Saturday 7 April 2012

Dosing Vodka to reduce NO3 and PO4 in Saltwater Aquarium

vodka dosing
I won’t go deep into the scientific area of this. I’ll leave this to others who are more comfortable with this topic. To make a long story short, the goal of dosing Vodka is to provide an organic carbon source to grow bacteria in order to consume phosphates and nitrates. Bacteria are then exported via the protein skimmer and so are the nutrient that it consumed. The idea here is to reduce Nitrate and Phosphate to create a better environment for the fish and invertebrates and reduce the chances of an algae outbreak.
Even though there is scientific literature to back up the idea, this dosing method was achieved trough experimentation and observation. Many fellow aquarist shared their results and observation on forums to finally come up with recommended dosing rates (see: ReefCentral.com, Nano-Reef.com). In general, users note a dramatic decrease in nitrate and phosphate molecules, while others note increased coral coloration and clearer water.
Note: This method should do well for systems that do not effectively remove NO3 and PO4. Systems with very low levels of NO3 and PO4 may not benefit to any great extent by dosing carbon.

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