vinegar/ vodka dosing which do people like better

[Takara]

I use to vodka dose, and loved the results, I hear you can over-do it easily, but I guess I was luck. I switched over to pellets, and it just isn't the same results. With vodka I never had to clean the glass, with the pellets I still have a little cyano, and the glass needs to be cleaned day.


I use to have macro in the display also until I got tangs, fwiw..

 

[lisa foster]

I use to vodka dose, and loved the results, I hear you can over-do it easily, but I guess I was luck. I switched over to pellets, and it just isn't the same results. With vodka I never had to clean the glass, with the pellets I still have a little cyano, and the glass needs to be cleaned day.


I use to have macro in the display also until I got tangs, fwiw..

Did you have a problem when you stopped?

 

[Jocko]

I was trying vinegar but my peristaltic pump had to run so much longer. Vodka is 8 times the amount of carbon per volume. I cannot imagine doing vodka dosing by hand, so I really hope you have a controller and some sort of dosing pump.

If you want to get confused even more, here's an interesting read: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2011/3/aafeature

 

[Takara]

I didnt see any problems at the time. I did it all by hand, so I reversed my dosing schedule back down. But before I stopped, I started the biopellets and did both for a week i believe.

 

[lisa foster]

I was trying vinegar but my peristaltic pump had to run so much longer. Vodka is 8 times the amount of carbon per volume. I cannot imagine doing vodka dosing by hand, so I really hope you have a controller and some sort of dosing pump.

If you want to get confused even more, here's an interesting read: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2011/3/aafeature

I figure I will get a dosing pump in a few weeks my dose is .4 ml the first three days and slowly climbs from there. I am aout 1/2 way through the article it does make the head spin a bit.

 

[Arthur1]

lisa, to answer your question if you suddenly stop your carbon dosing you can have a bacterial die off which is why you would want to wean off of dosing. FWIW vinegar dosing seems to allow a little more leeway when dosing than does vodka. I'll be vinegar dosing a FOWLR aquarium starting sometime this week @15 mLs per 100 gallons nitrates hover around .14-.17 on the hannah PO4 checker and the nitrates around 3ppm. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[dcforester1]

I use to vodka dose, and loved the results, I hear you can over-do it easily, but I guess I was luck. I switched over to pellets, and it just isn't the same results. With vodka I never had to clean the glass, with the pellets I still have a little cyano, and the glass needs to be cleaned day.


I use to have macro in the display also until I got tangs, fwiw..

I am having the same results with pellets. I am constantly cleaning the glass. I was thinking of dosing vodka, but have been holding off. My tank has had alot of issues the last couple months so I dont want to add to it.

 

[lisa foster]

I figured I have about 100 gallon maybe less with the rock. I started dosing .4 ml 2 days ago. I am going to see ghow it goes. I seemed to have a million little air bubbles yesterday that were floating through the water as the hermits were scavengering the sand and they were all ovet the rocks. I aded extra flow no of my fish seem to be bothered.

 

[ljr]

I have about 325 gallons and dose a shot glass of vodka every day. I definitely notice it if I miss a couple days, but I have gone as much as three days without dosing without any issue.

I need to get a dosing pump so I do not need to remember every day!

 

[frank180reef]

what do you notice if u miss a few days of dosing?

 

[ljr]

I do notice my Cyno picking up in the lower flow areas, but that is about it.

 

[Jocko]

lisa, to answer your question if you suddenly stop your carbon dosing you can have a bacterial die off which is why you would want to wean off of dosing. FWIW vinegar dosing seems to allow a little more leeway when dosing than does vodka. I'll be vinegar dosing a FOWLR aquarium starting sometime this week @15 mLs per 100 gallons nitrates hover around .14-.17 on the hannah PO4 checker and the nitrates around 3ppm. I'll let you know how it goes.

Yeah that is what I would think too, but if you look at that link I posted it seems things might not be so simple on the surface in terms of what the sustained bacterial population in our tanks ends up at once the carbon dosing regiment is in full swing. It seems to imply the population will level out once carbon is no longer the limiting factor for growth. In addition, a large amount of bacteria is supposed to be removed via skimming. That said, I'm not about to go cold turkey and see what happens. Heh.

 

[lisa foster]

I was thinking worst case you ended up in the hospital etc.. I don't trust that my husband would remember to keep up.

 

[JohnK]

Dosing pump on a controller (or $20 digital timer). I never miss a vinegar dose

 

[mchartier]

I've been dosing vodka for about 3 months now. I manually dose because it is such a small amount I don't think I would trust a timer or even my ReefKeeper to keep it at the proper dose by doing timed intervals. Vinegar on the other hand is a larger dose than vodka so it may be better if you are looking at automating it. I like manually dosing the vodka cause I know I have to look at the sump everyday (actually twice I split my doses) so I can check other things like my ATO. I do automate my Alk and Cal with dosing pumps controlled by my RK.

 

[frank180reef]

I've been dosing vodka for about 3 months now. I manually dose because it is such a small amount I don't think I would trust a timer or even my ReefKeeper to keep it at the proper dose by doing timed intervals. Vinegar on the other hand is a larger dose than vodka so it may be better if you are looking at automating it. I like manually dosing the vodka cause I know I have to look at the sump everyday (actually twice I split my doses) so I can check other things like my ATO. I do automate my Alk and Cal with dosing pumps controlled by my RK.

I likely asked this, but what is ur water volume and how much of each do you dose?

 

[newenglandreef]

I started dosing about a week ago--since raising my dose to about .13 ml (110 total volume) two days ago, my water is crystal clear. It's like there's no water in the tank at all.

 

[lisa foster]

I hit day 7 so I pushed the dose to 1.3ml it seems pretty easy to dose manual I can see how dosing vinegar could be tedious. I had read to bump up slowly .5ml every week after the first week. My nitrates see the same somehwere between 10- 20 hard to tell the difference between the colors on some of the charts. At least they have not risen. Hopefully maybe a small change at the end of the week. One thing that has changed is my rbta is 4x its normal size and my lps seem to swell up alot more.

 

[lisa foster]

Also I am cleaning the front glass I do have a reddish tinge to the sand now hopefully that will go away.

 

[Jocko]

Dosing pump on a controller (or $20 digital timer). I never miss a vinegar dose

At least not until your dosing pump breaks. For the record, I am in the same situation at the moment. I need to come up with a backup plan.