I agree you need a very good skimmer when you do this experiment. I am running 2 Skimmer on my 180 Deltec AP701 and MTC 1000 and both pull crap and every 4 days I have to clean both skimmer...
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VODKA dosing regimen- notes.
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I'll be having my eyes glued on this thread, too, Merv. Awesome documentation. Eagerly awaiting follow ups. ;D
Oct 9 (Day3) 0.4 mL (am)
I don't think there is a direct correlation of one of my emerald crabs dying, but I lost one today. I'll be monitoring the other two in the tank, but I did notice that they are out more than normal picking at whatever is left to pick on the rocks. Most of the brown algae on the rocks have subsided, it could be the snails that I had gotten recently last week, as I only had 4 turbos to begin with. I now have a dozen and they are doing a great job. The haze on the glass is a fraction of what I would normally have in 2 days, and they are more abundant underneath the lumenarcs. I am leaving the glass uncleaned probably until tomorrow to see if it's like the last time.
Oct 10 (Day 4) 0.8 mL (it's almost midnight)
Still haven't cleaned the glass, which is a semi good sign. Will leave for tomorrow. I just dumped the skimmate an hour ago, and cleaned out the skimmer too. About two cups of medium-dark skimmate, a hige difference from before. The skimmer neck wasn't as gunked up, however, as the pic below whows. There is a lot of suspended particulate matter in the tank, but the water is extremely clear, GIN clear to be exact. The 2 emerald crabs are still up and about, and they are now crawling around the front glass where my magnet cleaner couldn't reach. There is also a froth in the sump, which I have only seen on one occasion earlier this year when my clams died. Took a pic of the hair algae growing in the sump as reference.
the collection bottle
2 cupfuls of this
LOOKS YUMMY!
Hair algae in sump
Just a little froth, but maybe I'm just being too analytical-
I don't think there is a direct correlation of one of my emerald crabs dying, but I lost one today. I'll be monitoring the other two in the tank, but I did notice that they are out more than normal picking at whatever is left to pick on the rocks. Most of the brown algae on the rocks have subsided, it could be the snails that I had gotten recently last week, as I only had 4 turbos to begin with. I now have a dozen and they are doing a great job. The haze on the glass is a fraction of what I would normally have in 2 days, and they are more abundant underneath the lumenarcs. I am leaving the glass uncleaned probably until tomorrow to see if it's like the last time.
Oct 10 (Day 4) 0.8 mL (it's almost midnight)
Still haven't cleaned the glass, which is a semi good sign. Will leave for tomorrow. I just dumped the skimmate an hour ago, and cleaned out the skimmer too. About two cups of medium-dark skimmate, a hige difference from before. The skimmer neck wasn't as gunked up, however, as the pic below whows. There is a lot of suspended particulate matter in the tank, but the water is extremely clear, GIN clear to be exact. The 2 emerald crabs are still up and about, and they are now crawling around the front glass where my magnet cleaner couldn't reach. There is also a froth in the sump, which I have only seen on one occasion earlier this year when my clams died. Took a pic of the hair algae growing in the sump as reference.
the collection bottle
2 cupfuls of this
LOOKS YUMMY!
Hair algae in sump
Just a little froth, but maybe I'm just being too analytical-
this is just my 2 cents, dosing vodka in your reef tank is a mistake, it feeds the wrong bac, if you want to dose a carbon source buy one that is made for a reef tank as in zeo brightwell and a few others. Im not going to get in to all the science why. Doeing a carbon source that is made for a reef with the proper addition of bac will give you all the po4 reduction you can need. HTH.
stan
stan
This is why I am offering my tank as a guinea pig experiment in a plain and simple Carbon source dosing. It would really bother me if I were to stop now since I am noticing some positive effects in these initial stages. My skimmer has been skimming much more efficiently. As a matter of fact, here are my notes from yesterday and today....
Oct 11 (Day 5) 0.8 mL
Finally cleaned the glass, it's been about 3 days or so. Skimmer is light and frothy, nothing out of ordinary to report. Fed fish as normal, every other day of Spectrum pellets followed by frozen cube of home made food.
Oct 12 (Day 6) 0.8 mL (1 a.m.)
Cleaned out skimmer as soon as I got home at 8 pm earlier today. Skimmer performance was normal, 2.5 cups of light but extremely foul nog. It smelled like a sewer in the hot sun. Not a pretty scent in the kitchen sink. It looks like the skimmer has been producing at least a cup a day, but is increasing although the feeding regimen has not changed. 5 gallons of water was changed to vacuum all the detritus collected within the tank. It has not been vacuumed since Oct 2. The colors on the corals are coming back, it's a little faster than I had anticipated, mostly on the tips, but is still too early to tell. Took a few more pics for personal reference, very very slight change to the human eye, not noticeable on the computer screen. Haze on front glass only noticeable when looking through the side at an angle. Wiped it clean to take frag pics for the swap
. No feeding tonight. Salinity at 1.0258'ish, or just a hair under 1.026
Stan, I know Steve (reeferpnoy) is using brightwells, and it would be great if he has a thread started or link he could shoot me so I can understand a little more on what his personal experiences are. (Stan, you use Zeo too, right?) but needless to say, I've always been the "extremist unorthodox reefer" though, haven't I, lol?
Mike, I've been reading your posts on RC with the Vodka dosing too. Feel free to add more findings here too....
Oct 11 (Day 5) 0.8 mL
Finally cleaned the glass, it's been about 3 days or so. Skimmer is light and frothy, nothing out of ordinary to report. Fed fish as normal, every other day of Spectrum pellets followed by frozen cube of home made food.
Oct 12 (Day 6) 0.8 mL (1 a.m.)
Cleaned out skimmer as soon as I got home at 8 pm earlier today. Skimmer performance was normal, 2.5 cups of light but extremely foul nog. It smelled like a sewer in the hot sun. Not a pretty scent in the kitchen sink. It looks like the skimmer has been producing at least a cup a day, but is increasing although the feeding regimen has not changed. 5 gallons of water was changed to vacuum all the detritus collected within the tank. It has not been vacuumed since Oct 2. The colors on the corals are coming back, it's a little faster than I had anticipated, mostly on the tips, but is still too early to tell. Took a few more pics for personal reference, very very slight change to the human eye, not noticeable on the computer screen. Haze on front glass only noticeable when looking through the side at an angle. Wiped it clean to take frag pics for the swap
. No feeding tonight. Salinity at 1.0258'ish, or just a hair under 1.026Stan, I know Steve (reeferpnoy) is using brightwells, and it would be great if he has a thread started or link he could shoot me so I can understand a little more on what his personal experiences are. (Stan, you use Zeo too, right?) but needless to say, I've always been the "extremist unorthodox reefer" though, haven't I, lol?
Mike, I've been reading your posts on RC with the Vodka dosing too. Feel free to add more findings here too....
Wow!!! I just came across this old school link....Aaaahhh....brings back memories!!!!!
http://photoshow.comcast.net/viewshow/Xh7IS2Ka
http://photoshow.comcast.net/viewshow/Xh7IS2Ka
smcooler said:
Stan I'm sure your right. I read the same thing about feeding the wrong bacteria with Vodka and to counteract that, some people suggest adding something like Zeobac. I was going to try it for a while to see if I notice anything positive or negative. If it doesn't work out, I'll use the rest of the Vodka for Martinis.
That statement/ pic is not 100% true as I see some poeple that don't dose anything and still tank crash ....
Merv Yes I am using Brightwell stuff and so far so good. Im not using BW Neozeo as I think that is a bit too much for me.
ZEOVIT, FAUNA MARIN, PRODIBIO, VODKA, BW product are only an enhancement to reefing . THE BASIC is still the best to have ( Stable parameters). I will not recommend doing all the method I post if you dont even know your parameters or your rank is not stable at all as this will just lead to whitening your sps.. I am in no expert of anything but can only say that it took me 2 yrs to add something on my tank for enhancement. ..
Merv Yes I am using Brightwell stuff and so far so good. Im not using BW Neozeo as I think that is a bit too much for me.
ZEOVIT, FAUNA MARIN, PRODIBIO, VODKA, BW product are only an enhancement to reefing . THE BASIC is still the best to have ( Stable parameters). I will not recommend doing all the method I post if you dont even know your parameters or your rank is not stable at all as this will just lead to whitening your sps
.. I am in no expert of anything but can only say that it took me 2 yrs to add something on my tank for enhancement. ..In case no one read the beginning part of this thread which was solely for my personal documentation processes and for more real life information (positive and/or negative) to this reefing community, I would have to say again and point out:
Now here's a forewarning: Please do not try this yourself until you feel comfortable enough in your eyes. I have been reading so much stuff the past few weeks, and I just decided to make the jump last week after a massive water change. Algae tufts are still growing however, and hopefully a recession will be in place (soon).
In my opinion, good coral health, fish health and great polyp extension are all signs of good water quality. Good meaning- 'liveable', not aesthetically pleasing in our........etc.
With that being said, and with a lighter heart, I like this picture better since I fixed the poor corals and clam. It seems like they lost all the zooxanthellae Fortunately, I've never had a tank crash except when they dropped it from a truck- please note that I added the proprietary "Try at your own risk" to clear any confusion of any implications and suggestions I am making to the reefing community.
Oct 13 (Day 7) 0.8 mL
So, back to the regular channel, I guess I should've never mentioned the water testing. To clear my conscience of trying to assume that my tank waters are within check to begin with, I decided to utilize my test kits. Now I know they may be a wee bit old (December of last this year), but since I had them, I decided to spend some time checking the water conditions. Everything was close to normal with the exception of my Alk and pH which was just under 8 dkH and (I've got to fix that this week or so), phosphates were undetectable, nitrates are 0 (I assume from the huge water changes). I also fired up my Kalkwasser drip tonight, so we'll see how that works with the dkH. 2 cups of Mrs Wages Pickling lime went into a mixing tub and sat overnight last night (how convenient since I my pH was a little low too) so I poured the clear liquid in the drip which holds about 5 gallons.
Feeding the fish in a little while, skimmer looks like about a cup or so, but I'll leave it for tomorrow to clean.
..............and here's proof
Steve, do you have any posts elsewhere about the product you're using? I'd like to read up on that too for personal reference. By the way, my water checked out, lol. and no, I'm sticking with just pure ethanol...no additions. Happy belated pala sa anak mo, I had to work today.
Now here's a forewarning: Please do not try this yourself until you feel comfortable enough in your eyes. I have been reading so much stuff the past few weeks, and I just decided to make the jump last week after a massive water change. Algae tufts are still growing however, and hopefully a recession will be in place (soon).
In my opinion, good coral health, fish health and great polyp extension are all signs of good water quality. Good meaning- 'liveable', not aesthetically pleasing in our........etc.
With that being said, and with a lighter heart, I like this picture better since I fixed the poor corals and clam. It seems like they lost all the zooxanthellae
Fortunately, I've never had a tank crash except when they dropped it from a truck- please note that I added the proprietary "Try at your own risk" to clear any confusion of any implications and suggestions I am making to the reefing community.
Oct 13 (Day 7) 0.8 mL
So, back to the regular channel, I guess I should've never mentioned the water testing. To clear my conscience of trying to assume that my tank waters are within check to begin with, I decided to utilize my test kits. Now I know they may be a wee bit old (December of last this year), but since I had them, I decided to spend some time checking the water conditions. Everything was close to normal with the exception of my Alk and pH which was just under 8 dkH and (I've got to fix that this week or so), phosphates were undetectable, nitrates are 0 (I assume from the huge water changes). I also fired up my Kalkwasser drip tonight, so we'll see how that works with the dkH. 2 cups of Mrs Wages Pickling lime went into a mixing tub and sat overnight last night (how convenient since I my pH was a little low too) so I poured the clear liquid in the drip which holds about 5 gallons.
Feeding the fish in a little while, skimmer looks like about a cup or so, but I'll leave it for tomorrow to clean.
..............and here's proof
Steve, do you have any posts elsewhere about the product you're using? I'd like to read up on that too for personal reference. By the way, my water checked out, lol. and no, I'm sticking with just pure ethanol...no additions. Happy belated pala sa anak mo, I had to work today.
reneeRN said:
If we remember our high school biology/chemistry (biochemistry), alcohol is part of the Kreb’s Citric Acid Cycle...producing ATP...the fuel to run cells. For alcohol to produce glucose is damn near impossible...certainly under the aerobic conditions present in your tank. The alcohol is being processed as a food source, causing increase growth of ALL bacteria and other alcohol consuming creatures. The alcohol is first converted to an aldehyde and then taken up into “Kreb’s” as a “food source” to produce ATP...the fuel of life. That is, increase growth of whatever is using this as food. However, I do agree with Dr. Tom, and am reluctant in using vodka as a food source to promote bacterial growth.
Well, so far just about a week has passed so I decided to take pics earlier and do some comparisons, i wasn't looking for anything spectacular, but photo documentation can be cool because with the same settings, a camera can't really lie. It's been a week and the skimmer has definitely benefited from the addition, and I haven't really changed my feeding style. The anthia need to be fed regularly, and the blue tang begs for more even after it's all gone. He sits in the corner of the tank and when he sees a shadow or feels the vibration of me walking around, he makes circles around the front glass. (pretty cute me thinks)
Anyways, here are the pics of the same corals from today, and to make it easier, I did a side by side comparison further down.
So far so good, one casualty of an emerald crab, fish are good, PO4 and NO3 are good, Calcium is just a hair over 470, dKH is at 7.9, pH is still a little under 8, but it's all coming together surely but slowly.
Anyways, here are the pics of the same corals from today, and to make it easier, I did a side by side comparison further down.
So far so good, one casualty of an emerald crab, fish are good, PO4 and NO3 are good, Calcium is just a hair over 470, dKH is at 7.9, pH is still a little under 8, but it's all coming together surely but slowly.
Been dosing Vodka for about 2 weeks. I'm at 1.3ml a day. When I started, my PO4 was 0.10. I did two tests last night first test I got 0.07. Second test I got 0.02. Both Hanna. I'm not sure which reading to trust, but according to the Reefkeeping article, if I notice a reduction, you maintain the dosage until levels get undetectable. I'll stay the course at 1.3ml.