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Dosing vodka for nitrate consuming bacteria? + talk on cryptic refugiums


AlmightyJoshaeus

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AlmightyJoshaeus

Hello everyone! I have heard that, if you have media that can support the anaerobic nitrate reducing bacteria, you can use small quantities of vodka to provide a carbon source for them to reduce nitrate to nitrogen gas. Is that true? If so, how much vodka would I use daily on my 10 gallon NPS tank? a ml a day? Thanks 🙂

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With respect to denitrification bacteria, it is not necessary to dose organic carbon.  In most cases, food input is more than sufficient.  Organic carbon dosing grows all bacteria, not just denitrification bacteria.

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AlmightyJoshaeus
Just now, Subsea said:

With respect to denitrification bacteria, it is not necessary to dose organic carbon.  In most cases, food input is more than sufficient.  Organic carbon dosing grows all bacteria, not just denitrification bacteria.

And this tank is an NPS tank that's going to have plenty of food...hmmm...

 

Anyhow, would more bacteria be a bad thing? This tank is also going to have a sponge, which primarily eat bacteria in the wild.

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AlmightyJoshaeus

I will check out the link before diving into dosing vodka 🙂

 

This is my first NPS tank. The ultimate plan is to target feed all the corals twice daily with reef roids (except for Large polyp NPS corals, which will be fed once daily), add 20ml of a live phytoplankton mix at night for the filter feeders, and do twice weekly 40% WC's and use macroalgae (both in tank and in a refugium) and activated carbon (and perhaps nitrate and phosphate removing pads). However, I will be starting with a sun coral...more NPS critters will come after the refugium is set up and I have thriving macroalgae to manage the nutrients.

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Add amphipods & copepods and allow them to get established for two months before adding fish.  Also, instead of adding prepared foods, grow your own, in the tank.  Micro fauna & fana will process nutrients thru various food webs and will feed your tank recycled live food.  Seed sandbed with detrivores that reproduce to food supply:  Cerith Snails & bristle worms are good options that are easily available.  Get some uncured diver collected live rock for ultimate biodiversity.

 

http://www.gulfliverock.com/premium-decorative-rock.html

 

 

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Considering that you will have fast growing macro in your display, I suggest you consider an unlit cryptic refugium with cryptic sponges.  Cryptic sponges consume dissolved organic carbon and produce Marine Snow & dissolved inorganic carbon both of which grow coral.  It is a food web that regenerates itself.  While you might dose vodka for a source of organic carbon, every photosynthetic organism produces DOC.   There are thousands of differrent sugars (DOC) produced by corals and algae.  You don’t need to add any, if you are already feeding your tank.

 

 

 

 

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@AlmightyJoshaeus

 

I probably operate a reef differrent than most.  After almost 50 years in the hobby, My husbandry maintenance is minimal because I compliment natural filtration that have complex food webs that recycle nutrients into live food.  I consider protein skimmers as unnecessary and in many cases detrimental to the long term stability of a reef tank.  With your 10G tank that may not be as important to you.  I have growout tanks that are 10 years old.  My oldest display tank at 75G is 25 years set up.  In November of 2017, I turned out the lights on the 30G EcoSystem mud/macro refugium and seeded with cryptic sponges.  

 

Not knowing your experience level, I suggest that you go slow.  If you don’t rush it, your vision of a NPS display can be very easy to attain.  Don’t put socks in your sump.  Detritus is food for micro inverts.  Let it accumulate in your sump/refugium.  

 

Refugiums do do not need to be lit.  Refugiums are a “refuge from predators”.  IMO, refugiums are not for nutrient export, they are for nutrient recycling of live food.  In essence, a sump is a refugium.  Seed it with pods and sponges.  When detritus mud accumulates, add worms and snails as detrivores that reproduce to food supply.

 

PS:  Cryptic refugium at one year old.  Chilli Coral with Red Tree & Yellow Tree deep water gorgonions.  

 

image.jpg

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My experiences with coral is that feeding polyps are most prevalent during night time when zooplankton comes out of hiding from daylight predators.  Even cryptic refugium follows the natural  lights out cycle of natural daylight.  Feeding polyps are not out with picture taken 2hrs after sunlight.  Note:  lights on for picture only.

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AlmightyJoshaeus
1 minute ago, uwdanno said:

Why do this over regular water changes?

Before doing more research on vodka in the reef tank, I was going to do this AND regular water changes. Now I'll just be doing a refugium, macroalgae, and regular water changes.

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20 minutes ago, uwdanno said:

Why do this over regular water changes?

 

 

Regular water changes do not feed your system.  Regular water changes dilute nutrients.  Natural filtration uses nutrients to grow coral.  I frag and sell coral to reduce nutrients.

 

 

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30 minutes ago, AlmightyJoshaeus said:

Before doing more research on vodka in the reef tank, I was going to do this AND regular water changes. Now I'll just be doing a refugium, macroalgae, and regular water changes.

 

 

With a ten gallon system, you will be well served with partial water changes.

 

With system volumes into a thousand gallons, I do no scheduled water changes.  I add kalk to make up for evaporation.  Every 6 months, I do 75% water change.  I run modified Triton with high nutrients.

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  • AlmightyJoshaeus changed the title to Dosing vodka for nitrate consuming bacteria? + talk on cryptic refugiums
On 10/15/2018 at 6:07 AM, AlmightyJoshaeus said:

Hello everyone! I have heard that, if you have media that can support the anaerobic nitrate reducing bacteria, you can use small quantities of vodka to provide a carbon source for them to reduce nitrate to nitrogen gas. Is that true? If so, how much vodka would I use daily on my 10 gallon NPS tank? a ml a day? Thanks 🙂

 

Zero. A ml of vodka a day is a huge amount for a 10g. You could easily crash the tank, especially with no powerful skimmer. You can cause a bloom that will suffocate fish, so yes more bacteria can be bad.. The bacteria can also quickly clog all your filters, ect. It will feed cyano and 'bad' bacteria too.

 

I have done the carbon dosing thing... vinegar, vodka, biopellets, you name it... used it on my larger-ish system around 70+ total gallons so I could overfeed mandarin dragonetts. 

 

I would not recommend for a new reefer at all and I would not recommend it on such a small system for anyone.

 

Water changes. The end.

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AlmightyJoshaeus
18 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

 

Zero. A ml of vodka a day is a huge amount for a 10g. You could easily crash the tank, especially with no powerful skimmer. You can cause a bloom that will suffocate fish, so yes more bacteria can be bad.. The bacteria can also quickly clog all your filters, ect. It will feed cyano and 'bad' bacteria too.

 

I have done the carbon dosing thing... vinegar, vodka, biopellets, you name it... used it on my larger-ish system around 70+ total gallons so I could overfeed mandarin dragonetts. 

 

I would not recommend for a new reefer at all and I would not recommend it on such a small system for anyone.

 

Water changes. The end.

Don't worry! I already vetoed doing the vodka after doing research about it. Nutrient export will be chiefly through macroalgae and large water changes.

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