There is a ton more to vodka dosing than just adding vodka. What you are doing is also called carbon dosing. Before you even attempt to carbon dose besure you are 100% familar with what is going on at a microbial level. When carbon dosing one of the requirements is a huge skimmer.
Now if this is something you are going to try in a separate container with only the live rock then that is fine to experiment with. But I would look into the after math when the rock goes back into the tank when the biological system in the separate container has severly crashed.
Yep, I've already done that. I have a reef tank that has had small doses (carefully monitored) and I've seen good results. I must stress, however, that I am not currently looking to totally eliminate water changes, just reduce them. And yes, I understand that I am ultimately dosing carbon. I know that when dosing vodka (carbon) that O2 levels drop very fast... in my reef tank, when I was dosing vodka, I also hooked up an air pump and supplied O2 to make up for what wasn't there. I most certainly appreciate your concerns and if you have any more, please make them heard here so I can address them. Yes, I may lose some organisms now, (God forbid and I haven't yet) but like I said before, vodka is cheaper than a $50.00 bucket of salt. I thank you for your concerns for my tanks and I hope you follow along. I know this is a controversial subject, and I would like everyone to know that there are alternatives to dosing vodka for the carbon content. Actually, I would very much appreciate some feedback on this. Many people(including myself) joke about "dosing vodka
" but we have something that could potentially be a great tool in our hobby, just like the algae filter thread found on this site. (Works well, btw).
Take care
Aaron