Going to try vodka dosing!

Thought it might be interesting to start a thread for others to follow on he results of this experiment.

First a little background....my tank is 135g with about 65g sump. It is on its second year being up and was a transfer from another tank that was up for a couple years. I have a skimmer, 2 UV sterilizers, carbon and gfo reactor. I have probably 150lbs of live rock and great flow (koralia 8, 5 and 4) in the tank. I have 4 250w mh and 8 actenic bulbs.

Stock wise, I have only 3 fish, a female bellus, midas and mystery wrasse. Corals contain variety of SPS, LPS and zoas. I do have a psychedelic cucumber and a sea apple which require heavy phyto feedings. I also had several clams, recently loosing a large 12" hippo clam.

My nitrates, ammonia, nitrites had been zero for the last 2 years, up until the last 2 months or so. I run my kH 12-14, sg 1.027, mg 1400, calcium 440. Beginning of the year my skimmer crapped out on me and was not skimming as well as it should, so I replaced my hydor skimmer with a new ASM skimmer and it did fantastic pulling out skimmate. However my nitrates started to raise up, and raise up high! It shot to above 120 so I did all the usual steps....tested my water supply (ro/di) changing the filters and resin in my system. My water came out a zero for nitrates and no TDS (even before I changed). I did large quantity water changes, 30g three times a week at first, then tapered down a little but at least 30-50g week. I reduced my feedings even more then usual, did the usual maintance to clean the tank, sump, skimmer etc. I left the lights off for several days, etc. Still at 120 nitrate level. Ammonia and nitrites of course are zero and have always been zero on all tests.

Soooo, I have decided to try a cheap older fix to nitrates....dosing vodka. There are risks associated with vodka dosing and I will have to monitor very closely. One thing vodka does do is decrease the total available disolved o2 in the system. It can also cause major bacterial bloom in the system. It also doesnt react as well in higher alk settings, as it can cause burnt tips on SPS with kH above 7-8, so I will have to allow my alk to drop some.

Dosing is interesting, you must factor in the total water volume...I am going to be safe and just say I am at 135g. It is 0.1ml per 25g for the first 3 days, then 0.2ml per 25g for days 4-7, then 0.5ml a week thereafter. I will be testing my kH, nitrates daily during this time. I will be closely monitoring my fish for odd behavior or signs of stress. I will also have my GFO reactor off during this treatment and watching for signs of old tank syndrome

I am anxious to begin this experiment. Surprisingly with my nitrate levels being so high, I still have nice coloration in my SPS and great growth rates. All my corals are thriving very nicely. I did take a water sample to LFS to double check my reagants and they were fine. I have read that water clarity really is improved with vodka dosing and coral coloration really pops. It does increase the skimmate pulled out and stops algea growth. While I do not have an algea problem, I do have some issues of it in my one overflow only!

So tonight I will begin the dosing routine and will keep you all posted with the results.

 

very excited for the results and the best of luck to ya

 

Good luck on you journey. It'll be interesting to follow along.

 

good luck, took me about 8 weeks to get the nitrates from 100-80 to zero. after that I stopped dosing vodka, and incorperated chaeto/mangroves to my sump. and have been between 0-15ppm nitrates ever since. also I was getting high nitrates from my old bioballs that I never cleaned out.

 

ill be following along for the ride captain

 

today is day 4 and i doubled the amt of vodka dose from .6cc to .12cc. I have been doing half doses twice a day versus the whole dose at one time trying to keep a more constant level.
My kH is finally falling down some and is now at 9 (I have to watch it closely now because once I hit below 10 it seems to drop really fast down to 5 and my chalices hate that!) I tested my nitrates yesterday and they were still 120 so glad to hear that it took you 8 weeks night-rida.

I have a 40g tank that inwall is in the process of hooking up as an external refug onto my existing sump. I have ordered some parts that I need to plumb that and excited to get that up and running. I will be adding chaeto and mangroves to it once that is up and running. Luckily I already have the pump and the lights to do that process, just dont have a piece of plumbing that I need.

I did have a loss in my tank before I started the vodka dosing....I inherited a very large, very cool looking mystery wrasse and he has been missing since Sunday. I have glass tops on my tank so he can not jump out. He either died from the nitrates or he has jumped and is in the back of my overflow (which I am hoping he will one day pop back up) He was a very cool fish!

 

im sorry bud! I love mystery wrasse and wish i could get one locally but im in montana and we dont have real fish or real coral here. (Clarification: Real fish and coral are the ones i want to stock)

Im excited to here how your vodka dosing goes!!!!

 

well I finished the daily vodka dosing on Friday. My skimmer has really been chugging away and pulling out a lot of goop! I tested things on Friday just to see and the nitrates were down from 120 to below 60! My Kh is at 8. So I am very psyched about that....I will hopefully be connecting the extra refug this weekend (my refug in my sump was designed to be useless!)

 

It should have made your tank ultra super clear too!

 

One important thing to note:

If you are nursing a coral back to health that has a bacterial infection via Iodine dips, move that coral to another tank before dosing vodka. Carbon dosing (vodka) feeds ALL BACTERIA, not just the good ones. This coral can be saved but it really took a step backwards in it's recovery because the vodka fired up those bacteria too.