Cali Kid Corals

Vodka

Whats the ratio, how should you build up with it. Dropped by Minhs house for a frag and he said he does it. His tank is AWESOME! one of the best I've ever seen if not the best, all mature corals great looking fat fish, no algae. incredible tank. If he's using it I'm going to start!

What dosage should you start with per gallon?
 
yep, plain vodka, I have not tried that yet, went with a DIY kind of sulfur base de-nitrifier, considered vodka but never got to it. what it does, creates a boom of bacteria that consumes nitrates but also can deplete Oxygen levels in the aquarium so has to be dosed very carefully; any experts here?
 
"suasponte2/75" Minh told me about it. Maybe he can chime in, he told me he uses 12ml per day! on a 180 gallon system. But didn't recommend that ratio said you should build up to it.

Got my 100% distilled vodka ready to dose, just need alittle advice as to how much.
 
I'd keep on asking and do a search on RC about vodka, some people use sugar (this I tried but water was cloudy so I stopped immediately) took me like six months to try something besides regular filtration, went to my LFS where I was tols the risk of Oxygen depletion, checked RC for days and a lot of reding; finally decided to go sulfur based and worked just great.
 
Thanks for the read, I need to get some test kits first and a way to measure out .1ml since my tank is a small 40 gallon. But I know where to begin, thanks
 
Hey SoulFish,

It was a pleasure meeting you today. I hope the frags are acclimating well.

I suggest reading extensively prior to dosing the carbon source (vodka, sugar, vinegar, etc.). It took me about 2-3 months of reading up on it prior to starting or rushing into this option. I would also make sure that you even need to dose a carbon source after exhausting all options to lower nitrates first. I also suggest adding it slowly.. like .1 ml the first week and raising it .1 weekly until nitrates are under control. Watch your fish and corals closely or you'll end up nuking them and it's very very easy to do so per all the posts I've read about in the past. I also suggest adding it during the hours when your lights are on and having a really good skimmer (skimming wet) is a must to battle the oxygen depletion aspect of going this route. I must point out though that your softies may not like it very much and may also decline rapidly. My toadstools basically stopped growing as well as my zoas.

Again... go slowly, read extensively and adhere to all the guidelines/suggestions if choose to do this. I suggest reading that article at least 2-3 times, look up past postings on the reefcentral site, and think it through before starting.

In regards to getting a measurement of .1ml you can use the dosers from all the test kits you've used (hopefully you saved your old misc. dosers like me). Make sure it's .1ml and not 1ml, it's a VERY easy mistake. Get some very good test kits as well (I suggest Salifert) and test extensively prior to and after starting.

Minh
 
Make sure your alk is at NSW levels, not high in the 10+ dkh range, or you can burn the corals. You should read all you can about carbon dosing before you jump in.
 
[quote author=suasponte2/75 link=topic=6534.msg85507#msg85507 date=1235891981]
I also hope you chose the cheapest "plastic" bottle of Vodka you could find. Your fish don't need the top shelf stuff ;).


[/quote]
Rite-Aid has a sale last week. a small bottle, 375ML for $6.
 
Hi Minh,

Thanks for the info. .1 ml is like one or two drops, right? Is that .1ml per day or per week for a 40g tank?


[quote author=suasponte2/75 link=topic=6534.msg85505#msg85505 date=1235891615]
Hey SoulFish,

It was a pleasure meeting you today. I hope the frags are acclimating well.

I suggest reading extensively prior to dosing the carbon source (vodka, sugar, vinegar, etc.). It took me about 2-3 months of reading up on it prior to starting or rushing into this option. I would also make sure that you even need to dose a carbon source after exhausting all options to lower nitrates first. I also suggest adding it slowly.. like .1 ml the first week and raising it .1 weekly until nitrates are under control. Watch your fish and corals closely or you'll end up nuking them and it's very very easy to do so per all the posts I've read about in the past. I also suggest adding it during the hours when your lights are on and having a really good skimmer (skimming wet) is a must to battle the oxygen depletion aspect of going this route. I must point out though that your softies may not like it very much and may also decline rapidly. My toadstools basically stopped growing as well as my zoas.

Again... go slowly, read extensively and adhere to all the guidelines/suggestions if choose to do this. I suggest reading that article at least 2-3 times, look up past postings on the reefcentral site, and think it through before starting.

In regards to getting a measurement of .1ml you can use the dosers from all the test kits you've used (hopefully you saved your old misc. dosers like me). Make sure it's .1ml and not 1ml, it's a VERY easy mistake. Get some very good test kits as well (I suggest Salifert) and test extensively prior to and after starting.

Minh

[/quote]
 
I'm not sure if 1 drop = .1ml but it is per day. I'd get an accurate measurement before guessing. In a larger tank like mine it's not as bad but if you had a 25-60g tank, it could be disasterous! Also, I don't think you should assume that if you don't dose for like five days that you can do .5ml that day. Unfortunately, its a daily thing and if you miss a dose don't double up the next day. Just continue the regimen as is (continuing the current dosage). I've read that if you dose too quickly that it will cloudy up the tank. Using the prescribed guidelines, I've not had that happen once yet. Not even the stringy bacteria strings most have described in past readings. Also once you get things in order (nitrates, phosphates) and you wish to cut off the vodka dosing, you should cut back slowly as well. Not just stop completely from what I've read. Although, I have done that in the past without any noticeable affects when I was dosing only 5ml/per 180G. At 12 ml now, I don't think I would do that since it's significantly larger than what I've done in the past. One other thing I've noticed is that green algae and coralline algae growth has been halted/slowed significantly since I started. My glass rarely gets green algae growth (mostly diatoms) or coralline algae. Which is a good thing since I have massive coralline already established on my LR but have difficulty scraping it off the corners of my acrylic tank. Some have noted this as well but I don't know if the vodka is adding to this or not. HTHs
 
[quote author=suasponte2/75 link=topic=6534.msg85583#msg85583 date=1235945785]
By the way, my vodka is Vitali (in the plastic bottle) from Safeway. Which is like $6-7/per 750ml. It's the cheapest I've found so far :D.
[/quote]

Royal Gate baby!!! That's what all the bums drink less than $5 for 750 ml, I'd never even get that crap near my house though (small town :D). Calcium gluconate can do the same thing too AFA forcing bacterial growth.

In the long run I've become more of a fan of large water changes, sometimes you cannot predict how a tank is going to respond to dosing a carbon source.
 
Unfortunately, once I upgraded to my current 180G, large water changes just weren't feasible (financially) so I opted for the carbon dose route. I used to do 25G weekly changes and it didn't do much of a dent to my nitrates, even went up to 40G and not much luck. I also feed heavily so this was a better route for me. I've been doing this for over 2 years with great success. Although I agree that if you can get away with only water changes, you should.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top