dosing vodka on a small tank

[westcoastreefer84]

I am looking for input from people who have dosed vodka on a system under 40 gallons

 

I would like to know if you have had any problems? Any positive things happen? Are you dosing indefinatley? What happen when you stopped dosing?

 

I have been searching and have found mostly threads of sps tanks much, much larger than mine

 

My system is 35gal, I house a few LPS and a variety of soft corals

 

I dosed .3ml for 5 days, for the past 2 days I have dosed .5ml, I don't plan on increasing my dose

 

A few things I have noticed within 2 days of dosing, my lobo began to bleach slightly, that was cured with feed twice daily with DT's and kent micro vert, my zoanthids do not close up at night neither does my gsp, my candy canes have extended sweepers they extend much more often, the glass doesn't need cleaned as often, skimmate has become much darker, and there is a slight clear looking algae in various spots, my abrasia and valonia problem has receeded dramatically as well,

 

I have had many positive things happen, before I was feeding once a week with micro vert and would have my gha bloom the next day, I'm wondering if there is any down side to dosing vodka long term?

 

Thanks for any input u can give me

[Phixion]

I dosed for a while on my 10g tank. You just have to adjust the dosing accordingly for smaller tanks to prevent a mishap.

[lakshwadeep]

Check this thread, especially the posts by Mr. fosi and MrAnderson:

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=163609

[westcoastreefer84]

Thanks guys, I've read most the of the big threads over at RC about C dosing, like I said before a lot of them cater to bigger systems

 

Everything seems to be going fine, my biggest challenge is keeping the tank fed (thought I would never say that), I can actually tell a differance in my LPS from skipping one day of feeding

 

My biggest concern is, what will happen when I stop dosing?

[spanko]

Here is my thread from another site.

 

http://www.saltwaterfish.com/vb/showthread.php?t=353706

[badphish]

i have dosed vodka since feb. on my 24 gal. aquapod.it has worked great i dose 1ml a day.once i got to the point of most the algae being gone i also started dosing amino for the corals and feeding more. heres a link to the best article out there on how to dose it.even has a spread sheet on the proper dosage. i started with 1/2 the recommended dosage.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php

[TR3XX]

I've been dosing in my 25g for 3 months now with great results. Before starting, seed your tank with MicroBacter 7 from Brightwell for about 2 weeks (use their high nutrient directions). This will help reduce the chance of cyano breaking out. Once you start with vodka, you can use the "low nutrient" directions for the MB7. I currently dose Brightwell's AA (1ml every few days) and MB7 (2 drops/day) with the vodka (.8ml/day).

 

No more algae, only have to clean the glass every 2 weeks, 2 weeks between water changes (was doing it weekly), crazy polyp extensions on SPS, and great growth!

 

HTH

[Mr. Fosi]

My biggest concern is, what will happen when I stop dosing?

 

You are thinking rightly, IMO.

 

When you stop dosing, the microbial population is going to shift again. It won't go back to the way it was before you started dosing, but it will die back.

 

If you aren't dosing huge amounts, I don't know that this die back will show up in water chem tests or livestock reactions. I dosed vodka+kalk for a while in my 20H and I had more issues during the start of dosing than I had when I quit cold turkey.