Dosing Vodka

[KMitch]

no fish getting drunk, it is not enough liquor even if they could get drunk..... for a comparison, the wee bittty syringes that diabetics use for insulin are .05ml, which is half of what I dose daily.

 

I'm not interested in lowering my nitrates, they are already low. I'm interested in reducing them to zero which in turn may cause better coloration and growth. There has yet to be a real bad side effect with careful dosing, which is exactly what I am doing. This is definitely not for the lazy!

[Uhuru]

why are people still doing this? it doesn't remove algae, it removes nitrates. ok so sure it builds up denitrifying bacteria, but it also builds up all other bacteria. not all bacteria is good for tank inhabitants. nitrates are an easy problem to fix, why go through all the trouble, and waste good liquor? keep vodka out of the aquarium and in orange juice for best results.

 

Not aimed at any reply in particular, just on my soapbox:

 

here is a tip, if you are using algae to reduce nitrates but they don't go down and you don't have phosphates - it is because your low phosphates are actually limiting the algae's ability to take in nitrates, and vice versa. Macro Algae needs about a 20:1 ratio of nitrates and phosphate to filter effectively. So if your nitrates hover despite a refugium just add a little phosphates, and boom they both go down to zero. (Just never let the phosphates go over .5 ppm or you risk an algae breakout. By the way, if you feed fish flake, you have phosphates in your aquarium, they are just being soaked up. So if you have 10ppm nitrates, get to .5ppm phosphates. When nitrates go down to 10, go to .5ppm phosphates again. Then you will be in balance.

 

This is a great article on carbon levels in reefs in relation to coral health and microbiota:

 

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2008/8/aafeature3

 

to quote:

Any discussion on the relationship between DOC levels and coral health would be remiss without a digression into the currently popular practice of dosing reef tanks with carbon sources, specifically vodka (= ethanol), sugar, and/or vinegar (see http://glassbox-design.com/2008/achieved-t...xperimentation/ for a timely discussion). The logic behind this husbandry technique stems from the speculation that the increase in DOC provided by these chemicals will promote bacterial growth, and this increase in bacterial growth will in turn boost the removal of nitrogen and phosphorus-containing nutrients from the water column. The increased bacterial mass can then be removed by efficient skimming, leading to a net export of undesirable nutrients (N, P) from the aquarium. A standard recipe has been developed by Eric of Glassbox-Design: 200 mL of 80-proof vodka, 50 mL of vinegar, and 1.5 tablespoons sugar, mixed together. The dosing recommendation with this mixture involves starting with 0.1 mL/20-gal per day, and gradually increasing to a maintenance dose of 0.5 mL/20-gal per day. How do these carbon input values compare to the carbon (via carbohydrate) input values of Rohwer? In fact, the Eric/Glassbox-Design protocol is equivalent to raising the aquarium water by about 1.1 ppm of C at the maintenance dose. The Rohwer carbon dosing values that led to coral mortality over a 30-day exposure were in the range 2 - 10 ppm of C. So, it appears that the Eric/Glassbox-Design recipe does not leave much margin for error in dosing levels; overdosing by 2-3X might lead to coral mortality.

 

It is one of the most interesting web articles I've read on reefkeeping. I never thought of corals as contributing to the bioload of a tank, but they do, in a HUGE way. The production of DOC by corals then feeds their bacterial symbionts. In a sense, corals do their own carbon dosing to regulate bacteria growth. It's hypothesized in this article that when the corals can no longer regulate this bacteria growth, you see strange and sudden diseases occur.

 

The article also makes a very interesting observation about skimming and TOC at the end. Read it!

 

It is intriguing to speculate that corals deliberately control their bacteria population to confer a survival advantage, and that DOC secretion may be one mechanism by which this control is implemented.

[KMitch]

Interesting.... equally interesting is how this goes completely against what Reefkeeping Mag published.

[johnmaloney]

what do people consider low? I think there should be set ranges. I think low is zero which is normal to maybe like 2 or 3 for nitrates. But I here some people say low, and they have nitrates sometimes even higher than 10ppm! Is there a standard on this? What do those test strips say low is?

[Dragonfire00]

I have been dosing vodka in my 58g, 2ml (i use a syringe from a left over test kit) daily.

The book, The Reef Aquarium Volume Three: Science, Art, and Technology, touches the subject as well. Lot of us have the book so i thought it would be worth mentioning.

 

The idea, as already stated, is to lower nitrates and phosphates, maximizing coral color & growth which which is inhibited by the phosphates. Most people use it for SPS corals. "the other site" shows people who use it report stunning colors and growth. This also allows you to feed your corals more heavily.

[scottyreef]

my vodka dosing results week one. i have had great increase in skimmer efficiency my Nitrates and Phosphates are as of today are nonexistent and i have noticed a increase of color and water carity. i will post before and after pics of the tank at week four

 

[fierceseaman]

Scotty, did you just start doing this or plan it all out? What plan are you using. I am going to start dosing vodka but I have to purchase a PO4 kit from what I understand. Do you agree?

[scottyreef]

I planned it out after seeing a reefer friend of mine do to his system with really good results a PO4 kits is a must along with a good low reading NO3 kit

[hazmat]

Which nitrate kit are you using? I am dosing but for a different reason (the algae thing). I am up to 0.7cc per day and I have to admit that I don't even think my skimmer reacts any differently. Maybe a bit more foam but not the dark skimmate that your are getting. That is impressive especially after 1 week!

[fierceseaman]

Hazmat, its going to be dependent on how much free NO3 and PO4 are available for the bacteria to use. I just went through a kalk/vinegar cycle to try to beat back some dinoflagellates and my readings today were at 0 for NO3. I usually hovered around 5 before the kalk/vinegar treatment.

 

Scotty, what test kits are you using and what kind of vodka are you using?

[scottyreef]

i use Salifert Nitrate Test Kit and Salifert Phosphate Test Kit every other day of me testing. I also use Salifert Dissolved Oxygen Test Kit to check what my oxygen levels are about one a week and Salifert Silicate Test Kit one a month to check my potential for algae blooms. I use kettle one and i use tiny serynges 1ml total with .1ml increments I hope this help

 

scott

[fierceseaman]

Definitely. Why are you using the good stuff? I heard the rot gut vodka works just as well.

[scottyreef]

Well i just used what was lying around the house. I really dont use that much of it really about .4ml per day so i am guessing will last a while. for some reason i would want to put anything in my tank that isnt the best my tank is a investment i wouldnt want to put cheap rottgut in my tank jepordizing the large amount of money i have put in to her.

[hazmat]

Hazmat, its going to be dependent on how much free NO3 and PO4 are available for the bacteria to use. I just went through a kalk/vinegar cycle to try to beat back some dinoflagellates and my readings today were at 0 for NO3. I usually hovered around 5 before the kalk/vinegar treatment.

 

Scotty, what test kits are you using and what kind of vodka are you using?

 

That is what I thought I had...dinoflagellates. So I started the Vodka and was going to go the the kalk+vinegar next if the vodka had no effect. Turns out, I had Raphidophytes and not Dinos. I changed out my bulb to a 14K, dosed Magnesium which increased my alk and dosed the Vodka. Mr. Fosi has helped me out with all this. He is a Godsend!! Not sure what has done it but so far my algae issue is at a minimum. I have a 34 gallon RSM and I'm up to 0.7cc daily. When I told my husband what I was doing the first thing he said was "Don't use the Grey Goose!"

My nitrates and phosphates were reading 0 but I assumed it was because the algae was using it. Plus, your level is only as low as the sensitivity of your test kit.

[fierceseaman]

What is raphidophytes? I've never heard of that.

[scottyreef]

Raphidophytes the stuff is really bad. i only know it because it was a problem in the Monterey Bay and it killed a whole lot of fish

[hazmat]

What is raphidophytes? I've never heard of that.

 

Me neither!! It's some freaky marine algae that is normally in freshwater. Mr. Fosi has a collegue that is a marine plankton expert and diagnosed it for me. I took a sample of my algae, looked under a microscope and got a picture of it. Sent it to him and he did the rest. don't know how I got it. But once I dosed the magnesium it helped raise my alk up to 9 which I guess has helped. I also got a few more crabs and a huge turbo snail to help with some clean up.

 

 

Raphidophytes the stuff is really bad. i only know it because it was a problem in the Monterey Bay and it killed a whole lot of fish

 

Yeah, I read it can be really toxic to fish. My crabs eat it so mine must not be too toxic!

[MrAnderson]

people, if you're going to do it, do it right.

 

vodka is for clueless n00bs - use methanol. i have no idea why vodka has become the posterboy carbon source for boosting marine bacteria in our little isolated corner of the internet. it's the wrong reagent.

 

those cheeseball online reefing articles are amateurish.

[scottyreef]

people, if you're going to do it, do it right.

 

vodka is for clueless n00bs - use methanol. i have no idea why vodka has become the posterboy carbon source for boosting marine bacteria in our little isolated corner of the internet. it's the wrong reagent.

 

those cheeseball online reefing articles are amateurish.

 

 

really do you have any dosing information on using methanol dosing i would like to read up on it if it will work better than using vodka I'm always open to new ways to reef

[hazmat]

people, if you're going to do it, do it right.

 

vodka is for clueless n00bs - use methanol. i have no idea why vodka has become the posterboy carbon source for boosting marine bacteria in our little isolated corner of the internet. it's the wrong reagent.

 

those cheeseball online reefing articles are amateurish.

 

"Ouch!" didn't realize I was a clueless nOOb.

[fierceseaman]

people, if you're going to do it, do it right.

 

vodka is for clueless n00bs - use methanol. i have no idea why vodka has become the posterboy carbon source for boosting marine bacteria in our little isolated corner of the internet. it's the wrong reagent.

 

those cheeseball online reefing articles are amateurish.

 

Thats a pretty caustic way to make a statement. Care to help us careless noobs out with a little reference to what you are talking about?

[BKtomodachi]

all bacteria need only a few basic things for metabolism, carbon and an electron source being the relevant things here (also hydrogen and oxygen, but that's another, although related, story). dosing alcohol provides carbon above what is normally present from the environment, and drives growth. because growth entails amino acid synthesis, translation of proteins and replication of nucleic acids, assimilatory nitrate reduction and phosphorus uptake is accelerated to make these new molecular components.

 

so what dosing alcohol does is flog the bacteria in one's tank to grow and take up these nutrients from the water column. the inherent problem is that rarely does one need nitrification to be boosted; usually the chronic problem is nitrates, not ammonia or nitrites. however adding alcohol makes ALL the bacteria grow faster. sometimes this isn't a problem, but sometimes it is.

 

the ideal scenario is to target alcohol dosing to the populations one wants to grow - the denitrifiers. to this end, many large scale aquatic facilities like public aquaria and zoos actually dose methanol, but only into their denitrators. in this way they augment denitrification without boosting nitrification, which could result in a bottleneck in the nitrogen cycle and an excess of nitrates. done properly, it works very well and doesn't have the inherent stoichiometric limitations inherent in a sulfur denitrator. in the case of using sulfur the limiting reactant is the availability of the electron acceptor; in alcohol dosing it is alcohol and anaerobic microenvironments, both of which can be manipulated.

 

the reagent of choice for this sort of thing is methanol, not ethanol, because it's the shorter carbon chain (actually one carbon) and more easily assimilated. people use vodka, ethanol, sugar, all sorts of crap, which simply boosts bacterial growth in general. all those approaches will do that to some degree with somewhat unpredictable results, but the proper strategy is to dose the simplest possible carbon to only the denitrifiers.

[fierceseaman]

Where do you buy methanol from? And I while I see dosing methanol does work, it seems like all the legwork has been done to dose ethanol and it works. Why fix something if its not broken?

[hazmat]

I know this is from the "amaturish" thread but it does mention methanol:

 

Photos provided by Peter Martis (SDguy).

 

 

Carbon Sources - Reduction in nitrates and phosphates can be accomplished with ethanol and vinegar with great efficiency. Other molecules that may aid in nutrient reduction are sugar, acetone, methanol, and isopropanol. We have not experimented with sugar though there are many threads on RC about this topic. The latter three have been called into question about the possible effects on health of the owner as well as the wellbeing of the aquarium inhabitants. For these reasons, we chose to describe ethanol addition as a means to decrease both nitrates and phosphate levels.

 

Even Mr. Fosi questions whether "alcohol" is the proper carbon source but I think the article touches on some other issues. And where do we get methanol? And how do we dose it? And what are the health effects on us? Maybe methanol is a better source but is it attainable? And because ethanol is one carbon different does that make it "less effective". Maybe so, maybe not.

And I think the statement goes "it's not what you say but how you say it".

This doesn't apply.

Just another day in the neighborhood making us feel stoopid.

[scottyreef]

Well from what i have read on Methanol in industrial and large sea water processing facilities use is that of its relatively cost and low sludge production. It is true that methanol is a good source of organic carbon compared with other organic compounds but it doesnt seem to be the only way for biological denitrification through the introduction organic carbon into seawater.

 

also Methanol is impractical in small systems for two reasons: (1) finding methanol with out benzene is almost impossible Like the fuel additive Heet. (2) check out its MSDS sheet and tell me whats the problem with Methanol its toxic, Causes eye and skin irritation, harmful if absorbed targeting Kidneys, heart, central nervous system

http://avogadro.chem.iastate.edu/MSDS/methanol.htm

 

But dont get me wrong it has been used in large million gallon water treatment plants for decades but for a system thats under 2000 gallons I'll stick with vodka

 

here is a great article on the use of methanol in a good side by side case study of using batch fluidized bed biofilters and a inline fluidized bed biofilter with denitrification reactor

 

http://74.125.45.104/search?q=cache:WQEKwk...ce.hr/file/6506