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Is it true? Vodka will reduce nitrates?


vanz

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Read this on another site

 

"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."

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Its part of a bacteria driven control system, honestly if you are considering it... Don't. It was used in Europe for a while and after experimenting they came up with the Zeovit and prodibio systems as an alternative that was much safer. If you want a bacteria driven system look to Joel at Waves regarding his Prodibio.. and all these systems are geared towards SPS systems other than Prodibio that is claim to be mixed reef safe...

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I've tried it and was pretty happy with it, I wouldn't suggest it as I hear it can get kinda out of hand, but I only added about a teaspoon to a 60 gallon tank, and it cleared up my brown slime algae and oddly enough all the macro algaes on the rocks dissapeared within a week

 

now just imagine Mary Poppins dancing around your MH pendants

a teaspoon of sugar helps the brown algae dissapear

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I did have a few sps in the tank, they didn't seem bothered at all

nothing really bad happened in the tank at all, just the macro algaes (chaeto and caulerpa) all just disolved and where gone in a week or two, growth on my zoas slowed for a week too, but the growth rate increased quickly after. So I assume it was just from the short term change in water chemistry. The sugar disolves quickly into the water, and is used very quickly by the bacteria, it kind of gives the bacteria a little kick start to get ahead of the algaes, but its important that its only a little kick start to get thing started in that direction, otherwise the sugar can cause all kinds of issues

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I think Brandon(reefgeek) did something with sugar didn't he?

You are correct. I would not recommend this as something to always reduce nitrites...there was a huge discussion that was on RC about this, that I participated in (before I was banned)...It did reduce my nitrites and ammonia...but I simply did this to help cycle the tank further and get that process over with...Do i think this could work, yes, but I think it takes to much work to find the proper amount for you tank. Like someone else said, it can cause algae out breaks, ph issues, also it takes out the alot of the oxygen out of the water and that can kill alot of stuff in the tank.

 

The way I look at it...if you have proper husbandry, you will not need this...a skimmer, LR, good water flow, and water volume compared to bio-load and you are set.

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