# Cool tip!



## Guest (Apr 11, 2006)

I've read this several times now, so I am finally going to accept it as truth.

Did you know that adding 1ml/20g of vodka to your water can lower Nitrates? You can also use sugar! What it does is allows your bacteria to bloom and consume all of your Nitrates, without causing an actual bloom catastrophe in your tank (if you have a decent skimmer). You may notice the next morning that your skimmer cup is full, which is for the most part excess bacteria.

Anyone have any success with this?


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## RedBelly Dom (Mar 22, 2005)

Never heard of it, whats a skimmer?


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## KrazieFishie (Feb 25, 2006)

in all my years ive never heard of this how much sugar do you use?


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## Trillion (May 10, 2004)

RedBelly Dom said:


> Never heard of it, whats a skimmer?












Damn he sounds like me when I first came here!

I'd be scard to try that method, if your brave enough to let me know your results if it works it'll make ya. if not it'll break ya!


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## Raptor (Jan 3, 2003)

You have to be very carefull with it as it can hurt your tank.
I tried it and bleached some corals. Bacteria blooms consume oxigen and could starve your tank of it if you dont have a good skimmer and a ton of surface flow.
I am not against it, But theres alot better alternates.
If your dosing kalk vinegar to dissolve more lime in the water you are already doing the same thing as adding vodka.

A skimmer is a device that removes waste from saltwater.


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## Guest (Apr 11, 2006)

Obviously I owuld not try it







But I hear it works wonders for people who have 120ppm Nitatres and cant get them lowered..etc.

Like Raptor said, there are much better alternatives, especially if you have some $$$.

Just thought I'd throw it out there tho









If you are goin to try it, do it in VERY small doses to start with.


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## Trillion (May 10, 2004)

ill keep that in mind if my nitrates ever get high

So would that be any kind of vodka?

Belvadire, absolute etc.

why not gin or any other clear alcohol?

Just curious!


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## Guest (Apr 11, 2006)

Only God (and possibly harrykaa) knows!


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## rbp 4 135 (Mar 2, 2004)

yes any vodka will do, i did some extensive reading on rc about this


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## Trillion (May 10, 2004)

cool I might need to use it one day, but I really hope not, and if I do use it ill research the hell out of it before I use it.

That's really kool info though Danny!

Kool topic!


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## nismo driver (Jan 27, 2004)

i tried this for a month, at first my levels were good and my corals started to get some nice colors but i dont think my skimmer could keep up. it was producing soo much skimmate it would push the top of the cup a few inchs above the the cup, but even with that i dont think it was keeping up.. this i belive led to an algae bllom and also may have resulted in the stn i got on the tips of some of my frags.. since then i have been running GFO replacing it every two - three weeks and reef carbon and frequently blowing the algea off of all surfaces while running a 50 micron filter pad in the sump before the fuge to catch as much debris as possible and replang those pads daily and cut back my light period to two four hour periods four hours apart. also added a dozen more snails, finally i cut feeding down to ince daily and stopped dosing everyhting but 2 part calcium. after two weeks of all of this to reduce as much nutrients as posbile most of my coral is getting back to a better state of healty appearnace and the algae growth during the light period is almost stopped.

next step to prevent this type of algae bloom again with out running the ultra low nutrient system will be to reconfigure the sump for a larger fuge and to accomidate a skimmer twice the size of what im running now. and to reconfigure the overflow and return to accomidate a stronger pump. right now i have about 35x gph turn over i would like to double that. the sklimmer im looking at is rated to 100-300 gallons and is reccomended to run a mag 7. im going to increase the sump/fuge from a 10 gallon with about 7 gallons running through it to 25 - 30 gallons. with a 13 gallon fuge and 10 gallon sump/skimmer/ return.


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## notaverage (Sep 10, 2005)

DannyBoy17 said:


> I've read this several times now, so I am finally going to accept it as truth.
> 
> Did you know that adding 1ml/20g of vodka to your water can lower Nitrates? You can also use sugar! What it does is allows your bacteria to bloom and consume all of your Nitrates, without causing an actual bloom catastrophe in your tank (if you have a decent skimmer). You may notice the next morning that your skimmer cup is full, which is for the most part excess bacteria.
> 
> Anyone have any success with this?


I assume by reading this that you use a skimmer on your P tank?

This sounds interesting, gonna have to look it up. Id rather drink the vodka!

*EDIT* 
I just realized you were talking about Salt Water tanks!
Ignore my post.


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## Coldfire (Aug 20, 2003)

Great information ND, but you do realize that this thread is over a year old, right?


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## notaverage (Sep 10, 2005)

Coldfire said:


> Great information ND, but you do realize that this thread is over a year old, right?


Hmmm I didnt!


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## Coldfire (Aug 20, 2003)

No worries, I do that all the time in the SW forum. I just wanted to make sure everyone was not waiting around for a response.


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## nismo driver (Jan 27, 2004)

yeah i figured it was old but i thought adding my experiance would enhance this thread for any one that happens across it.

the salt section isnt exactly a frenzy of activity so not much harm in bringing back the dead


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## Coldfire (Aug 20, 2003)

No worries, that is what I thought you were doing (e.g. adding your insight to the thread). I just wanted to point out the date on the thread since I have posted numerious times, and did not notice the date being old.


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## redbellyman21 (Jun 27, 2004)

nismo driver said:


> yeah i figured it was old but i thought adding my experiance would enhance this thread for any one that happens across it.
> 
> the salt section isnt exactly a frenzy of activity so not much harm in bringing back the dead


what are u talking about nismo, between you, ak coldfire and myself we brew up a storm of messages, and by the way a year old thread... nice comment about the responses coldfire thats too funny..

I think any one that has a nitrate spike is doing something wrong anyway, unless new tank, and should probally split a bottle with the tank.. one sip me one sip tank...


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