Jerrys Vodka Dosing Experience

[jerrcarlson]

Hey All! After much consideration and a tremendous amount of reading and asking questions I have decided to dose my 210. Especially after seeing Josh's success I figured I would give it a go. I offered to post my experience on facebook and after hearing from a few of you have decided to do so. I am following the recommendations of the same article that Josh based his dosing on. Although I do feel like I have about as good of a grasp on the subject as I possibly can I would certainly not consider myself an expert on the subject. I will simply share my experience for good or bad!

My tank is a 210 gallon reef tank. For livestock it is home to 5 Tangs, 4 lyretail anthias, 3 purple fire fish, 2 blue chromis, 3 fish with bright blue eyes which may be another type of chormis, not sure!, a mandarin, mcCoskers wrasse, a large male swallow tale and a bright orange linckia starfish! For corals I have a fare amount of smaller sps frags and colonies as well as some euphillia and various LPS, bubble tips, etc etc. I run LED lights and hydor pumps which run on a wavemaker. I have a sump that is about 30-40 gallons. It has no refugium. I have a reef octopus 3000 skimmer and run GFO but no carbon. I also run a UV sterelizer and an apex controller. I have an auto top off hooked up to an RO/DI filter in the next room. I Feed the same amount every day and perform a 10% water change once a month. Other than changing my GFO about every other month I change 2 filter socks every Friday.

Currently, Everyone and evrything in my tank appears healthy and happy! Here is a list of my parameters Today as I begin dosing. All measurements were taken with an API kit.
Temp - 78.3
PH - 8.06
ORP - 439
Ammonia - undetectable
Nitrite - Undetectable
Nitrate - If its not 80 its pretty dang close!
KH - 7.5
Calcium - (420-440)
PO4 - (0 - trace)

Why I am wanting to dose? - My nitrates are consistent but consistently high! And, although I am a believer in refugiums I have no room for one.

What are my concerns? - My biggest concern is my fish! In the carbon dosing process one of the potential side effects is that the heterotrophic bacteria which are thought to be the bacteria you are growing can reproduce incredibly fast and like to consume the oxygen in the water. If too much of this happens it can create a hypoxic situation where your fish will struggle to breath. This has been documented to occur more often in established tanks of more than 2 years. There are also reports of fish death due to the production of hydrogen sulfide gas which again has been documented in older tanks especially with deep sand beds.

What is my dosage regiment? -
Day 1-3 = 0.5 ml
Day 4-7 = 1.0 ml
Week 2 = 1.5 ml
Week 3 = 2.0 ml
Week 4 = 2.5 ml
Week 5 = 3.0 ml

I will continue on this regiment until I notice by nitrates starting to drop. When they do I will stop increasing my does and maintain that dose. When nitrates become close to undetectable I will cut my does in half and maintain that dose indefinitely.

Hopefully, the above information will answer many of the questions you may have.

Here we go!

 

[jerrcarlson]

So I cheated a little bit, I actually started dosing on tuesday but didnt get my post up until today:angel:! Anyway, today is day 3 of dosing. I have put the 0.5ml in the last 2 days. So far I cant tell any difference. There hasn't been any change in my skimmer or water quality. It is as if I had not started dosing at all. I have not measured my nitrates but wouldnt expect to notice any change this soon. Tomorrow I will begin dosing 1 ml and will check the nitrate then. I was suspicious if my ORP might drop as the bacteria population started to grow but my apex says my ORP today is 439 same as when I started.

 

[jerrcarlson]

On a side note I should probably clarify for some of you that might be looking at the dosage formula that Josh posted, I altered my dosage slightly. According to my volume I should start dosing 0.7ml instead of 0.5ml. However, I cut it to 0.5ml's primarily because what I have to measure lets me measure 0.5 ml and it is considerably more difficult to measure 0.7 ml. I figured starting slow was better than too quickly anyway!

 

[PokyReefs]

Awesome thread jerry!! looking foward to seeing your results!!

 

[jerrcarlson]

Day 4

Today I upped my dosage to 1 ml. My nitrates remain unchanged. I have not noticed any difference in my skimmer or anything else for that matter. However, my staff mentioned to me how clean the glass was this morning. When I looked closer I noticed I have absolutely 0 algae on my glass. When I further questioned my staff they mentioned that they normally clean it every Monday, Wednesday and Friday but that they had not cleaned it since Monday night! Today is Friday! Perhaps its a coincidence, but I find it interesting that after 4+ days there is 0 algae on my glass!

 

[hpfr33k]

if im reading right your on day 7? hows it look?

 

[jerrcarlson]

You are absolutely Correct hpfr33k! Today is the start of my 2nd week. Today I increased my dosage an extra 0.5 ml's for the next week. My daily dosage is now 1.5 ml's. I still cannot notice any significant changes in my tank and in my skimmer. My livestock and corals appear to be doing about the same as well. In fact, everything appears as if I hadn't been dosing at all. The only thing that I have noticed is that today I am getting some algae on my glass. I think I will have my staff clean it:xd:! This is noticeably better than it has been in the past. Usually my staff cleans the glass on Mon, Wed and Fri but it has not been needed. The last time we cleaned the glass was last Monday, over a week ago! As far as my nitrates go, they are still high. If they have decreased it is difficult to tell. I almost wondered if the color appeared a little lighter today than at my last measurement. However, it might just be wishful thinking. I think I will check it again on Thursday or Friday to see.

 

[fishroomlady]

I am really interested in seeing your results. Thank you for posting this! I've been considering vinegar dosing myself because I do struggle with nitrates. I run a rather high bioload and like to feed.

 

[saltfishguy18]

I had an issue with nitrates in my system also. Vodka worked wonders and I still use it now as a daily dose to keep them 0

 

[Reefing Madness]

Your looking at 7 months to see results from your current dosing procedure. Just a heads up. Let me know if you want to cut that down a few months.

Dosing Vodka: Why? | Melev's Reef
FYI: At the scheduled rate of adding .5 ml per week, it took 27 weeks to reach 15 ml. Almost 7 months!
For the first three days, I dosed a mere 1 ml. On Day 4 to Day 7, I dosed 2 ml. Then for the next week, I dosed 2.5 ml daily. Each subsequent week, .5 ml was added. Just to be clear, here's the breakdown for how much was dosed DAILY:
Week 1 - 1ml - 2ml
Week 2 - 2.5 ml
Week 3 - 3 ml
Week 4 - 3.5 ml
Week 5 - 4 ml
Week 6 - 4.5 ml
Week 7 - 5 ml
Week 8 - 5.5 ml
Week 9 - 6 ml
Week 10 - 6.5ml
Week 11 - 7 ml
Week 12 - 7.5 ml
Etc...

 

[jerrcarlson]

Reefing Maddness, perhaps you are correct. The regiment I am following is from the following article...Vodka Dosing by 'Genetics' and 'Stony_Corals' - Reefkeeping.com. It does seem to be a bit more conservative than the article you cited. However, my buddy followed the same regiment and started seeing his nitrates drop after the second week. And his tank is twice as big and had higher nitrates than mine. Im sure its different for all tanks. Hopefully, mine will follow suit. I appreciate the heads up. I will keep an eye on things and if I dont notice any change within the next couple of weeks will consider ramping up my doses.

 

[jerrcarlson]

Haha, Reefing Maddness I went back and looked at your links again. I stand corrected, it seems you originall used the same article I did. Thanks again for the information!

 

[Reefing Madness]

Starting dropping the second week, in a tank larger than 210g, and with Trates higher than yours? That doesn't seem possible, being as theirs and your daily maintenance doseage at the end will be around 10-15mls a day.
Only thing that woulda helped them along faster is if they had a huge skimmer, and were doing very large water changes a couple times per week, that woulda have scewed the results, and brought down the levels much much quicker.

 

[PokyReefs]

I would be that buddy and it did happen on the end of week 2, I run a 500 gallon sps dominated tank, I started slow with 2 ml of 80 proof vodka with high nitrates. I did do large water changes, 100 gallons once a week for 2 weeks. I also run a super reef octo xp 8000 skimmer which is way over kill for my system (around 1000 gallons). Do I think vodka has everything to do with my nitrates dropping ? No.. but it's been 3 months of dosing 2ml a day and no water changes and my nitrates are still undetectable. I'm a very heavy feeder due to a large school of anthias, I ran the skimmer on the system 2 months before i started vodka and my nitrates were still extremely high... I dosed 2 ML for 7 days and had absolutely zero changes in my nitrates. On the second week i started dosing 4 ML a day(i tested my water every day while testing out vodka) and got to day 14 and checked my nitrates and they were gone.... I followed the instructions and dropped my daily dosage to 2 ml.. my nitrates have stayed consitant now for 3 months.. I do think my skimmer plays a HUGE part in my low daily dose, but for me.. it works...

 

[Reefing Madness]

There ya have it. Very nice!! Knew it had to be large WC or a combination there of. The dose just seemed to low for regular dosing without all that being done.

 

[jerrcarlson]

Day 10

I Have been continuing to dose 1.5 ml's a day for most of this week. Still no change in nitrates. I continue to notice a decrease in algae on the glass. There is not a lot of change in my skimmer. However, it does seem to be a little more stinky. Perhaps that is a good sign. I will continue to dose according to my schedule through the end of next week. If I fail to see any decrease in my nitrates perhaps I will take Reefing Madness's advice and increase my dosage some!

 

[jerrcarlson]

DAY 13
I was actually going to wait until tomorrow to post but I did notice a change when I came into my office today. For the first time I have noticed a change in my skimmer. I noticed a significant increase in the volume of skimmate this moring. SO much so that I had to empty it. While emptying it I noticed it was considerably more stinky! I guess I can assume from this that I am starting to develop a larger body of bacteria in the water column. I checked my nitrates and I still cannot see a decrease. Tomorrow I will begin week 3 and increase my dosage to 2 ml's. I think I will dose 2 ml's a day for the week. If I am not noticing a decrease in the nitrates by the end of the week I think I will follow reefing madness's suggestion and increase my dose by .5 ml's every 3-4 days instead of every week.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Right on. And yes, your skimmer will now be working overtime.

 

[jerrcarlson]

DAY 16

Still dosing 2 ml's per day. Over the past 2 days I have noticed my skimmer working harder. My nitrates are still unchanged and my livestock still seem to be fine. I did lose an acro frag and have another colony that seems to be trying to die on me as well. Both have always done great and I have not changed anything other than vodka dosing. Perhaps its just a coincidence but it certainly something I will keep an eye on. Meanwhile, my PH and ORP have both remained unchanged.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Gotta watch, you dont want your nitrates going up on you while your trying to knock them down. Just keep an eye on that. If you need to do a water change to help, then id recommend it.