| 18 October 2009
CAVEAT and DISCLAIMER
This article discusses an advanced Aquarium/Reefkeeping topic. Please take extreme care on attempting any such dosing regimen on your setup; and do lots of preliminary research before embarking on any such experiment on your tank. It is extremely easy to overdose or cause a ‘bloom’ which may starve your inhabitants of oxygen. You have been warned! The author assumes no liability or responsibility for any damage that may occur to your setup by following the regimen in this article.
Vodka Dosing: whilst aiming at Zero Parts Per Million for Ammonium, Nitrite and Nitrates
My tank has long suffered with measurable levels of Ammomia, Nitrite and Nitrates. No amount of cutting back on feeding, water changes, or skimming were helping. I did some research and found a possible solution in the form of Vodka Dosing. Vodka is essentially raw carbon, and by introducing it to the tank, it feeds bacteria, which bloom, which then attacks the residual by products in the tank, yes, you guessed it, the Ammonia, Nitrites and Nitrates!
I began the experiment on the 1st of September 2009, and by 16th of October 2009 my tank is showing Zero parts per million across all 3 contaminants whilst maintaining a high level of feeding and an overstocked tank!
Tank Setup
My tank is an undrilled 55 Gallon standard display tank, with an overflow box, which drops into a custom dual wet-sump. My total water volume is around 62 gallons. I use a live rock filtration process, supported by diurnal lighting in the sump (on at night, off during the day) so a section of the tank is always lit, and producing oxygen. I run a chiller on the tank, and the temperate is always in the 79-81 degrees range.
Live Stock and Critters
- 1 Blue “Hippo” Tang, nice and fat, about 5 inches long
- 1 midsized Yellow Tang (3”)
- 2 Lyre-Tail Anthias – mid sized at 3”
- 1 Coral Beauty – fully grown at 4”
- 1 Fiji Blue Devil – large for a blue devil at 2”
- 1 Goby – mid sized
- 1 Pistol Shrimp – 3”
- 2 Clowns (2”) and a very fat (10” across) Bubble Tipped Anemone
- 4 Pajama Cardinals – pretty good size for Cardinals
- 2 Flower Pot Corals
- 1 SPS Acro
- 6 Candy Cane Corals
- 1 Shroom
- 4 Button Polyp Corals
- 1 Green Nepthea
- 2 Assorted Soft Corals
- 4 Leather/Cabbage Corals
- 1 Frogspawn Coral
- A lot of live rock
As you can tell from this list, there is a lot of livestock in this 55 gallon tank! I run a Marineland skimmer rated at 150 Gallons, and cycle 950 gallons per hour through the sump. I also run a large (4 gallon) external canister filter (mainly mechanical filtration and Activated Carbon tiers)
Lighting is 48” 4 bulb T5 unit, at 4 x 65watts. I use a small 1 watt actinic night light so the Cardinals can hunt at night.
The Dosing Regime
The dosing regime started at 0.1 ml (1 tenth of one cubic centimeter) per 25 Gallons. So my starting dose was tiny, at 0.26 ml. I applied this dose using a small syringe each morning for the first 3 mornings.
On days 4 through 7 I upped the dose to 0.2ml per 25 gallons; giving me a dose of 0.52 ml per morning.
Week 2 saw the dose increase from 0.52 ml to 1.0 ml until day 14
Then for each subsequent week I added 0.5ml extra until I saw the NO3 (Nitrate) levels start to drop. Then I immediately halved the daily dose. If the NO3 levels returned, I would return to previous dose. I never actually managed to get beyond 3.0 ml per day. This appears to be just the number for my tank to keep levels undetectable despite feeding my fish 3 x a day! (I have to; the Anthias don’t thrive without regular feeding!)
The Results - Nitrate Graph
I opted to show results in Nitrate form, as they are the final byproduct of the breakdown of Ammonia, via Nitrites into Nitrate.
You can see in the following Nitrite graph that as soon as I started dosing the levels began dropping immediately. I can only assume that the lag in Nitrate consumption was slower, because more of it was locked up in the biological processes inside live-rock, and took a while to leach out.
Nitrite Graph
The period for both graphs is from 1st of September 2009 to 16th October 2009. Scales are in Parts Per Million.
Conclusion
I am delighted by the application of tiny doses of Vodka to my setup. I now have a full mixed-reef tank, which is heavily fed, and do not have to worry about contaminants overloading the system. For me, the Vodka dosing regime has worked! I now feed my fish and corals 4 or 5 times a day, sometimes, especially when point feeding corals I use as much as 3 cubes (equivalent) and never have a spike in ammonia to worry about!
I also noticed my skimmer started producing a really foul-smelling “Hydrogen Sulphide” stink, just like the stink-bombs nasty kids you to let off at school! A dark coffee colored concoction obviously produced by the bacteria in the tank and their reaction to dealing with the carbon source, and then attacking the biological waste from the inhabitants! The tank is also crystal clear, and I’m now cleaning the glass once a week; where I used to clean it at least once a day, sometimes more often!
I did get short lived blooms of cyano, hair-algae, white, green and brown at times. These were quickly dealt with by manual siphoning out when doing water changes if it was a heavy matting, and they never came back. Most of the time I just ignored the outbreaks as I knew they wouldn’t be kept going as their nutrient source dried up. If you follow a similar vodka dosing regimen you’ll notice your tank going through ‘mini-cycles’ as the bacterial population starts to thrive. The background nutrient levels in your tank at any given moment in time will dictate the types of ‘blooms’ you will get. I never worried about it, and just kept up the routine, and nothing ever hung around for long enough to worry me. My Tangs especially enjoyed some of the blooms, and had good fat stomachs for a few days at a time! The fish ‘poop’ in the tank seems to disappear overnight now, and my corals are thriving and growing quickly.
Oh, what brand of Carbon Source I hear you asking? - Smirnoff, only the best for my critters! :-) 40% alcohol by volume. 3ml for them, a chaser for me!
