up to 4ml a day now. and yes it makes skimmer pull out stinky stuff like crazy

I don't understand ml. Put that in terms of shots per gallon.

Jeff I am currently sugar dosing to lower trates. I did not have very high trates to begin with but I had about 10ppm after two weeks I am down to about 5 and still going down. I use just a pinch of sugar daily. I started with about 20 grains of sugar and I am up to a pinch between my thumb and index finger (I can still feel my fingers around the sugar) did that make sense? I would guess its about a 16th of a teaspoon daily. This is on a 75 gal w/ 30 gal fuge and my SPS just love it. My stylophora polyps extend so far sometimes I think they are going to fall over just from the weight of the polyps.

I hate to waste good vodka on my fish;)

Any good reference material on Sugar dosing? Sounded very interesting.
Troy

I read alot about it in the chemistry forum over at reef central. It really seems that like the amount of vodka/sugar each tank is different. Doses that work for one person may not work for another. It is very easy to overdose also and cause a bacterial bloom it can also cause a crash. Be very careful and start slow if you are going to try it.

Disclaimer I am probably going to stop dosing soon and see how the tank reacts(polyp ext, trate readings) to determine if it is actually the sugar causing these effects.

I'll provide all the information I have for others to look at and decide for themselves. I currently do not dose anything other than water. I add top off water and do a weekly 5 gallon water change. I use Oceanic salt so I don't need to dose ca and mag yet.

2-28-08 6:00 PM
PH: 8.0
NH3(ammonia): < less than .25 not quite 0 but much less than lowest reading
NO3: 10.0
NO2: <.05 see ammonia
PO4: <.1 see ammonia
ALK: 2.8
CA: 500 PPM
Mag: 1280 PPM
temp: 81
SG 1.0245

Started sugar dosing with a few granules of sugar, increased daily slightly.

3-7-08 6:30 PM
PH: 8.1
NH3: <.25 see above
NO3: 5.0 > 10.0
NO2: <.05 see above
PO4: < .1 see above
Alk: 2.2 decided I did not like test kit bought new API for KH
KH: 10
CA: 450
MAG: 1300
Temp: 82
SG: 1.026

Maintained dosing for a week did not increase dose except maybe accidently by a few grains of sugar.

3-14-08 7:00 PM
PH: 8.2
NH3: <.25 see above
NO3: < 5 see above
PO4: <.1 see above
KH: 12
CA: 450
MAG: 1300
Temp: 82
SG: 1.026

Ok as for how the corals reacted:

As I previously stated the stylophora loves the dosing
Pink birdsnest ORA alot more Polyp ext but has faded slightly
Green Milli ORA more polyp ext and has maintained color
Rose Milli ORA More Polyp ext turned brownish
Blue Tort ORA accidental frag (when dosing started) both have good polyp ext now is good, color is good
Red Gorgonian white polyp better polyp ext when it opens not slimed over anymore.
Several corals I have not listed because they were not in good shape when I got them but I wanted to rescue them. Some look like they are coming back, but I did lose a few, but none of those would be good to look at since they were sickly to start.

I have some LPS but they are all doing well. I did lose two but they had no hope when I started, but I think one might have fooled me and is coming back slowly now (a neon green plate).

Anyways thats how my tank has reacted to sugar dosing over the last two weeks. I wish I had some pictures to support my findings, but I don't do many pictures. Hope this helps someone even if its only a little. I have no softies except the small kenya tree in my fuge that I bought at auction sat night. I have read that softies do not react well to sugar dosing. They like dirtier water is my understanding.

in ref to sugar, I had read about that but only got bits and pieces on different web pages. I had nitrates over 200. I knew I had to do somthing, water changes didn't cut it. So, (scared to death) I mixed 1teaspoon of sugar with 1gallon of tank water(from my 90gal) and did a slow drip overnight(skimmer off). I retested my water the following night and nitrates were at 100. waited 1 day and retested and the same, nitrates 100. No change in corals or fish. repeated the drip again cut the nitrates in half. Waited 2 days and retested, nitrates at 50. Still no problems in the reef. Waited 1 day and redosed, following day retested, nitrates @0! Turned skimmer on and let it do it's job. 2 days later tested,nitrates 0. This was about 6 months ago. No problems and no loss. Scared me thinking I could kill my whole tank. But, it worked great! Yes, I would do it again. Although now I am running a homemade denitrater. Just my 2cents worth, can I get some change back? I will be setting up the nano wave9 on Tuesday, that my girl Susan won at the raffle. Sorry I got to babbling, Pat

Marco's been dosing our tanks with Vodka for the last two weeks...I had a massive green, red and brown slime outbreak when I added the 6045 to my tank, it is finally starting to go away and my tank looks alot better. My skimmer though has been working overtime with the vodka in the system...right now I have a 3 inch foam head on the outside of the collection cup, and boy oh boy does it stink. We don't test our tanks for anything, so not sure what our nitrates were at....but they could not have been good...i beleive it is like 1 cc to every 50 gallons...and you can use the cheap stuff...we use stolichnya (spelling)

I use Mcormicks. it was $4.99 a pint, and quadru[pal distilled.

I haven't started dosing vodka yet, but was very interested to hear Julian Sprung talk about it at the meeting. He also discusses it in his book (I have vol 3). My understanding is that it doesn't actually make the skimmer work better. You need a good skimmer already to even contemplate dosing vodka or sugar. What it does is provide organic carbon to the tank, which feeds lots of things, including bacteria, slime, and algae. So there may be a bloom of these unwanted organisms, which the aggressive skimming cleans out. Blooming algae and bacteria utilize nitrates in addition to the carbon, so when you skim it out you remove those nitrates. So adding organic carbon both feeds the tank and indirectly (with skimming) removes nitrates. I assume it is similar to using vinegar with your Kalk, which provides organic carbon in the form of acetate, and may also cause an algae bloom.
It's all very interesting to me, and I am still trying to decide if I need to dose exogenous carbon; my nitrates hover around zero as it is, using live rock, a remote deep sand bed, macroalgae refugium, and two large coil denitators.
BTW, it was great meeting everyone at the SWFMAS meeting. Hope to do it again next year!
Jay Herbst

PS: Marco and Jeff, I forgot to pick up my frozen-food-raffle-prize. You can go ahead and keep it and use it in your tank(s).

There is a very long thread or 2 at RC. I started Jan 29th- 160 gal, figure 120 gal. of water. started with .5 ml and worked up to 4 ml at present. I measure with the test tubes that have the incremental markings. Nitrates were 20, down to about 10 or so. I increased this VERY slowly. I talked to J. Sprung at the open house- he didn't think 20 for nitrates was a big deal, and thought I should stay with the amt. I was using..

When I talked to Morgan (Reef Gardener), she said her nitrates were 50.

mine are between 50-100 ... probably why i woke up to some albino corals this morning. ::sucks::

Just a thought. If you add vodka it will evaprorate right? that would be why you would add it daily. but sugar would continue to build right? or is it "consumed" by the tank or skimed out?

As far as I understand - it is a carbon source for the bacteria, they consume it, and turn waste into ... well .. other waste.

Well, I've dosed two days with 15 ml (500 gallon system). Nothing the first day. Today is the second day and my skimmer cups have a very nice "head" on them. Better than before.

I started with 9-10ml ... am now up to 15ml after about 2 weeks.

My nitrates jumped up to 100-200 ppm over the past 2 days, but i do NOT know how they have been progressing before & after.

I will be starting up a sulfur de-nitrified here pretty soon.

--marco