Anyone add sugar or vodka to their reef tank?
- Thread starter kevindub
- Start date
If you google " vodka reef tank " you'll come up with tons of discussion (often heated) and different recipes. Personally, I think there are better ways to achieve lower nitrates, again that's IMhhhhO.
found this 10 page one that got closed on another board...
http://www.3reef.com/forums/water-chemi ... 44386.html
found this 10 page one that got closed on another board...http://www.3reef.com/forums/water-chemi ... 44386.html
Basurami Ichika":1v0qlgml said:
In short, yes. Adding the C in sugar or ethanol leads to a bloom in bacteria in the water. They use up C, N, and P in the water to build cells, and they use it up in a specific ratio around 106:16:1. Skimming these bacteria out of the tank is what removes the N and P from the water. I suspect that a large number of them are caught by filter feeders and/or settle onto the substrate as well.
In some cases there are less than 16 moles of N per 1 mole of P in a tank. In this case you would need to dose C and N to get P down to zero (in the absence of filters that preferentially remove P, like Phosban). NaNO3 is fine for this purpose.
c-town":2lr2wrmp said:
I add 0.25 mL of 90% ethanol to 35 gallons of SW daily. This is roughly equivalent to 0.5 mL of 80 proof vodka per 35 g.
Delbeek and Sprung suggest 5-10 mL of vodka per 260 g per day, which roughly translates to 2-4 mL of vodka per 100 g per day.
Because you are in essence creating a controlled bacterial bloom, it is essential that you start slow. If you have a 100g tank, add 0.5 mL per day for a week and just observe and test for N and P.
seamaiden":2j9dpi15 said:
Yes
No, but vodka just happens to be the most pure of alcohols. Not much in it besides ethanol and water.
No
No. Acetic acid, sugar, etc. Virtually anything will work. I don't know why vodka seems to be what people have settled on...maybe it's because the concentration is known and universal, and it's easily accessible.
I honestly would have thought that the alcohol itself would be problematic, but in the "doses" you mention I can see that it wouldn't be.
:shock: Oh my God, that explains what went down in an old customer's tank of mine! They were a restaurant with a big saltwater tank in the entrance, and they were having problems with it after almost every happy hour. Discovered a regular (who was a little too regular) thought it would be funny to get the fish drunk, and all they got was cloudy water and dead. I figured the bloom was because of bacteria dying, and instead it very well may have been a bloom due to extra nutrients (she was a daiquiri lady). Sheesh, that must have been it.
:shock: Oh my God, that explains what went down in an old customer's tank of mine! They were a restaurant with a big saltwater tank in the entrance, and they were having problems with it after almost every happy hour. Discovered a regular (who was a little too regular) thought it would be funny to get the fish drunk, and all they got was cloudy water and dead. I figured the bloom was because of bacteria dying, and instead it very well may have been a bloom due to extra nutrients (she was a daiquiri lady). Sheesh, that must have been it.
seamaiden":28ghtwip said:
Any orgaic compound with carbon in in-complete oxidated state will work. That is, if it burns, it will fine. Alcohol, acetone, nail polish, egg white, NitQuil you name it. Just make sure it can easily dissolve in water (otherwise, gaseline will do the trick too, some scientists are doing work on micros that can break down crude oil, etc.), and won't kill off the fish/invert (otherwise, bio-degradeable liquid detergent would be a good choice). Or other undesireable consequences.
As long as there microbals in the water can break it down, is good for something.
Is is misleadind to say adding XXX can reduce nitrate. It is more accurate to think of the procedure as skimmer hacking.
Matt_":10lwewh0 said:
Yes, they tried to blame it on my upkeep, but I had fortunately made them sign a contract that was specific to their situation. I mean, how can I, an outside force with no control, be held responsible for a set-up that anyone who walked through the door had access to? I'd just assumed that the alcohol had killed off the bacteria, caused that lovely cloudy tank syndrome and that's what killed the fish. It was really frustrating because the test results weren't matching up (no readable ammonia, for instance).
- Location
- Cape Coral, Florida
Matt- what were your nitrate readings in the beginning, what did you bring the reading down to, and how long did it take? Thanks
Dawn":15l6cxp5 said:
I have the exact numbers at work (today is my Sunday) so I can get them to you if you like. My nitrate level was only at about 5.0 ppm but my phosphate level was around 0.50 ppm, much higher than the recommended level for a reef tank. The nitrate level was down to zero after either 2 or 3 days of dosing ethanol, but it did not decrease the phosphate level as much as I'd hoped, only down to around 0.25 ppm. The short version is that nitrate became the limiting nutrient, and so I began adding C (in the form of ethanol) and N (in the form of NaNO3, the equivalent of 1ppm per day) daily. This lowered my phosphate level down below 0.10 ppm, which I am happy with. It's still high for a stony coral tank, but the few stony corals I have (Duncano-, Tubastrea) are growing just fine.
Every tank will be different--some may not need to dose N at all if the P is much lower than mine was. Hope this helps.
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