of a difference in GHA growth. I have noticed that the skimmate is thicker and nastier. Far better polyp extension on all my SPS. I haven't seen anything bad happen either.

It sure is funny when company sees you pull out a bottle of vodka at 9 am. Then walk over and put a shot in the fish tank for your alcoholic fish.

Can I ask specifically which product you used? After having read the RC thread on carbon dosing, I started noticing through people's result photos and posts, that the vodka brand/proof/etc. had something of an impact on the results, and the speedyness of the results.

Also do you just dump into a high flow area, or how are you dosing it? That dosing pump?

Really the only vodka you CAN'T use is denatured vodka. But who would buy that anyway? I use a high quality vodka, because that's what was in my freezer already :-)

Some people use Everclear, as it's apparently twice as potent, so you use half as much. Potato, potawto....

I know if I did Vodka dosing I would definitely not be only dosing the tank :D

I think its a great idea, but I'm just too lazy to dose it manually. Do you think that something like a dosing pump hooked up to a bottle would work?

LOL...if you do this, I want a picture.

I don't see why not. With the Vodka-Sugar-Vinegar mixture, they suggest refrigeration. I'm not sure why. Maybe you wouldn't have to.....

I had a bottle of Red Tassle...so my corals drank it all. Really any type of quicky mart booze will do. Just as long as the % alcohol is the same. As for dosing just poke a hole in the bottom of a cup and just let it drip out....that works very well. I just don't like to shoot in one shot

I give 1/2 the dose in the morning before lights on and the other 1/2 around supper time. I don't think brand matters but it may. I'm feeding mine Bacardi, finally found a use for the stuff.

Yeah. I have to tell my wife it's for the fish tank.

You gotta use GREYGOOSE !

There's a lot of instances out there where longterm vodka dosing causes RANDOM dieoffs of everything in the tank - everything!

The main cause is depleted oxygen.

This is why I chose not to use this method. I have read some nasty stories as well as other issues that have popped up.

Wouldn't good aeration/surface agitation be able to keep up to O2?

No, because the rate that monocultures reach critical mass is explosive. One day, there's enough oxygen for everyone, the next day, the bacterial mass doubles, doubles, then doubles again and smothers everything out. A bit of surface aggitation cannot alleviate that kind of momentum.

I agree with Alberts comment. This is why I decided not to dose to the max. carrying capicity of the system. But rather to dose for supplemental carbon source. The fact that in past readings people dosed till bacterial started buliding visible slime colonies made me decide to back way off the dosing regimen some people were advocating.

The dose rate of 10ml of alcohol/day, was this done over a 6 hour span or did you just add it all at once to your sump?
Thanks

Why must there be a monoculture? I know the ZEObac, as well as Prodibio's products, include several strains of beneficial bacterias. When dosing vodka, many people are continuing to add these products (bacterias) to their systems. As well, the rationale behind the Vodka-Sugar-Vinegar mixture is that different carbon sources feed different bacterias more readily. So having 3 different carbon sources makes a monoculture highly unlikely.

I was drip feeding it. It just worked out to 10ml/6hrs( I had to cut it with 500 ml of water too)

Well, I'd agree with you, except for that fact that the system is hardly refined and people still get monoculture blooms. Maybe it's the ratios or the types of carbon sources, who knows.

Mono-culture is a myth promoted by companies like Zeovit to sell their products. I'm pretty sure all of the strains of bacteria in their products (which are likely the same ones that are already in our aquariums) can be cultured with ethanol or glucose.

The thing with carbon dosing is that once your aquarium is no longer carbon limited it can build up in your aquarium. All it takes is for one thing to die off to start an oxygen depleting chain reaction as more dying corals and provide the nutrients that will be used by the bacteria until the carbon source is consumed.

I dont dose Vodka but i do dose Vinegar in with my makeup water and Kalk at a rate of 10ml/gal of makeup. Tank has been running for a year and I have 0 nuisance except for a little red diatoms in my fuge. I only have to clean my glass about every 5-7 days and thats more for the coraline that starts to form than any bacteria film. I have never run phosban or carbon and cheato refuses to grow in my fuge, its the same size now that it was 4 months ago.