ok everyone here that doeses vodka seems to do it in a tank that is full of corals my tank just has snails in it for now as fish are in QT and i did a 72 hr blackout and a 50G wc and nitrates are 50 ppm would dosing vodka help my situation ive read the articles but it doesnt ever mention any tanks with just high nitrates and no corals...........

I went to MACNA in Atlanta last September and Eric Borneman did a talk about coral nutrition, during his talk he touched on vodka dosing a little. He recommended against it and said it can lead to coral mortality and provide conditions where pathogens can thrive. He went on to saying the ramifications of long term dosing are risky and not fully understood, experienced reefers have had mysterious disease outbreaks that were devastating. Maybe vodka is best left as a drink instead of a quick and easy cure-all.

Interesting.

Did he mention anything else in terms of ways to keep phosphates/nitrates undetectable but maintain coral growth/colour? Or did he just suggest to run a carbon reactor? What did he reccomend dosing, if anything?

No, this talk was about coral nutrition in the wild and I forgot what initiated it (probably a question), but I think he wanted to express his view while it was relevant. It's hard to retain everything I learned because MACNA was 3 solid days of cramming talks in, during, and right after, other talks...exhausting but extremely interesting.

I did but stopped because there was no good results in hair algae reduction.
Now i am on Fauna Marine phosfate reducing clay and red Hair Algae is 99% gone !
much happier now!

What about overall coral colour?

I have also been thinking about this, and decided to give it a try on a trial basis. I understand that some people have had tank crashes, but who is to say that the crash was caused by the vodka? Surely other people have had tank crashes and were not dosing anything?

After 4 months of vodka dosing I have decided to try the UltraLITH/Fauna Marin regime instead. I did not have a bacterial bloom with vodka but I still required Rowaphos to keep my phosphates down and still had to clean my glass daily. I also had some persistent cyano on my sand bed, appearance of hair algae and lately some bacterial? stringers. I have great acro and polli colors and growth but upgrading from 2x250w MH to 2x400w MH seems to have had much more of a positive effect on coloration than the vodka ever did.

Rather than temp fate I have decided to try another approach. It is obviously much more expensive (!) and I will be monitoring the results closely.

Does it have to be vodka or I can use Jack Daniels?

I would never waste beautiful, lovely, Jack Daniels on tank LOL

No, it needs to be vodka

You can use the Jack but it does not go into your tank, you simply consume enough of it untill you are happy with the way the tank looks, then drink that much each day to maintain the results. :biggrin:

You may have to increase amounts over time to maintain happiness!:wink:

you guys have a good attitude!!

Well, looks like I'll have to get some vodka for my tank, and keep the good old Jack Daniels for the tank owner.

I have been thinking about Vodka dosing and this is the article I have read that has had the best instruction and I a passing it on to you guys to see what you think of it, please let me know.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php

Mark