Vodka Dosing

There's a guy here in town that used to do that for getting rid of nitrates of his extra water from changes.  He swears by it.

 

I've done it now for a couple months. I just really started doing it to lower my nitrates and po4. So far so good. There is a huge thread on RC on it and a few others that are good. If you decide to do this like everything else go slow. It is much better to not add enough and go slow than to have to replace all your corals.

 

Agreed. Too many people think "hey, if 2 tablespoons of sugar works on this guy's 120, it'll work on mine" and end up OD'ing their tank on carbon. Take it slow and I don't personally think anything bad can come of it.

I dosed sugar on an older system and liked it so much that I just kept it going on my following systems, despite having plenty of skimmer and not really needing it. When I started dosing (just to combat some hair algae) I found that I got better color, growth, polyp extension, and much much less algae growth. I gradually reduced the amount I was dosing, but I never got a bacterial bloom and never saw a single downside to dosing. I actually mix sugar into my homemade food mix now at a low dosage because I never did see a single downside.

 

Posted By ryansholl on 08/31/2008 12:43 AM
Agreed. Too many people think "hey, if 2 tablespoons of sugar works on this guy's 120, it'll work on mine" and end up OD'ing their tank on carbon. Take it slow and I don't personally think anything bad can come of it.


Hey Ryan,
i've been considering starting a sugar dose. is there an amount per gallon that you could recommend as a good starting point?

 

No, I wouldn't recommend a starting point. Start out very small and gradually increase your dose. For a 100 gallon tank I might start out at a teaspoon and work up from there. Can't hurt anything to start out with very little.

 

how often did you dose

 

Anyone have links to other threads/articles about this topic?

 

There's a 90 kajillion post thread on reef central that goes back and forth between people that have been doing it successfully for months/years that praise it and people that dump 3 tablespoons in at once and nuke their tanks claiming that it's the stupidest idea ever concocted. Just search for "nitrate reduction sugar".

I am currently dosing only to my nano at work, and it's an odd situation as far as sugar dosing goes so I'm not going to tell anyone to go by it. Daily, or when I remember it, and I'm dosing about 4-5x per gallon more than I ever did on my 120. It's a 24 gallon nano with a modded CSS125 as a skimmer, so I actually get 16x turnover through the skimmer. I'm dosing mostly to feed a sponge, and only run the skimmer at most an hour every second or third day. I'm actually considering adding an inorganic nitrate source to get the bacteria going to feed the sponge. NOT what most people are going for. I like to play I guess. 24 gallons, 8 lps colonies, a few bigger sps frags, two clams, 10 fish, a couple shrimp, an urchin, quite a few zoanthids and ~ a teaspoon a day as far as sugar goes.

Like I said: Start out slow! Start with a tiny bit on a regular basis and gradually increase the amount dosed. I've never seen a negative, but I don't want to see anyone in the club have anything terrible happen!

 

Well hot damn! My post count went from 400 something before I hit "submit" straight to 898 posts! Whoray!

 

I'm still playing around with the configuration of this new forum version.   I had the "Points" system turned on so it was actually displaying points instead of posts.   You get more points for a topic then a reply and even more points for other stuff.
I've turned it off for now until I get a better understanding of how it works.
-JB

 

I've been interested it this for awhile as well, and am ready to give it a try.  My nitrates are at 20, and although I've tried several things I can't get them down.  I've got some green algae that I've lived with for quite awhile and want to give another hard push to get rid of it.  After attending the Dr Foster/Smith coral conference at the end of June, I came away with the Algaefix product from API.  I've been using that and it really wiped out the bubble algae that I had (great news for me).  It also eliminated quite a bit of my other green algae.  But I know that the best solution is to get the nitrates down.
Does anyone have a recommendation on a Phosphate test kit?  The thread on Reef Central about vodka dosing strongly recommends knowing your nitrate and phosphate levels.  I've used the Phosphate test kit from Instant Ocean and also from Salifert.  I've never measured any phosphate in my display tank.  I believe that the kit is ok though, as the kit did detect phosphate levels in my quarantine tank.

 

well, i've been dosing sugar for a week now and my coral growth has really taken off. I was happy with my sps growth before, but it seams to have accelerated. i've got a 33 gal tank with a 20 gal fuge and i've been dosing 1/4 tsp every 1 or 2 days.
jb, all the corals you gave me are really doing great, they have all encrusted and begun branching out, with the exception of the green monti, no branches, that would be wired.

 

Caleb,

I'm glad those corals are doing well for you. You've convinced me that I'm going to need to try this sugar/vodka thing.

-JB

 

Well thanks guys. I jumped on in. I've always been curious about the Vodka thing since I heard about it this past summer. I don't have much in my tank, so I added 1/2 tsp of sugar. I have these yellow polyps that flourish then regress back and forth. So I while I won't change anything else relative to the tank, I'll see how this goes for a month.