Vodka Dosing

[tony varrell]

I am three days into the start up. I have choosen to go very slow this time as I have had one bad experience before. My calculation for NWV is approx 250 gallons so I started with a 1ml dose. Everything appears to be normal with one exception my fish seem to be slightly more hyper then normal. For those of you with experience is this something to be concerned about at such a low does?

My starting parmeters although not terrible still cause nuncience algea in my tank. My goal to bring them to Zero..

PO 0.023
No 8PPM

[Genetics]

Tony, I have a few questions. Will you be stepping up or dosing every few days or weeks and by how much? Will you be measuring and recording nitrates before each increase?

What went wrong with the last dosing regimen? Too fast, too much, or a negative observation?

[tony varrell]

Genetics,

I will be dosing up as per your article. Tuesday I will be doubling the dose to 2ml. My plan is to test the nitrates and phosphate prio to each dose change. Needless to say I am a bit intiminated by this. I have a very expensive fish collection and my initial effort at this caused me to loose most of my wrasses.

About six week ago I started the initial dose at 2ml after about 2 hours my whole tank went white and my skimmer BK 250SM went crazy. The effect of the skimmer caused my ATO to overdose Kalk and my PH shot up to 10.2. So it was a double dose of horror.

So far this time I see no negitave effects with the exception that I mentioned.

With initial reading of Phosphate 0.023 and Nitrates 8ppm I would hope to get to Zero without to big of a maintence dose. The hopefully my algea problems wil get better..

[tony varrell]

I forgot to mention something that really confuses me, is reading another thread here I read the Randy started and initial dose of 30ml with no negitave effects. I don't get it!!

[Genetics]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14516497#post14516497 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tony varrell
I forgot to mention something that really confuses me, is reading another thread here I read the Randy started and initial dose of 30ml with no negitave effects. I don't get it!!

It seems to be hit or miss on whether someone has a snowstorm. The problem might lie in our little understanding of dissolved organic carbon, nitrate, and phosphate.

What proof of vodka are you using?

[tony varrell]

Standard 80 proof cheap stuff. Would that make a difference..

[Genetics]

No, the price and type doesn't matter as long as it doesn't have flavor additives. I was more curious on the total amount of ethanol added when you saw the snowstorm. 2mL looks like it was twice the recommended for the proof and I'm sorry to hear you had such a negative effect so early on.

What I seem to notice on dosing is there is a decrease early on and then a second leg down later at a higher dose. Once past the first drop, increasing can be done rather quickly it seems. Some people only need the first drop to fix there N/P issue and will top out at 1-2mL daily. Others will go up into the teens for a tank your size. As for going into 30-50mL range, I do not believe anyone will see any benefit and may be testing the upper limits of vodka.

Was your nitrate level higher prior to the first addition with 2mL? After the fallout did you notice a significant decrease?

[tony varrell]

Genetics,

Pardon some of my inexperience on this issue. What do you mean when you ask how much enthanol when I saw the snow storm. I simply dosed the tank with the initial 2 ml direct from the bottle of Vokda. Is there a way to measure the enthanol within a 2 ml dose of Vodka and should I be concerned about this?

From what I am able to remember the nitrates did go down after the event to about 4 ppm. Today they are at 8PPM. Regarding the Phosphate I am not sure what the reading was after the event. Most times my test kit would show zero which I know is not accurate. I have now purchased for the purpose of this effort a Hanna digital phosphate tested so I am confident that my phosphate was 0.023 on Saturday when I started dosing again.

I guess another question I have is. I do have a high bioload for a 300 gallon display lots of angles and wrasses in a reef domonated by SPS. I spend an enomorus amount of money on GFO and Carbon should this effort eliminate this assuming it works? My algea growth is mild but my standards are high and it bothers me all the time.. My goal should be zero N/P correct.. One more thing should I be dosing AAHC as well for the SPS..

[Genetics]

Tony,

First off Ft. Lauderdale is amazing this time of year. I was just down there as of yesterday. Its too cold in Ohio.

Second to answer your questions. The main components of vodka is water and alcohol (ethanol). The ethanol is what stimulates your bacterial growth and N/P reduction. Depending on the proof the ethanol content changes. With 80 proof you have 40% ethanol by volume. In the article, I created multiple spreadsheets that layout different dosing regimens for different vodka proofs following Kokott's directions. With your current dosing you are adding the correct amount in the article.

My hanna meter only goes to the hundredth decimal (0.03/0.04ppm is normal in my aquarium). I understand the heavily dominated sps reef with fish as I have the same setup and is why I use vodka. High standards are good. It is the only way to improve as this hobby can be quite demanding upfront.

I try to keep my nitrates around zero by the salifert test kit as there is most-likely still nitrate in the water. Which algae growth do you observe? Yes, you will be able to dramatically lower the amount of GFO used by this method. I still run a small amount but am thinking about stopping. As for AAHC addition, after some time with vodka you may notice sps corals starting to pale. AAHC will keep this from happening. You can add now if you have it or wait until you start to notice a loss of coral coloration. Currently, I add a small amount once weekly and my corals look great. Of course this may differ based on your needs.

[tony varrell]

Genetics,

Are you still here? I would love for you to come by and look at my display.

[tony varrell]

Genetics,

If I understand the hana meter correctly you take the reading and X.33 for PPM of Phosphate. Is that correct...

[fourzero]

I don't get it. I started with vodka (80 proof, 40%), 0.1mL increments daily to get to 1.5mL. Once I hit 1.5mL, I started ramping up by .5mL daily until I hit 5mL. After hitting 5mL, I switched over to VSV and ramped up 5mL DAILY until hitting 30mL. This is on a 150g display w/55g sump/fuge (calculated 150g water volume).

I have never had ANY issues, other than a mild outbreak of cyano in my sump while ramping back DOWN from 30mL. My results are atypical of what everyone else is reporting.

NO3 and PO4 are both undetectable at this point, although they are both still present as evident by some minor green hair algae on the rockwork. I started with .02ppm PO4 and 80 :eek2: ppm NO3.

I read threads where people have fish dying at 2mL, bacterial blooms, etc. If I had that kind of experience, I probably wouldn't give it a second shot.

[Genetics]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14523697#post14523697 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tony varrell
Genetics,

Are you still here? I would love for you to come by and look at my display.

I would have loved to but I am back in Columbus today finishing a few loose ends. I may be back there permanently starting in June but won't know for a few days.

I'm confused on the x 0.33 times the value to find phosphate levels. Which meter is this? I know you need to multiply on nitrate meters usually but I hadn't heard of this on the P meter.

Do you add any other additives? What type of substrates do you two use?

fourzero, that is the question that I'm really interested in. Why do some people need less than a mL to crash a tank but others requires ten fold or more to reduce nitrates? This may come down to something that cannot be measured that is facilitating the N/P reduction.

[tony varrell]

Genetics,

I figured out the meter. My initial starting Phosphate level was 0.6 after four days of 1ml dosing it rose to 0.8? I attribute this to the fact that I am four days past my weekly water change so I assume this means that the initial dose had no positive or negitave effect. I have noticed some HA floating in the water column that has seperated from the rock though. Today is day four and I am now dosing 2ml. I am keeping
my fingures crossed as this was the dose amount that caused my snow storm.

I do not dose any additives only garlic and selcon with the fish food. My other water parmeters are consistant using DD salt, Ca reactor and Kalk Stirrer.My substrate is a shallow sand bed of figi sand. I will start dosing AAHC next week.

DKH 9
CA 450
Mag 1350

[Genetics]

Tony are you sure your phosphates levels were 0.6?

If you don't keep with your old schedule for water changes and tank maintenance it makes it difficult to gauge when vodka starts to have an effect on your tank.

I would try 1.5mL for a day or two before moving to 2mL to be on the safe side.

[martinhal]

Hi,

Im dosing vodka my NO3 went from 10ppm to undetectable and PO4 from 0.3 ppm to 0,05 ppm - im at 1.5ml per day. Now that NO3 is so low should I stop and find my maintenace dose or should I keep going up at 0.5ml per week until PO4 is down to 0.01 ppm ?

[tony varrell]

Genetics,

If I am reading my Hanna Correctly it is accurate. Why do you question its accuracy. Does the reading not make sense. Here is an older picture of my tank the HA is somewhat worst now.
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj12/tonyvarrell/algea006.jpg

[Genetics]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14534220#post14534220 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by martinhal
Hi,

Im dosing vodka my NO3 went from 10ppm to undetectable and PO4 from 0.3 ppm to 0,05 ppm - im at 1.5ml per day. Now that NO3 is so low should I stop and find my maintenace dose or should I keep going up at 0.5ml per week until PO4 is down to 0.01 ppm ?

You're actually at a good level. If you have 0.05ppm phosphate and zero nitrates, you could increase a bit more or just run a small amount of GFO.


<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14534899#post14534899 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tony varrell
Genetics,

If I am reading my Hanna Correctly it is accurate. Why do you question its accuracy. Does the reading not make sense. Here is an older picture of my tank the HA is somewhat worst now.
http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj12/tonyvarrell/algea006.jpg

Sorry the reason I was wondering if the high phosphate could have resulted in your snowstorm you saw early on. Nice tank btw.

[Nanook]

I have 1000g system, been dosing for a month or two now per your article in Reefkeeping and am now up to 12cc/day split into 6cc in the morning and 6cc in the evening.

My nitrates are unchanged at 8.8 per Lamotte kit and phosphates are 0.03-0.05 with the Hanna meter. I am still running a large 8"x24" reactor filled with GFO as well as carbon.

Any thoughts on what a maximum dose would be for this tank or at what point I will see nitrates disappear?

Thanks!

[Genetics]

Dave,

On a 1000g system, if you haven't seen an effect by 12mL (I'm assuming this is 80 proof) you may want to think about upping your dose quicker. Instead of increasing 0.5mL per week think about doing it each business day. The reason I say this is b/c as the size of the tank increases, the incremental 0.5mL increase becomes less in terms of ppm in the tank. I actually wanted to change the scale to be linear in dosing as the size of the tank increased but since I was writing a review with stonycorals using material on the internet/RC and not my personal thoughts on the matter I didn't include it. The optimal 0.5mL weekly increase seems to be for tanks of 100g-200g. If you figure 200g at 0.5mL increments weekly, you would need 5x that or 2.5mL increase per week or 0.5mL per business day.

There is a good chance since you didn't have an effect at a lower dose that you may need between 25-50mL/day to see an effect. When you find a dose that you will start to see an effect on your N/P, your skimmer will produce something similar to Melev's skimmate:

http://melevsreef.com/pics/09/01/vodka_skimmate.jpg

HTH

[Nanook]

Thanks! My skimmer has definitely picked up and looks much more foamy with dark skimmate compared to before I started dosing vodka. I do not have any algaes or cyanobacteria in my tanks, just coralline algae. I was just wanting to get away from using expensive GFO and allow myself to feed my fish more food, well I tend to feed to heavy and vodka seems much more reasonable compared to GFO!

I will up 2cc/week and continue with twice/day dosing. At some point, I am going to need to take my GFO offline and that might be the true test. I am reluctant to do that just yet, especially with my nitrates still registering.

Thanks for your help in this truly interesting twist to Reefkeeping:)

[Genetics]

Tony, how is the dosing going?

[goodtimes2]

I started vodka dosing as well for the cost savings : No GFO , but also one less pump to run ( less energy), less heat and more space in my sump.So far so good

[tony varrell]

Genetics, So for so good. I am up to 3ml per day. Phostpahte test yesterday reading was 0.04 which is an improvement from my starting reading of 0.08. However nitrates remain unchanged at 8PPM. I am wondering and I know all tanks are different what dose would you expect to see a drastic reduction in P/N and and positive effect on my HA.

Another question I have is at what point do you take the GFO and nitrate reactor off line and let the Vodka stand on its own?

One more question about AAHC when should I begin to dose and how much. I do not want to dose daily..

[Genetics]

Tony, there seems to be two steps involved (though I'm not entirely sure yet to the degree or possible reasons). By steps I mean points where nitrates/phosphates fall. The first one happens with a small amount (sounds like you've passed that point) and the next one is a bit higher. Some people get the results they want with the first step and then second takes a bit longer to get to. If I had to guess, the next leg down will be around 6-8mL for you.

Nanook, I'm glad you've found this twist interesting. Hopefully, you'll find it worthwhile in the long run also. :thumbsup:

[tony varrell]

Genetics, How about the question when to take the GFO and Nitrate reactor off line?

[Genetics]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14569550#post14569550 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tony varrell
Another question I have is at what point do you take the GFO and nitrate reactor off line and let the Vodka stand on its own?

One more question about AAHC when should I begin to dose and how much. I do not want to dose daily..

Those can be weened off between now and whenever. I would personally think about keeping the equipment around or even running until you find a vodka dose that works well for you. First, think about removing the GFO or cutting back for the next month.

AAHC should be dosed when needed. For my tank, I am adding once every two weeks or so at the dose recommended by the manufacturer. It is noticeable the next day but takes another two weeks before I can notice the color shift again. Must be a slow paling. Also, feeding more counteracts this problem.

[tony varrell]

Genetics,

Came home this evening and noticed that my glass has twice as much algea as normal. What's the reason for this??

[tony varrell]

I've also noticed that at 3ml my montipora corals are starting to get faded pretty bad. Scary I hope I will not loose them.

[Genetics]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14572797#post14572797 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tony varrell
I've also noticed that at 3ml my montipora corals are starting to get faded pretty bad. Scary I hope I will not loose them.

Algae should not increase with vodka dosing. Algae does not have the ability to use molecules other than CO2/bicarbonate. If you're seeing fading stay or maybe even drop back down to 2mL per day. Does your water look clearer? Your montipora may actually be in light shock as the fading isn't noticed until nitrates hit zero. Is there any other change in your tank, change in skimming?

[Genetics]

Wrong thread.

[tony varrell]

Genetics, I can not notice the water being any clearer the normal. My nitrates tested last night were still at 8ppm and phostphate at 0.06. Your light shock theory seems plausiable because the most effected coral are twards the top of the tank. I did notice my skimmer cup was basically dry last night which is not normal. One positive effect of the Vodka so far has been the increase in skimate. There were no mechanical issues with the skimmer it was working normally.

So now what? Stay the course at 3ML or revert back to 2ML based on this information??

[tony varrell]

Here is a picture of the Algae that is causing me to search for a solution. Can you Identify it??

http://i537.photobucket.com/albums/ff335/jamesvarrell/algae001.jpg

[Genetics]

Tony, it sounds like your tank is undergoing a few changes. My guess is that you will need to get to 6mL or more before you start getting rid of your HA. It sounds like this low level may be a good dose to hold on for an extra week. You've potentially light shocked your corals and you want those to recover before moving forward to be on the safe side. It's your call on whether you want to drop to 2mL and then start again with the 0.5mL per week increases.

Personally, I would add the AAHC and see if your corals look better. If so, then keep at 3mL. If not, cut back to 2mL for a week and then up to 2.5mL.

[tony varrell]

Genetics, The AACH has seem to stop my coral fading and I have elected to drop down and mainatine a dose of 2.5ml for four more days then go up again to 3ml and observe.

I am having one issue that I don't understand. For some reason my skimmer BK SM250 has not skimmed anything for the last two days? The skimmer is working correctly so it must be something associated with the water. Do you have an explaination for this??

[tony varrell]

Is there a reasonable explaination why my skimmer stopped producing skimate with out any obivious mechanical issues...

[Genetics]

Good, add AAHCs every day or every few days. Take it slow again on the increases. Sounds like you have that laid out.

On the skimmer, did it increase when you first started dosing? There are many reasons for the skimmate changing. I've had it stop for days for no apparent reason just to start again after a heavy feeding.

[Tonycip]

I'm sorry whats AAHC? stand for.

[Genetics]

Amino acids high concentrate.

[tony varrell]

Genetics, Yes initially the skimmer increased it's output and was darker then usual however now it's been 3 days with no skimate. That has never happened before. Should I be concerned?

[Genetics]

No, it doesn't sound that unusual. It sounds like you had a smaller bloom, pulled out a lot of gunk and now the skimmer is just being senescent. It should come back in the near future. It would also explain the paling issues with the corals with increasing water clarity. Good eye though, most people miss the subtle changes.

How are your levels testing?

[tony varrell]

Genetics, Phosphate 0.04 and nitrates still 8ppm..

[tony varrell]

Should I continue my normal water change schedule, 25 gallons per week??

[fourzero]

Yes

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14600792#post14600792 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tony varrell
Should I continue my normal water change schedule, 25 gallons per week??

[Genetics]

Yes, I wouldn't change anything until you have your levels where you find them acceptable.

[tony varrell]

genetics, All is stable and I am planning to increase the dose tomorrow to 3ml. MY PO remains unchanged 0.06 and Nitrates 8PPM. I have a question about the dosing of Zeovit AAHC. The instructions call for daily dosing. What is your recommendation based on what I am doing and is there something to look for to determaine overdose??

[Genetics]

Good question. I've used Omega AAs to bring some darker colors out of sps. My guess would be the feeding would be user dependent. I feed very heavily and only need to add them when I slow down on foods. It is really trial and error to get the best results. Usually, I find I need to use a lot less than what any manufacturer recommends. HTH