Question to Randy Holmes No3 issue

[Volpone]

That ratio of nitrate to phosphate is good, normally you expect to see about 16 times more nitrate than phosphate very roughly. So you are about right. If you add organic carbon like vodka to your water now, the bacteria will be able to use the carbon, plus the nitrate and phosphate in your tank, to build biomass out of the nutrients. Biomass is skimmed or removed with GAC, and hey presto your nutrients go down.

Either read one of the vodka articles, or if you don't want to (many of them are a bit flawed IMO), I would suggest a dosing schedule something like this. Start with 0.2 ml vodka for 4 days, then double it to 0.4 ml for 4 days, then double it to 0.8 ml for another 4 days, then double it to 1.6 ml for 4 days, then double it to 3.2 ml for 4 days, and stick with that for say 3 weeks, and see if your nutrients change. If you get no drop in nutrients with 3.2 ml for 3 weeks then come back here to discuss going a bit more heavy on the vodka.

Very little will happen until you are dosing at least a couple of ml of vodka a day probably. If you want to be more aggressive you can add a final 'doubling' to the above, so rather than sticking with 3.2 ml, raise it to 6.4 ml for the 3 week period. If you want to be very careful, instead of using 4 days between changes to the schedule, leave it 5 or 6 days, or even 7 if you want. The slower you go the longer it will take to get nutrients down but the more safe you are taking it.

Thing with vodka dosing is you should take it easy at first but once your bacteria have built up to a few billion in the tank, which takes maybe a week or two, then the bacterial population rapidly increases if you increase food (vodka). If you rip your nutrients down too quick you might annoy sensitive SPS so test all the time and get a feel for how your tank is responding.

Its hard for generalised advise about vodka dosing because different tanks will have different amounts of nutrients in the sand bed - one tank might have clean sand or no sand, so not need much vodka, another tank might be heavily fed and have a sand bed which is constantly leaching high levels of nitrate (IE an old sand bed), so this tank will need more vodka to start seeing nutrients come down.

The most important thing though is to understand you are feeding a biological system which has to grow from a seed. You will see absolutely nothing at first. It will take at least 2 or 3 weeks to start to see an effect on nutrients probably, maybe longer but I doubt it (I think the people who report longer are taking the later stages of increasing the dose too slow personally). If you go too fast you will make the pH in your tank drop, the oxygen drop, and that will annoy your tank occupants, maybe kill them. This is to some degree the long haul, you have to be committed to it, its very easy but patience and trust that it will work is essential. Sounds like you have tended to flit around with different things expecting instant effects, vodka dosing is not suitable for that approach. A dosing pump is highly recommended IMO. Just set it, leave it, and adjust it once per 4 days / per week etc, other than that forget it, just do a bit of testing.

Edit: As salty said, it took 2 months for him. And a month might not be long enough for you, although I think that many of the guides out there go too slow at increasing the dose. I think the dose must be increased slow at first, but after you are up to 2 ml or so, you can increase faster. I think this is why many people find it slower to see effects. But thats just my opinion, maybe see what Randy says about how fast to ramp up.

Thx buddy for ur drop , i read many article about vodka dose and im agree with u , but right now im running bio pellets reactor for almost 3 months using ecobak plus pellets . I will keep on check for nitrate to see any improvement since i see po4 now in my tank.
I hope that my nitrate issue related to zero phosphate before because really i get tired trying many method and to figure out what cause nitrate in my system , because there is nothing left i did not change starting from return pump ending with sand bed replacement for 2 time during 2 years .
My sand is not deep now almost 2 cm or less using carib sea argonite 1~2 mm , very high quality life rock and tge rest which i mention it in pervious commect , crossing fingers and waiting to get good result .

 

[UK_Pete]

Ah didn't remember that you are using pellets. That should work then as they will be 'started' by now, should see your levels drop as you say! Good luck