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Only question I have is this, why Vodka and not biopellets. They are a much more consistent, simpler, and approachable system.
So what’s the difference between using Vodka vs vinegar ? I have mostly lps and softies with 4 SPS but moving towards more SPS sticks
Hello @cchomistek,
You could start your anaerobic bacterial colony with Dr. Tim's waste away most Local fish stores have it. It work best sure you start at a half does and increase to the proper dose after three weeks. 25% increase per week. Turn off your skimmer and uv sterilizer if you have one. After that three week period while dosing vodka, your tank should have a rocking anaerobic bacterial population. After completing this cycle with the product, your anaerobic bacteria population should be rocking. Only question I have is this, why Vodka and not biopellets. They are a much more consistent, simpler, and approachable system. You could get a basic bio reactor and pellets for 100$ It would be a much better investment of time and money. The up flow pellet reactor is naturally low oxygen. BTW, I recommend putting it before your skimmer to lower of oxygen in the reactor. Mind you, I do not follow that rule and mine still works. The only reason my reactor is in the section past the skimmer is because the original lfs that I worked with had me put rubble in the skimmer chamber. If you have any questions about the process. Feel free to reach out to me. I know that it works. I have sub 2ppm nitrates. The only reason that is 1ppm or less is the volume of organic pelletized carbon..
p.s. the bacteria will not be everywhere in your tank because of this it will be concentrated in the reactor. Overall this will make your tank much cleaner.
The major reason I am going with vodka as I work at a distillery and thus have about 10 40oz bottles of vodka kicking around so cost is zero. And I have had good luck in the past with vodka on a previous tank.
This tank is a bit different as the past one was akways run on RO water and water changes were done regularly. While this tank ran for 4 years with tap water and very few water changes and was badically fish only during that time. We ran a salt water fish store orior to setting up this tank and were kibd of just done with it but still wanted a tank. Fast forward to today and now I want to get back into the sps coral game. Thus trying to get the tank back to where it needs to be with more water changes. RO water and now using the vodka to reduce nitrates and phosphates and rid the algae.
The phosphates have come down from 0.12 to 0.04 but the nitrates have not come down much yet. Algae is looking fairly weak. Cyano is still there but that may be do to the vodka. Although i will not worry about it till the nitrates get down to 5 or lower than I may reevaluate what I am doing. Once I am there I may go to a mix of vodka and vinegar.
I would look into drip dosing Coral nutrient products, such as Red Sea Reef A+B, Acropower, or Aquavitro fuel. All are dosable with an auto drip pump. Aquavitro fuel needs to be dosed in 2 months reservoir of portions, because it has a limited shelf life at room temp. The first two products do not. Anecdotally, Fuel resolved my my lack of coralline algae without raising NO3 or PO4 while using a carbon reactor or vodka. I dose the amount recommended on the bottle in for a week subdivided into amounts that spread it out equally over the course of a week. I imagine the anaerobic bacteria population just grows proportionally to the increase in nutrients. Personally, I did not notice a difference with Fuel until I started drip dosing the product. Prior to drip dosing, I spread the weekly recommended dose spread across three equal portions manually. I imagine this has something to do with skimming the product out of the water before it used.