Vodka Method

Maltese

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Starting dosing vodka to reduce my nitrates and phosphates, i'm on the 3 week now and still my protein skimmer is taking out sludge. I think its working fine :bigsmile:



20150301_092922.jpg
 

Reefing Madness

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It will continue to remove very nasy sludge until the nitrate levels subside.
 
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Thank you Reefing Madness, do you use the vodka method ? If you use it, at which time the nitrate begin to lower ? I arrived at week 3, 3rd day. Today i'm going to check it. I always had a problem with high nitrates. I started to use an algae scrubber, i think that it will help too what do you think?
 

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Thank you Reefing Madness, do you use the vodka method ? If you use it, at which time the nitrate begin to lower ? I arrived at week 3, 3rd day. Today i'm going to check it. I always had a problem with high nitrates. I started to use an algae scrubber, i think that it will help too what do you think?
I cheated when I started dosing. I figured out ralatively where my tank was going to be as a maintenance dose after the nitrates came down, so I knew where my dosing level was going to get to. I upped my does by 5mls a week, and it only took a few weeks for me to see the nitrates atart to come down.
If you are going by normal operating proceedure, its going to take you roughly 7 months before you see them come down.
 

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Thanks madness. I read one last night. Well this morning really.lol wasn't super infotmative. Ill check it out.
 

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It will continue to remove very nasy sludge until the nitrate levels subside.

Thins brings a good point or question. Once nitrates are out of the system and you cut your dose in half for maintenance, there isn't as much gunk to be pulled. There would still be some, as you are still introducing bacteria, just not as much.
 
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I cheated when I started dosing. I figured out ralatively where my tank was going to be as a maintenance dose after the nitrates came down, so I knew where my dosing level was going to get to. I upped my does by 5mls a week, and it only took a few weeks for me to see the nitrates atart to come down.
If you are going by normal operating proceedure, its going to take you roughly 7 months before you see them come down.

Me right now i'm dosing 1.8mls daily so weekly i'm dosing 12.6 mls that is quite good for my 120g reef tank include refugium.
 

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At 1.8mls a day, if your waiting for nitrates to come down, your going to be waiting a long time.
 

Reefing Madness

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I bumped it 5mls a week. Not .5, but 5mls, and don't worry I've got plenty of people out there that have done this with no ill affects to their tanks.
 

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A couple of years ago there was a article in Coral Magazine
About vodka dosing. It was Vodka Sugar and something else if I remember right it increased carbon which helped break down waste.
 

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Thanks for the article madness. Good read. I'm starting dosing tomorrow. Hope it works. My full tank volume including sump/fuge is 50 gals. So hopefully it wo t take long. :)
 

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Read the article. Also saw suggestions of possable multi carbon dosing in other articles. Here's is my question. If all reduce nitrates and phosphates am d sugar and vinegar contaminate easier, why does diversity in bacteria matter? As long as the bacteria induced by vodka do the trick, why chanse the two more unstable liquids to gain diversity if it does not change the outcome? Why does it matter if its one type of bacteria or several?
 
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traumajeff

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I chose vsv because I figured why not have several types doing the job. Honestly though, many people do one or the other and have great success. By no means am I saying go with vsv... just a good read and something to think about. I've also heard of people using carbon dosing with bottled bacteria like prodibio to increase the overall bacteria and then feed it.
 

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Diversity is never bad. I was just curious if there was a downfall to only having one strain of bacteria. :)
 

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