Who vodka doses?

[TimT]

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...

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by TimT

I have dosed Vodka, Sugar and Vinegar for quite a while. I discontinued the sugar portion about a year 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

[CM125]

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

[TimT]

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?

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by CM125

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

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

Originally Posted by shermanator

Today is "make my grad students do aquarium experiments" day in my lab. I had a student take an NMR of NOPOX (see attached image for spectrum).

It is...

6:1 EtOH:AcOH (ethanol : acetic acid). The AcOH is ~3%.

So you can make your own NOPOX (roughly) by adding 1 part vinegar to 1 part 30% ethanol.

There are a couple impurities around 3 ppm, but otherwise it's quite clean stuff.

[target]

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?

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by target

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?

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

[target]

Originally Posted by reefwars

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

[mikellini]

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.

[CM125]

Originally Posted by TimT

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?

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

Originally Posted by mikellini

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.

Good to know