attn: vodka dosers

Wes

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#1
what's your maintenance dose, system volume, bio-load, skimmer? Just trying to get an idea of where people top out.

I'm a wimp--only doing 2mLs on a 40br. RS-80 with mesh-mod for a skimmer. ~12 small fish. pretty solid with this so far.
 

Nick_kun

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#2
My maintenance dose for my 180 is around 4ml per day. I'm also dosing MB7 at about 8 drops per day.
Tank stats:
180gal main, 40gal. sump (20gal volume used)
100lbs approx. of LR (very open aquascaping)
Bioload - 22 small fishes (damsel, chromis, cirr. wrasses, etc.) and 2 large tangs.
Corals - Mixed reef but mostly dominated with SPS.
Filtration - Reef Octopuss Xtreme 250 set on dry skim. I don't do water changes often, probably once every 2 months. If I do end up doing a water change, I usually change around 10gal and that's used to siphon out the detrius build up in the sump. I also change/add about 2cups of carbon once a month.
 
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#3
I dose about 50-60mL per day (split into two doses; one in the morning and one in the evening). I've been dosing some bac lately ("special blend" by Microbe-lift). Still on the fence about its usefulness.
115g tank... about that for total system volume, actually.
Maybe 80lbs of LR? Totally mixed reef.
34 very hungry fish (tangs, anthias, genicanthus angels, etc). The tank gets a TON of food daily.
MRC2 dual injector beckett skimmer. Carbon gets changed every 4 weeks (I'm lazy). I run ozone (~100mg/hr). Water changes have gone down now to about once every 3-4 weeks (35g).
 

jcal

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#4
For my 75g mixed, but sps dominant, currently, I dose 3ml of Vodka(started 3 months ago) and 10ml of MB7(3 weeks ago/every other day). Weaning out my fuge.

8 fish - blue, yellow, purple tang, 2 nemos, 1 maroon, six line and mandarin. Feeding Rots twice daily to corals a week after dosing vodka.

I run Carbon and phosphate, 10% water change bi-weekly, now. Use to be every week, but vodka dosing reduced it.

Water clarity is unbelievable. Color and growth is crazy. Phosphate still registers, I think my test kit sucks, but I also believe my RO water(from vending machine has a little more than TDS i want)
 

spanky

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#5
For my 90 gallon mixed reef tank with 8 fish, I dose 4ml a day using a gravity fed drip auto top off system . Auto top off system is a 2,5 gallon system that normally puts in one gallon of water per day to match out my water loss due to evaporation. I also add kalkwasser ( Mrs Lime Pickling powder) and about 10 ml of vinegar per gallon to the top off water. Still using a phosphate reactor and a small ATB cone skimmer, phosphate are at .03 and no nitrates, Be doing this for 8 months and I am happy with the results. good luck
 
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#6
I dose about 50-60mL per day (split into two doses; one in the morning and one in the evening). I've been dosing some bac lately ("special blend" by Microbe-lift). Still on the fence about its usefulness.
115g tank... about that for total system volume, actually.
Maybe 80lbs of LR? Totally mixed reef.
34 very hungry fish (tangs, anthias, genicanthus angels, etc). The tank gets a TON of food daily.
MRC2 dual injector beckett skimmer. Carbon gets changed every 4 weeks (I'm lazy). I run ozone (~100mg/hr). Water changes have gone down now to about once every 3-4 weeks (35g).
Serious? You dose 50-60mL of Vodka daily on only 115g tank? What proof vodka are you using? Thats way too much vodka, is that a typo?




Im dosing 1.5mL on my tank and ive got about 80g water volume.
 

Nick_kun

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#7
Serious? You dose 50-60mL of Vodka daily on only 115g tank? What proof vodka are you using? Thats way too much vodka, is that a typo?




Im dosing 1.5mL on my tank and ive got about 80g water volume.
I'm sure peter is serious. He does have a very heavy bioload. I think he is also using 80proof.
 
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#9
Yes I use that much :eek:. I throw the mass equivalent of 2-3 large cleaner shrimps worth of food into my tank daily. It's not too expensive. The bottom shelf gasoline stuff (as Dave Morris likes to call it :laugh: ) at the grocery store is usually on sale for arounde $10 for 1.75L. It took over a year to get to this point. I overdosed my tank with something like 6mL when I first started, so there is definitely something to be said for getting your system used to it by increasing dosage slowly over time.

Of note, I have yet to get my acros to go "pastel" and my tricolors never look really great (mostly brown bases). Not sure how much of that has to do with nutrients, and how much is light (I only run 250W 14K Phoenix on Icecaps).
 
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#11
Wow thats a lot of fish! It must be really fun to watch them.
Any FTS?
Whats your Po4/Nitrates at?
Any bad bacteria from all that vodka?
 
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#12
Why is their no difference between cheap vodka and the good stuff? The finer grade vodka is distilled more so its more pure. I guess its similar to saying do you wanna add 10 tds for your top off water or 0?
 
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#14
Yeah, friends love to watch my tank when I go on vacation. Walking in to a flutter of fish is a fun sight :)

Haven't tested my nitrates or phosphates in quite some time, so I can't really say. At this point I kind of just watch my coral colors. Oh, and so long as the skimmer waste collector continues to STINK to high heaven, I will keep dosing :)

Bad bacteria? Not that I can say.

Any possible difference in impurity between top shelf and bottom shelf vodka would be completely negligible, IMO.

I have several chalices. They do just fine, as do my many other LPS.
 
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#20
Thank you very much. I think I'm a good example of how vodka does NOT hurt LPS if done correctly. Softies, on the other hand, do not like my tank. I formerly 10"+ sinularia is now 3" :eek:
 

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