Who vodka doses?

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by CM125

based on this im guessing I should switch to vinegar or maybe both. does anyone know the ratio?

if you go on RC theres a few threads where they have broken down some products to find the ratio , for example nopox was 6: 1 ethanol to acitic acid

Originally Posted by shermanator

Today is "make my grad students do aquarium experiments" day in my lab. I had a student take an NMR of NOPOX (see attached image for spectrum).

It is...

6:1 EtOH:AcOH (ethanol : acetic acid). The AcOH is ~3%.

So you can make your own NOPOX (roughly) by adding 1 part vinegar to 1 part 30% ethanol.

There are a couple impurities around 3 ppm, but otherwise it's quite clean stuff.

[target]

Is there a minimum time for a tank to be running before you'd want to start dosing vodka? My tank has been running for about 8 weeks and is still very lightly stocked and only a few coral frags. Should dosing wait until the tank is more established?

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by target

Is there a minimum time for a tank to be running before you'd want to start dosing vodka? My tank has been running for about 8 weeks and is still very lightly stocked and only a few coral frags. Should dosing wait until the tank is more established?

no there isnt , as long as the bacteria are present then you can start. randy says as soon as the first foods are added you can begin carbon dosing .

i started mine the minute water became salty and rock was in the water

[target]

Originally Posted by reefwars

no there isnt , as long as the bacteria are present then you can start. randy says as soon as the first foods are added you can begin carbon dosing .

i started mine the minute water became salty and rock was in the water

Good to know. I'm very new to all things salty but vodka dosing was recommended to me and I'm doing the research. Seems fairly straightforward as long as you follow the ratios

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by target

Good to know. I'm very new to all things salty but vodka dosing was recommended to me and I'm doing the research. Seems fairly straightforward as long as you follow the ratios

if your going with the vinegar chart ( or vodka conversion)_....16 weeks is a bit over careful ...most do it in four weeks and similar to this

0.1 ml per gallon for 7 days
0.2 ml per gallon for 7 days
0.3 ml per gallon for 7 days
0.4 ml per gallon for 7 days


and going on up from there if needed , if nutrients are high to begin with then you can go as high as 1 ml per gallon , once your no3 and po4 drop to zero then you cut the dose back to a maintenance dose.

most people have it by week 4 unless they were pretty high to begin with.

no3 and po4 can become limiting in a closed system and bacteria need both in order to build mass so you may not hit zero if one or the other isnt available in numbers needed.

cheers

denny

[seabreeze]

I vodka dose since being overrun by HA in March. Nothing now. My total volume is 132 litres... I dose a total 2.5mls daily divided between am and pm. Coral colors are good.

[mikellini]

Originally Posted by reefwars

if your going with the vinegar chart ( or vodka conversion)_....16 weeks is a bit over careful ...most do it in four weeks and similar to this

0.1 ml per gallon for 7 days
0.2 ml per gallon for 7 days
0.3 ml per gallon for 7 days
0.4 ml per gallon for 7 days


and going on up from there if needed , if nutrients are high to begin with then you can go as high as 1 ml per gallon , once your no3 and po4 drop to zero then you cut the dose back to a maintenance dose.

most people have it by week 4 unless they were pretty high to begin with.

no3 and po4 can become limiting in a closed system and bacteria need both in order to build mass so you may not hit zero if one or the other isnt available in numbers needed.

cheers

denny

Typically, you become limited by nitrate unless you are using GFO or lanthanum chloride. This is because of two things: bacteria use nitrogen in a high ratio as compared to phosphorus, and bacteria also convert some additional nitrate into nitrogen gas. Sometimes, though, some people have found they don't need to use a phosphate remover, or at least use a very small amount

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by mikellini

Typically, you become limited by nitrate unless you are using GFO or lanthanum chloride. This is because of two things: bacteria use nitrogen in a high ratio as compared to phosphorus, and bacteria also convert some additional nitrate into nitrogen gas. Sometimes, though, some people have found they don't need to use a phosphate remover, or at least use a very small amount

yes becoming nitrogen deficient is more common naturally but both issues are common as alot of people do run gfo and po4 removers either before starting or during or both.

whether you need to run one or not would depend on the amount imported , and the ways they are exported......you can certainly out compete the bacteria in a closed system as they can only do so much , but yes i agree with the statements

both nitrogen and phosphorous can become limiting but both can also be added to the mix

[jason604]

Oh man I didn't expect this thread to become so popular lol. Thx guys for chiming in on ur 2cents! And then there's crazy ppl like brad that uses all 3 things vsv to dose. Jesus didn't no u can do that. I might just try the vodka and vinegar mix. Anyways my question is to ppl who do this. Do u still use GFO the same time? And most importantly, my tank is always reading 0 pO4 and nO3 cuz I have a lot of algae so it's consuming it as fast as it is created so how do I know that while dosing VV that it is working and when will it become the maintenance dosing zone?

[mikellini]

I've read that organic carbon sources eventually break down to acetate, which is what the bacteria use (whether it be vodka, sugar, vitamin c etc), so you might as well just dose vinegar. This is possibly also why some other carbon sources can encourage growth of cyano, as n&p reducing bacteria can't take them up immediately but perhaps cyano can.

I think the only real justification I've heard for using vodka, for example, instead of vinegar is volume and ease of dosing. It can be difficult to dose a large enough volume of vinegar at one time without affecting pH, so unless you're using a dosing pump, you need to manually dose multiple times during the day. However, saturating the vinegar with calcium hydroxide eliminates this problem, and gives the added bonus of a small pH boost and some additional elemental supplementation. Win, win, win.