Vodka/Alc dosing

[nacho]

So I'm being really lax on my 55 lately. I have one of the 50 cubes from Sealife that I need to finish the sump and stand for. I've been really lax with the 55 long for a while because of this. Currently have no access to R.O. water from dads but the tank is really low stock with lots of rock and some leathers. Suffice it to say my nitrate and phosphate are fairly high. I do run a Deltec MCE-600 on it but I have a Rena canister  attached and haven't put new carbon in forever. I noticed there was a bottle of Disaronno in the fridge the other day and said what the hell. Didn't bother to measure my dosage, I've just put roughly an ounce in over 4 days. The first thing I noticed is the skimmer pulling in only water(probably herb or apricot oil from the booze), I cleaned and adjusted the flow and it started pulling out tons of black nasty stuff. Today there was an insane bacterial bloom when I checked it. Water is basically solid white which I'm assuming is particulate matter and bacteria. I would not suggest using anything but ethanol or almost pure alcohol like rum 151 though. My only question is should I be doing a water change or let the filters do their job or both. Add carbon? This is all experimental BTW.

 

[TORX]

Added too much vodka. That was wayyyy too much vodka for a 50. I was doing 5ml daily after spending a few weeks ramping up the dose.

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[TORX]

You had a crazy algea bloom from over dosing. Hopefully one of true guys hear have some good advice on how to start saving the tank

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[Krazykarl]

Def water changes. An ounce is a ton of vodka. And you never use flavoured. I used banff vodka and I was dosing 4ml per day for over 300 gallons of water when I noticed a bacterial bloom. I had red cyano appear so I stopped and it went away. It's a hard thing to get right. I'd say a water change or two over the course of a week or two and let the bacteria Do its job

 

[TORX]

... Didn't bother to measure my dosage, I've just put roughly an ounce in over 4 days....

1ounce = 29.6ml
29.6ml over 4 days = 7.4 ml per day

The starting dosage is 0.1ml of vodka per 25 gallon. Please see the below site for tons of vodka dosing help. Vodka does work, I did it myself for almost a year, just have to be careful

Vodka Dosing by Genetics and Stone Corals

 

[STUEYHAWKINS]

what do you think is the best option

1- vodka dosing alone and then a maintanence schedule 
2- combination of vodka dosing and having a denitrifier (Nitrate remover see link) http://www.thefragtank.ca/forum/index.php?topic=1997.0 
3- vodka dosing until non detectable nitrates and then making a denitrifier for mantanence


is vodka dosing only a temp solution or do people do this on a longer term maintanence schedule?
please let me know what you think

 

[Krazykarl]

Vodka dosing is introducing a carbon source for bacteria to feed off of and reduce nitrates and phosphates. In order to properly dose vodka an exceptional skimmer I needed in order to pull these organically from the water. If you are thinking about dosing longterm I would suggest the use of bio pellets as it is basically the same thing only no dosing and they last forever. I've never fed so heavily on my tank and the pellets take care of everything.

 

[Salty Cracker]

Not to be a jerk, but WTF were you thinking just blindly pouring flavoured vodka into your tank?  I almost think this is a troll post, as seriously....

If this isn't a joke this is the kind of misinformation that p*sses me off.  Someone somewhere told him to dose vodka, yep just pour vodka right into your tank.  How much?  Doesn't matter, maybe a about a quart.  Even guys that know what they're doing can have a crash or bloom dosing vodka.

Holy shit, seriously.  A tank with a crazy sensitive biosystem and you didn't see a problem with just pouring berry flavoured booze into it?  Then come here and ask how to fix it?

Just try drano, it'll clear that bacteria bloom right up.  Just put in about a capful.

I hope you hang around and ask questions and learn, luckily you'll probably be able to salvage the tank, but man, don't do that again.  Get some GFO running and never ever ever just pour something into the tank.  As very wise words go "don't dose ANYTHING you can't test for". 

 

[nacho]

LOL I've been doing salt for 4 years after having fresh since I was kid. Notice how no one read that I used disaronno which is italian liquer not vodka. I used more because of a smaller amount of alcohol. Bacteria bloom is gone today with zero water changes and a skimmer clean. The skimmer is also exceptional because its an MCE 600 on a 55. Also wrote that it was experimental. I would never do this with prized specimens. It has not hurt the 2 pjs, engineer goby (blennyies), or leather corals. It actually looks like its turning out good but I'll do the tests tommorrow.

 

[nacho]

The disaronno is roughly 28% alcohol btw. If this was a show tank or had any real value other than the rock I would try to use pure ethanol.

 

[Salty Cracker]

I actually noticed you said disaronno, and thought "nooooo...that's practically syrup....he must mean smirnoff or something"

There's some very good, very free, solid advice on here.  Everyone may not agree all the time, but each of us in our own way have success and failure.  We're happy to help. 

First bit: no more disaronno.  However I think I'm going to go put some in my coffee now that I think of it

 

[Salty Cracker]

I have a 125+sump and only once put vodka in.  I think I put in 5ml.  Made me so nervous that I just drank the rest and ordered a pellet reactor. 

 

[nacho]

Yeah salt I know the basic forum rules(polite free for all on occasion). I was on arachnoboards for a while. I would also agree with being too nervous to put it in an actual display or even fowlr if I had much investment in it.

 

[TORX]

Re: Re: Vodka/Alc dosing

... Notice how no one read that I used disaronno which is italian liquer not vodka....

My bad, I assumed you meant to write some sort of vodka as well.

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[nacho]

So regardless of it working or not I ruined the whole experiment. Had to hold some outgoing fish so I overloaded the tank, changed the water and now have nothing in it again lol. Pointless experiment in the end, but I did learn more about proper dosing.

 

[pulpfiction1]

too funny,i used plain sugar before i started vodka,who knows?maybe the berry flavor might add colour  lol

 

[AdInfinitum]

too funny,i used plain sugar before i started vodka,who knows?maybe the berry flavor might add colour  lol

The sugar in the liqueur is way more potent than the alcohol.  2 level teaspoons of sugar in my 240ish gallon system would bring on a major bloom, and that was after slowly ramping up the carbon source dosing to very high levels.