Vodka

I am also doing the vodka dosing. With the slow step ups. So far i am on the 3rd week and my water looks more clear and my nitrates are slowly coming down from ~80ppm to between 80-40ppm. Its easy to dose with a dropper in my 90 and the small bottle of vodka i bought was 13 bucks.

 

I dosed vodka/sugar/vinegar and I got a huge cyno outbreak. I'm thinking of going the biopelet route.

 

Keep in mind... Vodka or any soluble Carbon dosing creates a temporary condition of a bacterial overload that crashes as a function of how it works. You add Vodka to your tank and populations explode, consuming nutrients... but at that point there isn't enough bio-load (available nutrients) for those new populations to sustain themsleves. So you end up having population explosion/crash cycles every time you add the C source.

Using a Solid organic Carbon source like ecoBAK ensures stable and consistent bacterial populations because the Carbon source is only consumed as nutrients in the system allow.

Solid organic Carbon dosing is auto-pilot for Carbon dosing.

This would be a good choice. When you dose a soluble Carbon source directly in the system, the "food source" will be carried by the waterstream to your rocks, substrate, glass walls and anything inside the display tank. Solid Carbon Dosing serves as a food source AND substrate for the bacteria and is contained inside a reactor, keeping the soluble "food source" out of your display.