Vodka Dosing Revisited

[DaveS]

So a year or two ago, Vodka dosing was all the rage. People experimented with it using conflicting guidelines and receiving conflicting results. Seems like in the last 8 months or so, no one is really talking about it much. Either the fad has gone away or people have figured out how to do it. I just wanted to start a quick thread to see where WAMAS members stand.

 

Who is still doing it? What are your long terms results? Which protocol did you follow? Hopefully this "fad" has matured and we can get more information about the benefits and procedures for doing it.

[Origami]

I did it for about six months in my old 90 gallon tank. This period ended about 2 years ago and was while the technique was still only captured in forum threads and before there was a nice, summarizing article about it. There was a lot more risk associated with the technique then. I tried it because I was having trouble keeping my nitrates completely in check. I started out using granulated white sugar, then moved to (really cheap) vodka as my carbon source. It worked for me.

 

The protocol that I followed was fairly basic: Start slowly and increase dosage slowly. I would dose the tank once daily and would monitor the tank for bacterial bloom (I would look for cloudiness in the tank at night - under moonlights - when viewed lengthwise.) whenever I increased the dosage. I would increase the dosage until I began to see this bloom, then I would back off just a little.

 

My nitrate levels dropped, responding to the regimen. The drop was measurable within a few days of starting, and stabilized in 2-3 weeks time. At one point, they stalled. I believe that this was at about 20 ppm or so. My phosphates were at zero by then, so I concluded that my nitrates stalled because my system became phosphate-limited. In response, I took my GFO reactor offline to eliminate this phosphate sink. Within a week or two, my nitrates dropped to zero. I continued dosing at this level for another 2 months before backing off on the dosage. I was able to back off of the dosage fairly significantly (maybe 33% to 50% off) before I noticed any elevation in nitrates. A little more than that became my maintenance dosage from then until when I broke that tank down and moved to the system that I have now.

 

I think that vodka, or more generally carbon, dosing has become more commonplace and accepted. That's probably why you don't hear as much about it anymore. I'm sure many people still do it in one form or another. It's certainly part of the bag of tricks that we have now.

[treesprite]

I dosed vodka just for a couple months, but was leary of it being an inexact science. It was long enough for it to get rid of my cyano if nothing else. I waited a couple months, then started dosing Prodibio.

 

Now, I have been reading about people who dose BOTH Prodibio AND vodka. I had been thinking about posting about it here for a few weeks now, but have been holding back because I don;t think too many people even dose Prodibio, let alone both things at the same time. I'd certainly be interested in someone pointing me to some links about it.

[khalid]

I am currently dosing Prodibio, Vodka and Vinegar to try to get rid of the hair algae and cyno that popped up when I had the bright idea to change my salt from Aqua Medic to DD H2O Pro. I have been doing it for a little over a month now and the cyno is fully gone and the hair algae is slowly going away. I dose one ampule of prodibio every 2 weeks and a 75/25 ratio if Vodka to Vinegar. I have been following the dosage instructions and structure here:

 

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php

 

The only thing I change is I take the dosage and dose 75% Vodka and 25% Vinegar. I a happy with the results so far.

[zygote2k]

I dose Vodka in my stomach every Friday night. I've found a direct correlation that equates to the more I dose, the less problems in the tank I see.

[khalid]

I dose Vodka in my stomach every Friday night. I've found a direct correlation that equates to the more I dose, the less problems in the tank I see.

 

LOL!!!

[OldReefer]

I used to dose vodka back in the dark ages several years ago. Now I am dabbling with it again. I have to say, in combination with MB7, it sure cleaned up my cyano problem. I am looking forward to unsing solid pellets (like NP pellets) in a reactor to get this to a place I can control. It seems pretty clear that bacteria plays a bigger and more complex role in the health of our tank than we understood a few years back.

[overklok]

I dose two caps from a 1 liter skyy bottle every morning. It limits algae growth, I don't have to clean my glass as much when I dose.

[DaveS]

How do you guys think your coral coloration changed over the long term with Vodka?