Vodka dosing to reduce nitrates/phosphates?

**Brian Bivens** · 11-24-2009, 10:59 AM

so in your opinion, no skimmer is better than a cheap skimmer?

**Ace25** · 11-24-2009, 11:02 AM

Paper bags from the grocery store is better than a cheap skimmer.. so yes, no skimmer is better than a cheap skimmer because a cheap skimmer will only make you lighter in the wallet and frustrated with your tank because you can't get it to work correctly/reliably. Just not worth it. Things like the SeaClone/Prizm skimmer you have to contantly tweak to keep it barely working, and one wrong tweak to much and you can easily overflow the skimmer and end up with water on the floor.

**hmotorsol** · 11-24-2009, 3:13 PM

Look towards a vertex in 80. its an in sump skimmer. They go relatively cheap and would be what you want in a skimmer. If space is more of a concern try a tunze. but they are very pricey.

**Cheech** · 12-03-2009, 9:33 AM

^^^ I've heard good things about vertex skimmers!!

I'll be starting my vodka dosing this Sunday. I'll let you guys know how it works out!

**hmotorsol** · 12-03-2009, 3:49 PM

Ok I bought a vertex in-100 it will be in sometime next week ill take pics and let you guys know how it does.

**Cheech** · 12-07-2009, 10:49 AM

So I'm on day 4 of vodka dosing. I've been dosing .4 ml daily.

My tank has been doing great (knock on wood)... My "turf" algae problem is diminishing... Day by day I see less and less of it, which is great.

Now, this might not be in response to the vodka dosing, as in the past month, I've increased my water changes, I've decreased the amount of lighting in the tank, I added a caron sock, and I recently added a phosphate reactor in my sump.

whatever the case, I'll increase the vodka dosing to .7 ml in a few days, until the algae is gone (hoping it'll be gone)...

I'll let you know how it turns out.

Thanks again for the advice...

**Ace25** · 12-07-2009, 10:59 AM

Ya, I would have to say if your only on Day 4 then it is not the vodka doing the majority of the algae removal at this point. I am sure it is starting to help out, but I think this early in the dosing that the other steps you have taken have done much more for the algae removal to this point.. still.. keep up with the dosing if you like what you see.. Although last time when I had a "turf algae" problem, Vodka dosing seemed to affect it much faster and make it go away quicker than I am seeing with the hair algae problem I have now.

I just went up to 1.2ml this morning because this time I hadn't reached my "white film" stage yet like I did last time at 1ml.. going on 5 weeks myself on this round of dosing and still going toe to toe fighting the hair algae.

**Amphiprion** · 12-07-2009, 11:44 AM

The only way vodka or any other carbon supplement could do that that quickly is if it was overdosed. Your particular incident may or may not be related, but I doubt it is. Have you noted any other side effects of overdosing, like bacterial mats, etc.? Beyond that, once you get this going, I would suggest one thing or another in terms of nutrient control. Using all those things at once, like extra phosphate remover, etc. could work out to be an issue, at least initially while you are getting the hang of it. If you want to try organic carbon dosing, then continue using activated carbon and stop the phosphate reactor, at least until you establish a baseline. Otherwise, you'll have a lot of angry, pastel corals (or worse).

**Cheech** · 12-07-2009, 12:04 PM

^^ Thank you... i didnt think of that.

thing is, for months, I hadn't done any waterchanges. My sump light (for my chaeto) was hardly ever on, 1 bulb was broken, I had no mechanical filtration of any sort, so I had a lot of crap in the tank.

In the past couple of months, (maybe it's the weather) I got back into things...

The changes so far:

- Religiously do 20% water changes every 2 weeks

- I added an aquaclear filter sock with carbon, wrapped around the intake of the pump in my sump. (

- I removed dead chaeto, replaced the bulbs, and in a matter of days, the chaeto has exploded in size.

- I decreased my MHs to 6 hours and my Attinics to 8 hours.

- on Friday, I started the vodka dosing of .4 ml daily,

- it's been a few weeks that I also dose with B-Ionic every second day

- and lastly, the newest addition was the phosban reactor, running it with a maxijet 400 ph, with a slow flow.

So far, like I said, algae is dieing off, the corals/frags seem to be doing very well, clam is fine, and anemone seems to have settled.

Do you think there might be too much going on in there?

**Amphiprion** · 12-07-2009, 12:08 PM

Sounds like too much change at once. It's going to be difficult to keep track of things that way and make it a lot easier to get out of hand. Just keep a close eye on everything and make sure you don't push it over the edge and starve things out. The main thing I would change for now is the phosphate reactor. I would continue using the Chaetomorpha and doing the regular water changes. You'll get to a point where the Chaetomorpha should stop growing (or if you tip it too far, it will die).