Let's see 'em - Before and After pics of Vodka Dosing!

[tony73]

pictures to post here?

[reeksreef]

Originally Posted by rchavez

I have had great results with vodka. I have a standard 20g with t5's, skimmer and mp10. I dose 8 drops of vodka per day. I have healthy sps, lps and softies and 6 happy fish. The colors are great! I didn't have nice sps colors until after vodka dosing.

Do you have before & after pics of the tank?

[trueblackpercula]

Sorry to bring an old thread back to life but can anyone post some pictures of there tanks that are still dosing vodka? My reef completely crashed and I am trying to start over after 2 years and still want to know if the vodka dosing is still the way to go.

Many thanks

[platinum321]

Bump for a thread that was supposed to be before and after pics it's dern anemic. I would love to see more visual evidence.

[elegance coral]

Originally Posted by trueblackpercula

Sorry to bring an old thread back to life but can anyone post some pictures of there tanks that are still dosing vodka? My reef completely crashed and I am trying to start over after 2 years and still want to know if the vodka dosing is still the way to go.

Many thanks

Naturally, vodka dosing still "works". I'm able to keep my nutrients very low without vodka, so I don't dose on a regular basis. However, recently I knew I was getting some coral that were attached to LR, with hair algae problems. I wanted the corals, but not the algae problems, so I started dosing a few days in advance. After placing these rocks in the tank, about 80% of the algae was dead and gone in about 48 hours. It's about six days later and now pretty much all the algae is gone. I'll probably keep dosing for the next month or two just to bleed off the excess nutrients from these rocks, but I'll stop once I'm sure everything is back to normal.

If I was keeping a large bioload in a relatively small system, I'd probably dose vodka on a regular basis. I don't think it's the magic cure all we've been searching for though. I don't believe its right for every system. We can take vodka dosing to far are cause more damage than good.

[oscar.millan]

Originally Posted by dvanacker

The problem is the alcohol evaporating fast.....but %60 is still water. The alcohol will evap faster then the water leaving more water and less alcohol to drive the bacteria.

It's amazing to me that so many people don't realize that alcohol evaporates in minutes not hours or days. Alcohol content may drop as much as 50% if left in an open container overnight.

Keep this in mind if you use containers that are not somewhat sealed. Obviously can't be completely sealed otherwise suction won't work if using a doser.

Thanks for the reminder dvanacker, good to let people know. Good looking out.

[trueblackpercula]

Originally Posted by elegance coral

Naturally, vodka dosing still "works". I'm able to keep my nutrients very low without vodka, so I don't dose on a regular basis. However, recently I knew I was getting some coral that were attached to LR, with hair algae problems. I wanted the corals, but not the algae problems, so I started dosing a few days in advance. After placing these rocks in the tank, about 80% of the algae was dead and gone in about 48 hours. It's about six days later and now pretty much all the algae is gone. I'll probably keep dosing for the next month or two just to bleed off the excess nutrients from these rocks, but I'll stop once I'm sure everything is back to normal.

If I was keeping a large bioload in a relatively small system, I'd probably dose vodka on a regular basis. I don't think it's the magic cure all we've been searching for though. I don't believe its right for every system. We can take vodka dosing to far are cause more damage than good.

Thanks for the information.what was the corals that ment so much to you? I can't even imagin that the dosing worked so quickly on that hair alge. What proof vodka did you use?

[elegance coral]

Originally Posted by trueblackpercula

Thanks for the information.what was the corals that ment so much to you? I can't even imagin that the dosing worked so quickly on that hair alge. What proof vodka did you use?

I received several large colonies of ORA red planet, tricolor, and blue milli. I also received a large green maze brain, bicolor frogspawn, and some miscellaneous zoo's and other corals. Well worth the algae issues IMHO.

I guess I can't really give the vodka dosing all the credit. I do have two tangs. A medium sized sailfin and a medium sized chevron. They went to work on the rocks as soon as I put them in the tank. I do have two turbo snails, but I never even saw them near the new rocks. I guess it was a tag team effort. The tangs mowed down the algae, and the vodka helped to keep it from growing back.

My tank stays pretty clean, so it's not a hospitable environment for hair algae to begin with. The system may have been able to kill off the algae without the vodka, but I wanted the extra boost in nutrient export, just in case. It's a 200gl display with a 120gl sump. It has a large skimmer, 100 micron socks, no sand, no fuge, no ATS, and 100gl water changes about every two weeks.

The vodka I have is 40% alcohol, or 80 proof. I started out dosing one ML a day for several days. Now I dose two milliliters a day. One in the AM and one in the PM. I'll do this for a little longer, then cut back, and eventually stop.

HTH
EC

[trueblackpercula]

I am up to week two and still no change to P04 levels and nitrates have gone down I tiny little. As you can see from the picture it looks like my P04 is 0.25 and my nitrates are around 0.25 as well. But my algae in the tank is almost all gone and thanks to my 4 emerald crabs 85% of the bubble algae is almost gone as well.

[trueblackpercula]

Ok before and after pictures as of today.



After....the start of week two

[Carey1465]

I have a question for y'all and I dont know if someone will answer because the last posting was 11/21/12. I'm up to 13.3ml of vodka and nitrates are 2ppm. I had them at .25ppm a few weeks ago and I thought I was on the home stretch but now my nitrates are going back up. Is this common for vodka dosing? Is 13.3ml a lot??

[GhostCon1]

Originally Posted by Carey1465

I have a question for y'all and I dont know if someone will answer because the last posting was 11/21/12. I'm up to 13.3ml of vodka and nitrates are 2ppm. I had them at .25ppm a few weeks ago and I thought I was on the home stretch but now my nitrates are going back up. Is this common for vodka dosing? Is 13.3ml a lot??

That is a tremendous amount. How large is your system??

[BrentH]

I love bringing back old threads …I'm at. 30 ml a day and things are starting to kick in I think finally I had zero phosphates for about a week and my corals started looking sickly brought up my po4 with feeding and seemed to help with no3 started coming down right away

[northernreefe]

30 ml a day seems to be excessive, but that is just what I got from reading this thread.

[BrentH]

Originally Posted by northernreefe

30 ml a day seems to be excessive, but that is just what I got from reading this thread.

It's on a 650 gallon tank

[Bonesg]

Any advantage to dosing vodka if have zero nitrates and phosphates?

[jackson6745]

Originally Posted by Bonesg

Any advantage to dosing vodka if have zero nitrates and phosphates?

You will kill your SPS.

[Bonesg]

Thank you for the info

[Mikesmith34]

Originally Posted by Bonesg

Any advantage to dosing vodka if have zero nitrates and phosphates?

Having zero on both is a stretch. What type of testers are you using?

[kurfer]

Originally Posted by Bonesg

Any advantage to dosing vodka if have zero nitrates and phosphates?

What other stuff are you running? GFO/Carbon/Pellets?

Don't say nothing because that's just not right! How can you have zero of both? Do you have 0 fish?