VODKA DOSING HELP

[that_boy_fini]

I’ve been vodka dosing for 3.5 months now on our 80g system nitrates were over 140 and gha was thick 3.5 months later it’s all gone except the high nitrates were dosing 19mls of vodka a day in the morning but the nitrates have stayed a maxing out the Hanna checker at 75+


We do have 9 fish a proper clean up crew and a moderately stocked tank

All our other parameters have been stable at 9.5-10dkh cal is 460 and mg is 1280-1350 all corals look happy except the sps

At this point I’m considering a bio pellet reactor

I do feed 1x a day 1 sheet of nori a day we have a yellow tang
I recently started feeding reef roids because I’ve seen that it’s mostly phosphates and lfs said that could be the reason our nitrates weren’t dropping
We’re doing 10-15g water changes every week gha is nonexistent at this point but I want to keep sps and 75+ isn’t kind on sps


Any help is appreciated

 

[Turtle_reef]

What are your phosphates at?
What filteration do you have?

 

[gbroadbridge]

Yo

I’ve been vodka dosing for 3.5 months now on our 80g system nitrates were over 140 and gha was thick 3.5 months later it’s all gone except the high nitrates were dosing 19mls of vodka a day in the morning but the nitrates have stayed a maxing out the Hanna checker at 75+


We do have 9 fish a proper clean up crew and a moderately stocked tank

All our other parameters have been stable at 9.5-10dkh cal is 460 and mg is 1280-1350 all corals look happy except the sps

At this point I’m considering a bio pellet reactor

I do feed 1x a day 1 sheet of nori a day we have a yellow tang
I recently started feeding reef roids because I’ve seen that it’s mostly phosphates and lfs said that could be the reason our nitrates weren’t dropping
We’re doing 10-15g water changes every week gha is nonexistent at this point but I want to keep sps and 75+ isn’t kind on sps


Any help is appreciated

You don't mention what filtration you're using.

Are you skimming wet?
You need to do that to remove the nitrate.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I’ve been vodka dosing for 3.5 months now on our 80g system nitrates were over 140 and gha was thick 3.5 months later it’s all gone except the high nitrates were dosing 19mls of vodka a day in the morning but the nitrates have stayed a maxing out the Hanna checker at 75+


We do have 9 fish a proper clean up crew and a moderately stocked tank

All our other parameters have been stable at 9.5-10dkh cal is 460 and mg is 1280-1350 all corals look happy except the sps

At this point I’m considering a bio pellet reactor

I do feed 1x a day 1 sheet of nori a day we have a yellow tang
I recently started feeding reef roids because I’ve seen that it’s mostly phosphates and lfs said that could be the reason our nitrates weren’t dropping
We’re doing 10-15g water changes every week gha is nonexistent at this point but I want to keep sps and 75+ isn’t kind on sps


Any help is appreciated

Why not raise the vodka dose?

 

[Turtle_reef]

Why not raise the vodka dose?

Depending on the phosphates if the nitrates are that high a larger water change than 10-15 g could be ideal no? Would be better than increasing vodka?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Depending on the phosphates if the nitrates are that high a larger water change than 10-15 g could be ideal no? Would be better than increasing vodka?

Water change is faster, certainly. I don’t know if it is either better or cheaper.

 

[that_boy_fini]

What are your phosphates at?
What filteration do you have?

Yo

You don't mention what filtration you're using.

Are you skimming wet?
You need to do that to remove the nitrate.

Phosphate was .00 last night so I’m assuming it’s been my limiting factor started feeding pellets in the morning today hopefully that will help with the phosphate

It’s a reef octopus 152-s skimmer set at the suggested height I’ve watched plenty of videos but the difference in the skim is about the same it’s brown and consistent

I originally thought the skimmer was my problem and upgraded from a eshopps skimmer to the 152-s

 

[that_boy_fini]

Why not raise the vodka dose?

At a point i feel it’s to much

 

[that_boy_fini]

Depending on the phosphates if the nitrates are that high a larger water change than 10-15 g could be ideal no? Would be better than increasing vodka?

Water change is faster, certainly. I don’t know if it is either better or cheaper.

I’m going to start with 20g changes for now I’m pretty sure phosphate has been my issue

 

[Reefering1]

At a point i feel it’s to much

At one point I was dosing about 80ml/day into 180g sys..

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

At a point i feel it’s to much

Ok, but what is the drawback to “too much”?

 

[that_boy_fini]

Ok, but what is the drawback to “too much”?

I’ve seen where they say it fuels cyano and I don’t want to end up with a new case of problems I’ve never dealt with

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I’ve seen where they say it fuels cyano and I don’t want to end up with a new case of problems I’ve never dealt with

Fair enough. It may not happen, but I switched to vinegar when it seemed to in my tank.

 

[that_boy_fini]

Fair enough. It may not happen, but I switched to vinegar when it seemed to in my tank.

I’ll keep that in mind if it does pop its head up

 

[Turtle_reef]

You could also add phosphorus to try and increase your phosphates I would in my opinion as even though it reads .00 you don't know how much lower it actually is.. and do the 20 -30% water change every other day for a week then scale down to a more regular schedule like (10-15% weekly) as nitrates start to decline. But the skimmer sounds like it's how it should be so wouldn't worry about that too much.

Have you considered trying a bio-pellet reactor or refugium? To enhance filteration? Setting it up and maintaining it requires a bit more effort though.

 

[that_boy_fini]

You could also add phosphorus to try and increase your phosphates I would in my opinion as even though it reads .00 you don't know how much lower it actually is.. and do the 20 -30% water change every other day for a week then scale down to a more regular schedule like (10-15% weekly) as nitrates start to decline. But the skimmer sounds like it's how it should be so wouldn't worry about that too much.

Have you considered trying a bio-pellet reactor or refugium? To enhance filteration? Setting it up and maintaining it requires a bit more effort though.

We had a refugium slam full of macro algae but when we started vodka dosing it killed it


I’m almost to the point of buying a biopellet reactor ima give the vodka dosing a couple more weeks put all this with what I’m already doing and see if it makes a difference I did get phosphates up so maybe I’ll see a change in a couple days

At this point I’d be happy to see 74.9

 

[Js.Aqua.Project]

So vinegar, vodka, sugar, No3PO-X, Biopellets...they are all different approaches to the same system; carbon dosing to feed bacteria to consume excess nitrates/phosphates in your system. So switching to biopellets isn't necessarily going to change much other than you are not physically dosing anything on a daily basis.

Unless you are seeing excess bacteria buildup I would keep increasing your vodka dose by 2-3ml once a week until they start to come down. Once you see that they are changing keep the dose steady. Search for a thread by @Miami Reef as it includes a great table on vodka and vinegar dosing regimen for starting up and dosing after the first few weeks.

If you are wanting faster results larger water changes would help assuming the water you are putting back in is nitrate free (or at least lower), you could just test a freshly mixed batch before your next water change and see.

Don't look for fast changes - not hours or usually a couple days- they should occur closer to a week or so as to not stress the ecosystem you are building.

 

[that_boy_fini]

So vinegar, vodka, sugar, No3PO-X, Biopellets...they are all different approaches to the same system; carbon dosing to feed bacteria to consume excess nitrates/phosphates in your system. So switching to biopellets isn't necessarily going to change much other than you are not physically dosing anything on a daily basis.

Unless you are seeing excess bacteria buildup I would keep increasing your vodka dose by 2-3ml once a week until they start to come down. Once you see that they are changing keep the dose steady. Search for a thread by @Miami Reef as it includes a great table on vodka and vinegar dosing regimen for starting up and dosing after the first few weeks.

If you are wanting faster results larger water changes would help assuming the water you are putting back in is nitrate free (or at least lower), you could just test a freshly mixed batch before your next water change and see.

Don't look for fast changes - not hours or usually a couple days- they should occur closer to a week or so as to not stress the ecosystem you are building.

It took me 2 months before the gha started melting I’ll wait the reason I mention a biopellet reactor is because I feel constant dosing would be more consistent than a shot in the morning

I am going to start doing bigger water changes for a couple weeks

My biggest worry is stressing the live stock I am going to continue going up on the dose and will continue to update this thread as time progresses

 

[Twoddler]

Phosphate 0, Nitrate 75 + I would keep carbon dosing and also dose Phosphorus to bring phosphate up, That is if you have no algae issues

 

[Turtle_reef]

It took me 2 months before the gha started melting I’ll wait the reason I mention a biopellet reactor is because I feel constant dosing would be more consistent than a shot in the morning

I am going to start doing bigger water changes for a couple weeks

My biggest worry is stressing the live stock I am going to continue going up on the dose and will continue to update this thread as time progresses

They do have dosers on Amazon jebao I really love jebao products. I just recently got another doser for my tank because I just started all for reef in my other tank and want consistency. I also dose about 2ml of vodka in my tank every day same time just to keep them stable and everything is finally where I'm wanting it to be. I had a struggle with my phosphates being high and trying to get them down from 0.77 to now 0.22 and when I test they will be lower as well I reduced my feeding and tried my best to refrain from gfo wanted that as my last resort. It all takes patience as much as we want our ecosystems at perfect it takes time and patience. But that was a course of maybe a month of getting them down.