Vodka dosing - side effects?

[travis32]

So, I'm curious. I've read up on Randy's articles on Vodka dosing and I understand the fundamentals and have followed the instructions pretty close as I could.

I've been doing it for around 2-3 months now with incredibly awesome results. I took a number of steps at eliminating my algae problems. So, I can't attribute the results to just vodka, I think it's preventing more outbreaks, but, I think it was all my initiatives that saved me.

So, that said, I have to say, one thing I haven't done, is test phosphates. Which I know is crucial to vodka dosing. I do have some routine growth of algae on the glass (usually fully covered within a week's time) and some growth on the powerheads and various places that I am able to manually pull on a weekly basis.

Which tells me I still have phosphates. I have around 100 gallons of total water volume, and I'm dosing around 10 ml a day of vodka. Which I believe is pretty high for my volume.

Are there side effects of dosing at a high level? My corals and everything looks the best they've ever looked to be honest. Since I got my alk and ca in check, reduced phosphates, and got rid of all the HA in the tank, the corals have just grown. doubling in size in a 2 month period.

So, my question is what signs of too much carbon dosing is there? I know lack of oxygen is one possibility. I 've got all my powerheads pointed at the surface and towards the top of the tank for maximum agitation. I keep my skimmer intake as clean as possible for maximum oxygenation. So, I think O2 levels are safe. Fish seem fine.

One side effect, that I believe I'm attributing to vodka (possibly overdosing?) is my sand bed... It has been getting brown patches. I'm wondering if it's bacterial colonies from the vodka dosing? My goby sifts the sand constantly but it can't keep up with the brown patches.

I also have a Rainfords Goby that also sifts the sand, but, it does probably .05% of what my large goby does. lol. So, anyways, just wondering if the brown patches of sand could be attributed to too much vodka?

Or if it's just nutrients and I need to do more water changes?

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Bacteria from organic carbon dosing is not usually brown, unless it is a type of cyano.

I discuss the side effects I had of dosing too much vinegar here:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1813810

[travis32]

So, according to your article you were up to 4 X your water volume in ML?

so for a 100 Gallon of water volume the max dosage was like 400ml.

That seems incredible. LOL.

I thought you're articles showed a max of like 9-10 ml for 100 gallons on the high side. for Vodka.

So, is there differences in how vodka behaves vs. vinegar? I used to dose 2-3 cups of vinegar in my lime water (7 gallon container) I have since stopped all vinegar and lime water dosing. When I stopped, the HA stopped growing back. My hypothesis is the sediment in the pickling lime contains phosphorous as an anti caking agent. But, I've don't have an accurate way of testing phosphates yet.

It may be the same amount as in baking soda and cACL.

SO, if I wanted to I could go up to 200 ml (.5 of my tank volume) in vodka. Or would the dosage be different between vodka and vinegar?

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

No. Vinegar is 8 times more dilute than vodka, so you dose a lot more vinegar. Also, my total system volume is about 250 gallons.

[travis32]

Thanks Randy! So, did you ever conquer the problem of algae growing on the glass? My glass is filled in solid on a weekly basis. Along with the brown stuff on the sand. I als have some zip ties on my braces that I Didn't cut the ends off so they partically stick in the water. They sorta act as a scrubber now. LOL. I used them to hold down my nori clip and stuff like that. And they weekly get covered in massive tangle of Green hair algae. I extract it weekly and it's fine, but, that tells me there's phosphates in the water and must be a lot of them for HA to be in giant clumps on a weekly basis.

Skimmer cup is over half full on a weekly basis of black granules and brown liquid. Plus I extract all the poop looking crap on the neck of the skimmer which is several table spoons full of solids.

So, I know I'm extracting a lot of crap.

Thankfully the DIsplay is not filling in with HA, so I'm doing something right, there was a couple clumps growing in, and I was able to manually remove them.

So, 8 times more potent than vinegar. Say 1 ml per gal of vinegar is the max. So, for me, 100 ml of vinegar would be a maximum dose.

100 ml / vinegar = 8x vodka ratio

100 ml /8 = x

x = 12.5 ml of vodka to equal 100 ml of vinegar.

So, based on your experience, would you say that's a max dose, or would you say 2 times that is the absolute max or 25 ml.

if raised slowly?

The reason I ask is I'm dosing 10 ml now and seeing a lot of algae come back quite quickly. The only other thing I can think of is my nitrates may be really low and the vodka dosing isn't being as productive as it could be since N and P drop equally. I could be dealing with the N quite well, but, there could be way more P than N for it to handle. Although I do have a good size bioload with the fish I have and I try to feed extra to actually keep nitrates hi.

But the overfeeding could just be leading to hi P. LOL.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I'm not sure I consider it a "problem", but I clean the glass every 1-2 days.

If algae is a problem, I'd add some GFO to the methods employed.

If you want to up the organic carbon dosing, I'd suggest you keep the current vodka and add about 10 ml vinegar per day, ramp to 30 mL per day in 2 weeks, then assess whether you want to raise it further, or what, at that point. Eventually you might consider swapping out the vodka for vinegar, but some folks like using both just fine.

[travis32]

Just curious of why use both. Is vinegar to allow for finer resolution of dosing.

So, say I get to 15 ml vodka, but, maybe I need a little more carbon dosing to off set the phosphates, and another ml of vodka would be too much, so adding 5 ml or whatever of vinegar would help.

Or is there a chemical difference that allows vinegar to spawn different types of bacteria that vodka dosing alone can't contribute?

I'm trying to understand what situations vinegar apply best to and what situations vodka applies best to. LOL. My understanding is they both accomplish similar or the same tasks?

(Other than vinegar can have the effect of lowering ph...)

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Some people like both together, but IMO there is not a reason to assume both together is better than just one.

Different bacteria consume different organics. IME, vinegar is less likely to drive cyano growth, but that may not be true of all cyano species that folks may have in their aquaria. So I dose only vinegar.

[travis32]

Marine Aquaria Chemistry - Not an exact science.

I just can't believe how much my corals have improved since dosing CA and Alk separately vs. lime water.

And my CA consumption is increasing rapidly. It was at 10pm a day. I had it up to 420. In 3 days (72 hours) it was down to 370. 50 in 3 days or: 13ppm a day from 10ppm a day. That's a roughly 30 % increase in daily CA consumption. All of my corals have turned a darker color, and several of them have doubled in size the last couple of weeks.

I've continuously upped vodka dosing. With this week going from 12 ml to 14ml daily.

I'm dosing 7 ml twice a day until I get dosers setup. I can't believe the change in such a short amount of time. between March and now, right at 3 months my tank would not be recognizable 3 months ago compared to now. You would think it's two different aquariums.

I don't like the effect that vinegar has on PH. I have issues with PH being low. getting as low as 7.97 at night and as high as 8.3 - 8.4 during the day. I'll stick with vodka dosing and max out at 15 ML and see how that does. I'm just hoping I have enough flow to prevent cyano. My sand bed was looking good yesterday. I'm hoping it continues to remain o.k.

So, one other thought. What if I have insufficient rock. I probably have around 50 lbs in my 125g right now. When I acid washed it all I left around half my rock out as I discovered some of it was freshwater slate rocks. (very heavy rocks) that were not pourous at all. So, I left all that out. Which means I only have around 50 lbs right now with 120lbs of sand in the display.

If there's not enough rock will the vodka cause bacterial blooms on the sand, to process the nutrients and waste?

I've got a medium bioload with around 8 fish right now. 3 of them pretty large. (Swallowtail, bi color fox face, and chevron tang are all around 4-5" fish right now.

And they eat like crazy. So, just curious if I could have issues with high vodka dosing and insufficient rock for bacteria.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Originally Posted by travis32

I don't like the effect that vinegar has on PH. I have issues with PH being low. getting as low as 7.97 at night and as high as 8.3 - 8.4 during the day. I'll stick with vodka dosing and max out at 15 ML and see how that does. I'm just hoping I have enough flow to prevent cyano. My sand bed was looking good yesterday. I'm hoping it continues to remain o.k.

Bear in mind that vodka also has a pH lowering effect. It just doesn't come on the moment of addition, but it is just as big overall.

[ReefAnon]

It never occurred to me that vodka could lower ph as much as vinegar - is that to do with the consequent bacterial activity or something else?

[tmz]

I dose both vodka and vinegar and prefer bolus dosing in my routine. They both even out in terms of ph reduction but vinegar causes it to occur more precipitiously. Ethanol( vodka ) oxzidizes to acetic acid(vinegar). Utimately they both add CO2 as they are degraded.

When I dose more than usual bacterial stings appear in places I don't want them.

[Augster]

I'm a newb to the hobby and researching all I can for my 100g tank (the only aquaria related item I have in my possession at the moment, but I'm spending mad money on tools to make the cabinetry, make my own acrylic sump and drill holes in the glass) so I've stumbled on vodka dosing either as a replacement to GFO or with GFO as a supplement (depending on bio load and age of system).

So with an absolutely brand new system (new rock and sand), when should I start actually dosing vodka? Once I get some livestock into it or should I do it while curing base rock (which will be seeded with a couple pieces of live rock) and cycling the tank? And is there anything special I need to do when quarantining new livestock before adding them to the dosed tank?

If using vodka, should I even bother with getting a GFO reactor and instead use simple "bagged" carbon in the sump only on a as-needed basis?

[bertoni]

I would start dosing when I saw a specific need, such as a nutrient buildup in the water column, or dull coral colors that I wanted to try to change.

A GFO reactor often is useful in addition to vodka dosing because many tanks end up with a lot of phosphate after the fixed nitrogen level in the water has become very low. I personally would avoid using any media in a bag in the sump, since it's not clear that it'll do much, but if you can force water through it some way, it might be okay.

[s2nhle]

Hi! all,
I just found this site. It has a lot of useful information about vinegar dosing. I am currently mixing 30ml of distilled vinegar with 2 tsp of kalk.Several months ago, I also dosing Voka at 1ml per day on my 60g reef tank with SPS dominated. I noticed the brown coraline started to spread all over the tank and the rocks.
Does this is the effect of carbon dosing? should I stop mixing vinegar with kalk? Thanks,

[RaissiKitten]

I just started vodka dosing, my nitrates aren't high, but I found out my water wasn't as good as I thought, so I'm postponing a water change until Wednesday when my RO di unit comes in. I only dose 0.6ml daily for about 80 gallons total volume. I am amazed. My tank is only 3 months old, but in the 3 days, I've had a boost in lime green coralline, and tube worms are coming out. Inhabitants are great. My skimmer doesn't really produce a bunch more, but still produces. I may just stick with this.

[tmz]

.06ml for 80 gallons is a relatively small dose( FWIW, after amping up over several months I settled on a dose about ten times that,crrently 40ml of 80prrof vokda and 50 ml of 5% acetic acid vinegar) ; I'm not sure the small amount of extra organic carbon would cause all of the results noted; it shouldn't harm anything though and might help any ammonia and or phosphate issues and feed the food chain a bit .

[RaissiKitten]

0.6ml. Not 0.06. I doubt that would either. My starting dose was 0.2ml per 25 gallons.