Vodka dosing?

johniii

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I am thinking about carbon dosing my tank, via vodka or biopellets.

If I get an undetectable nitrate reading with seachem test(used in my fish only and works). How do I know where the proper dose is?
 
John , I dosed my 110 gallon with vodka, had no problems , but then again if you dose vodka you better have a jam up skimmer im told.
 
I ran biopellets for a while. I think the tank is probably better off with out them.

Why are you wanting to dose carbon? High phosphates?
 
Ripped Tide;793533 wrote: I ran biopellets for a while. I think the tank is probably better off with out them.

Why are you wanting to dose carbon? High phosphates?

I have just seen alot of really bright sps on carbon dosed tanks. Mine are pretty bright but not as colorful as I have seen.

Could be the camera to I guess. I have shyed away from carbon dosing now. I have done alot of research since this post. I don't think its for me.

Seems It causes more trouble than its worth.
 
Yeah. It does. I wanted it to work. And it did for a while.... I found that after the pellets stripped the nitrates down, they fed the cyano. After I took the pellets off the cyano went away. I wanted the pellets to work so that I would not have to tinker with changing gfo or aluminum oxide frequently. It was a lesson to me that sometimes the short cuts aren't for everyone.
 
to tell you the truth John , when I dosed my 110 , corals did not look any different. So i have a bottle n half of vodka left!! we can drink it and say the h@$$ with dosing it !!! lol:Banane35:, come on over the corals DON"T need it.
 
With a decent test kit for trates, tropic Marin, Elos, Salifert......among others you want your trates below 0.5 IF you have stony corals.

If your trates are above 0.5, you'll need to have a system in place, whether large weekly water changes, sulphur, bio pellets, or carbon dosing.

I've been carbon dosing for about 6 years with excellent results....albeit not perfect.....

here ya go!

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php">http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php</a>


[IMG]http://www.saltytank.com/viewguide.php?ID=176">http://www.saltytank.com/viewguide.php?ID=176</a>


and here:

[IMG]http://glassbox-design.com/2008/the-vsv-method-faq/">http://glassbox-design.com/2008/the-vsv-method-faq/</a>


That will tell how to start...
 
I'm dosing my tank with vodka now and these are the websites that I used.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php">http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-08/nftt/index.php</a>

[IMG]http://www.melevsreef.com/vodka_dosing.html">http://www.melevsreef.com/vodka_dosing.html</a>

I'm on day 44 now and I haven't seen a drop in my nitrates but my skimmer has been going crazy the last couple weeks. When you start getting a undetectable reading, your suppose to cut back the dosage by so many ml's. I would have to go back and look but all the info is on the websites. I hope this helps.
 
I do have to dose chemi-clean about 3-4 times a year to get rid of cyno....not a big deal if you follow directions to the letter....it's been about six months so far though without dosing lately...
 
Mysterybox, do you remember how long it took for you to get a undetectable reading? I'm dosing 3.8 ml's now and I heard some people get up in the teens.


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At 10 ml.

But that's for me, it depends upon sooo many factors. Also using a Tropic Marin low trate range, I get 0.5. Still detectable.

When trates creap up above 1.0, things don't look sooo good.
 
Carbon dosing in general tends to drive down nitrate, but at the end of curve, most have a little phosphate left over. This seems to be where cyano breaks out.

In researching this, it is advised to add an amino acid supplement while dosing. This is an additional source of nitrogen, which will help use up that extra little bit of phosphate. I use Seachem's AA and add what they recommend 2x per week, but do so every day.
 
I just use HC gfo & rox carbon in addition. change weekly to every 10 days.

phates at 0.03 or less....
 
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