Weigh in with your experiences with biopellets or vodka dosing

[Parker]

Originally Posted by Bblinks

Parker, do you by chance dose any bacteria source? I am adding zeobak so it doesn;t case a monstrain of bacteria. Also when you are running the pellets, do you also use a phosphate absorbing material like rowaphos or do you soley rely on the pellets?

For the moment I'm running BP's alone, but I have been considering suplementing them. No phosphate removing material either, last night my No3 was 2.5 and Phos was 0. I feed pretty heavy and I don't rinse the food before dumping it into the tank.

[Baldy]

I have been using biopellets in my 75g for over 6 months now. I dont have a heavy load either fish or corals, but they have kept nitrates and phosphates undetectable on my test kits. just dont make the bonehead mistake i made about a month ago and replace all the biopellets. from what ive been told you just top them off every so often. i didnt have the cloudy water like some get, but cyano definately took hold.

[untamed]

I did extensive vodka, sugar and vinegar dosing and never saw any significant change to anything. I ended up at a dose size well over the suggested maximum.

[ScubaSteve]

Originally Posted by untamed

I did extensive vodka, sugar and vinegar dosing and never saw any significant change to anything. I ended up at a dose size well over the suggested maximum.

Was your tank relatively "old" at the time you started dosing?

[Lampshade]

I use biopellets, only one of the vertex bag things in my 150gal tank, so less than half of the recommended amount. Any time I notice that algae is getting abnormally high, I'll add a shot of vodka for me, and then another one for the tank. Seems to keep everything pretty happy so far. No bleaching, lots of sps. My only complaint is that after I vodka dose, the tank gets cyno for a week or 2. Which apparently is because pellets remove nitrate/phosphates at a 16:1 ratio, so when you use vodka and nuke your nitrates, you end up with extra phosphates. Clears up after I stop dosing, so never worry about it too much. And by some, it's very little, only one birdsnest style rock that is impossible to get good flow to. Overall, very happy, seems to be a nice buffer in the tank, I wouldn't rely on it to be a 1 stop fix all your problem magic device, but it certainly helps stabilize my tank. I'm running them in a TLF 550 reactor with a MJ1200 pump and about 12' of hose, so not much turnover at all.

edit: I should add, that i overfeed, change filter socks weekly, and have my skimmer set at an extremely dry skim. I read less than 5ppm nitrates at any given time. I had a HA outbreak awhile ago, thought it was pellets until I found a 3"+ snail dead behind some rocks, took it out and everything balanced out shortly after.

[Spiny]

I can't exactly vouch for the benefits of vodka as I don't even remember the colors I had before I started dosing, however both my nitrates and phosphates are very low and I have not had a single negative effect from dosing vodka. You can try (ramp up slowly if you do) and if you dont like it you can always stop

[Baldy]

I use npx bioplastics in a tlf 150 reactor, and I find a mj1200 to not be enough flow even wide open. When I move it to my new sump, I'll be hooking it up to a mag 5

[untamed]

Originally Posted by ScubaSteve

Was your tank relatively "old" at the time you started dosing?

Yes, very mature. High nutrient load. I was able see a nitrate reduction, but nitrates weren't particularly high in the first place. Routine cleaning did a better job.

[dc4]

I have been vodka dosing for a few months now and I think its great. I admit, I over feed my tank and before I started dosing, I always ran into algae issues due to excess nutrients. Since I started dosing though, the algae has not returned (knock on wood) and everything is growing and doing great.