Vodka Overdose: What to worry about?

[Treefer32]

Thanks, I've been in this hobby long enough to not panic. My skimmer did produce more skimmate rather quickly. As of this morning at 4:50 am my ph hit 7.8. Which to my basic understanding of ocean water is not toxic to corals or fish. However, that is the lowest ph I've ever seen in my tank. It's already climbing to 7.96 since that low point. So, I suspect the bacterial bloom may have hit it's peak. I do run a denitrification reactor (cannister filter with lots of pourous matrix rock in it.) I'm hoping the bacterial bloom sticks to there vs. the display, my luck it won't. Bacteria will go where it goes.

That said, my fish were drunk long before vodka dosing.

My nitrates hover in the 30s trying to go water changeless and managing through natural means. Including adding a carbon source to foster denitrifying bacteria.

I have tons of circulation - 4 gyres at the surface and 2 MP40s. Plus a massive skimmer running at full 24/7 and algae turf scrubber that right now is full of hair algae that should help oxygenate the water. So, I'm not too worried about oxygen as long as PH doesn't swing by .6 in a 24 hour period. (PH was at 8.48 yesterday morning and 7.8 this morning.) I don't know if that large of a swing would adversely affect fish or corals or if it's just considered an adjustment day for everything.

 

[Treefer32]

Well, just checked and tank is extremely cloudy can barely see into it. How long will this bloom last without a UV? I'm assuming it will burn itself out after a few days. Corals are actually loving it. My GSP is still open even in the dark. . . Copperband is out hunting pods like crazy and clown fish are all good. So, fish and corals seem to be o.k. Obviously I want the cloudiness to go away.

So, how long do I deal with the cloudiness without UV?

 

[Dbichler]

If your really cloudy I would skim as wet as possible and act like a constant water change. obviously watch your salinity.

 

[Miami Reef]

Well, just checked and tank is extremely cloudy can barely see into it. How long will this bloom last without a UV? I'm assuming it will burn itself out after a few days. Corals are actually loving it. My GSP is still open even in the dark. . . Copperband is out hunting pods like crazy and clown fish are all good. So, fish and corals seem to be o.k. Obviously I want the cloudiness to go away.

So, how long do I deal with the cloudiness without UV?

It will take a few days.

I think running carbon would be wise. It will remove whole bacteria as well as the food source.

Aerate heavily (add a lot of surface agitation) and leave some windows open near the tank for outside O2 to enter.

 

[Treefer32]

With the gyres at near full power at the surface (each are rated at 5k gph, I run them at 70-80%) So, easily 10k gph water movement 1 inch below the surface of the tank. I think the water has even gotten a little clearer since the powerheads came on to full power. At night I run them slower so, now they're at nutrient export mode.

I threw in some carbon and purigen I had on hand (both are organics binders). Skimmer is not quite skimming just water. Set it to just below non stop water so it actually skims and doesn't just dump water.

Window open near the tank. Since opening the window 20 minutes ago PH went from plateauing at 7.95 to rising to 7.99. Probably won't hit the nearly 8.5 it was yesterday, but, if it gets to 8.1- 8.2 it won't be such a huge swing and sign that things are moving in the right direction.

 

[Treefer32]

So, should I be expecting my phosphates and nitrates to be bottoming out with this bloom or if I were to test N and P today what would be my expected results?

P was .22 (that's how I realized my vodka doser wasn't dosing anything... Line was empty and it was just sucking air.) P had been staying stable at .06.

N was 33. A week ago N had been 15 tested 3 weeks apart. Had stayed 15 3 weeks in a row, then this week hit 33.

Would the bacteria consume the N and P then die off creating N and P?

 

[Rmckoy]

Well, just checked and tank is extremely cloudy can barely see into it. How long will this bloom last without a UV? I'm assuming it will burn itself out after a few days. Corals are actually loving it. My GSP is still open even in the dark. . . Copperband is out hunting pods like crazy and clown fish are all good. So, fish and corals seem to be o.k. Obviously I want the cloudiness to go away.

So, how long do I deal with the cloudiness without UV?

Oxygenation …..
The fish will suffocate if left alone .
the bacteria is consuming a lot if not all of the available oxygen

 

[Treefer32]

Oxygenation …..
The fish will suffocate if left alone .
the bacteria is consuming a lot if not all of the available oxygen

I've got a window open near the sump, the skimmer intake facing the window and my gyres at the surface are at full blast causing tons of surface tension. I cranked up the flow of water through my algae turf scrubber (lots of hair algae in there) to help with oxygenating the water and evaporating CO2. The fish are not breathing heavy at all and seem to be doing well. The cloudiness is already clearing some. I can see to the back of the tank, where I wasn't able to this morning.

The PH has climbed from 7.8 at 5 am this morning to 8.12 now. Well within normal PH levels for my tank. If it hits 8.2 with just having a window open. I'll be impressed. The skimmer is still pulling cloudy water from the tank, but overall, I'd say crisis averted. At this rate, the tank might be cleared up by tomorrow. It seems like the more oxygen introduced to the tank and the higher the ph, the clearer the water gets. . . I don't know the science behind it. But, whatever is happening is slow but steady. . .

 

[Mike Sydney]

Fish will swim upside down for a little bit.

 

[DJ Lone1]

What’s the purpose of adding vodka to a tank?

I want know also.

 

[Treefer32]

I want know also.

Any source of carbon - the alcohol in vodka, sugar, vinegar. - Vinegar and water are what's in NoPox, all feed bacteria that process nitrates. It's a way of controlling nitrates if you want to go water changeless. In my nitrate testing. Prior to vodka dosing my nitrates would clime to 40-50. I'd do a 50% water change and they'd be back down to 20-25. That would last about 2-4 weeks and I'd need to do another 50% water change. 50% for me is a 170 gallons of salt water. That's an entire bucket of reef crystals every 3-4 weeks. Since vodka dosing I can go 6 months without doing a water change and nitrates remain in control.

Dosing too much vodka, causes the bacteria to bloom... Clouding the tank and the bacteria excessively consumes oxygen dissolved in the water. I was running a skimmer, tons of turbulance and circulation in the tank, and my ph still dropped to 7.8 from 8.4 which can be an indicator of available oxygen in the water. The bacteria unchecked can definitely cause a tank crash. . In my case, it was just on the edge of doing damage. It didn't, but could very well have if I'd let it dose another hour or two.

I'm thinking of trying to program a button on my apex that's similar to the feed cycle but all it does is turn the vodka doser on for 10 minutes then shuts it off to prime the lines. So I don't forget about it. . .

 

[dadarara]

So am I to understand that instead of nopox I can dose vodka ? Should I add Vinegar? I assume it should be really clean with no additives? What type are people using ? I have vinegar 5% from apples. Stolichnaya vodka. Any good ?

 

[Rmckoy]

So am I to understand that instead of nopox I can dose vodka ? Should I add Vinegar? I assume it should be really clean with no additives? What type are people using ? I have vinegar 5% from apples. Stolichnaya vodka. Any good ?

Vodka is the more pure carbon source .
vinegar works but you will have to convert to 5% instead of 40%

there are dosing charts for vinegar online

 

[Dburr1014]

I have overdosed nopox by twice what I have should have. No where near what OP has done. My 2 serpant stars disintegrated. I mean, literally fell apart. All fish, coral and rest of cuc were fine.
Edit: I did do a large wc asap.

 

[Treefer32]

I did no water change and everything cleared up. I overdosed Thursday afternoon from 2 pm to 5 pm and by 5 Pm on Friday afternoon the cloudiness was gone and no signs of overdose. No fish lost. I lost two heads of a hammer. And that seems to be about it. My duncans are closed at the moment. I have a second colony of duncans that are fully open. So, not sure what the issue is.

Nitrates before overdose: 33
Phosphates before Overdose: .22

Nitrates After overdose: 22
Phosphates after overdose: .04.

I was surprised to see nitrates just drop a little but phosphates bottomed out. I'm surprised I didn't lose more corals.
I did no water change and went back to regular vodka dosing. I dosed reef roids to help with the phosphates a little.

I noticed my alk climbed a lot. It was up to 12 dkh and now back down to 9.2 after a few days of shutting my dosers off. I'm guessing the hammers and duncans were more impacted by the alk swing than the phosphates. But who knows. Things seem to be fine!

 

[Dbichler]

So am I to understand that instead of nopox I can dose vodka ? Should I add Vinegar? I assume it should be really clean with no additives? What type are people using ? I have vinegar 5% from apples. Stolichnaya vodka. Any good ?

500 ml vinegar 375ml vodka, 125ml rodi is the standard diy nopox. In all honest it doesn’t matter the concentration all that much as long as you don’t overdose. I do 500ml vinegar 500ml vodka and 500ml rodi to keep it simple.

 

[Treefer32]

500 ml vinegar 375ml vodka, 125ml rodi is the standard diy nopox. In all honest it doesn’t matter the concentration all that much as long as you don’t overdose. I do 500ml vinegar 500ml vodka and 500ml rodi to keep it simple.

A quick update. The cloudiness lasted less than a day. Nothing was impacted directly. PH hit 7.8 that night. But, otherwise things have fully recovered from the OD.

I've implemented a Bathshea Pellet reactor, plumbed off my return manifold and the output coming out at the skimmer intake to get as much bacteria from the pellets into the skimmer.

I'm in the 3 week break in period of getting the pellets populated with bacteria. At which time I'll add the rest of the pellets to maximize filtration capacity. I also broke down and did a large water change as both phosphates and nitrates were creeping up. P at .13 and nitrates at 34.

I did a 50% water change. I'm hoping the reactor will be enough to control both P&N without water changes, along with the skimmer and the algae turf scrubber.

 

[josgraha]

For future reference hydrogen peroxide dosed in the air inlet of your skimmer will regulate the carbon dose. Or at least that's what Cruz from Elegant Corals recommends. His macrophage and carbon dosing regimen with extreme aeration via wood airstone stopped a massive hair algae bloom I was dealing with about 6 weeks ago. This took about a week to get back to pristine conditions and <0.05ppm PO4 where NO3 has hovered around 2-5ppm consistently. Unfortunately the bloom was caused by high phosphates (>0.4ppm) which I'm still chasing to this day.