Thanks Ian. Equilizer i suggest that you dont bring your nitrates down to zero in a freshwatertank as your plants will need some nitrite to live off.I personally only use vodka to bring my nitrates to a exeptable level and you should still do your waterchange.I used to be in discus and ciclhlids and know that the hairalgea can drive you up the wall but if you keep your n03 at about 10 ppm the hairalgea should die off.I use to run a sulpherbead reactor on my freshwater tank to keep my nitrates down would work ok but cant say about vodka except that you can run the schuran on fresh or saltwater