1 Mole of Sodium Nitrate Solution

StikHedRon · May 8, 2014

Alright, so I created a post about controllably raising nitrates. How do I go about creating a standard solution of ro water and sodium nitrate so that I can manually dose in my tank? So I'm needing to know how many grams of sodium Nitrate do I need to add to 1 liter of water? Please explain if possible. Then can someone please explain how many ml of this solution would be required to raise 120 gal of water by 1ppm of Nitrate?

cdness · May 8, 2014

Following along here...

Reefing Madness · May 8, 2014

Myself, I'd just overfeed the fish for a week. It'll come right up.
But anyways, here. VIA BOOMER
Math wise it goes like this.

NaNO₃

Na molecular weight (MW) = 22.990, all these can be found on any Periodic Table

N = 14.007

O = 15.999 and there are three of them O₃ = 47.997

Now add then up

22.990 + 14.007 + 47.997 = 84.994 grams

NO₃ makes up 14.007 + 47.997 = 62.004

62.004 / 84.994 = 72.95 %

72.95% x 84.994 = 62 grams = 62,000 mg or ppm

So, you take 1,000 ml of RO/DI water as each ml weighs 1gram.

Thus, 1,000 - 62 = 938

So, if you added 62 grams to 938 ml of RO/DI water, you will have 62,000 ppm NO3 in that solution. If you added all of that solution to say 1000 l ~ (265gal) the NO₃ would be 62,000 / 1000 = 62 ppm NO₃.

rock_lobster · May 8, 2014

8.5mL of your solution would be required to raise the ppm by 1.

85 gNaNO3/mol

62.004 gNO3/mol

1 ppm = 1 μg X/ g solution

120g = 528,586.056grams

.53grams of nitrate per 120 gallons

StikHedRon · May 8, 2014

So to dumb this down as I'm lost on this. I need 62 grams of sodium Nitrate add this to 1liter of Ro water, and dosing 8.5ml should raise the nitrates by 1ppm?

rock_lobster · May 8, 2014

No you need to add 85 grams of sodium nitrate to 1 liter of solution then take 8.5 mL of that solution and dose it in the tank. Shake well, you can test the water before and after. your readings will not be exactly 1ppm because the nitrate will be immediately taken up by the bioload or bound to other substances. It may even read 0 right after adding it to the tank.

redfishbluefish · May 8, 2014

Reefing Madness said:
...........

So, if you added 62 grams to 938 ml of RO/DI water, you will have 62,000 ppm NO3 in that solution. .........

One oh so minor correction....which for your purpose really doesn't matter, but for the chemistry purists it does........it is 85 grams made up to one liter of RO/DI water (using a volumetric flask.) Don't want to get overly technical, but close-order packing would require slightly more than 938 mls (or 915 mls) of water.

rock_lobster · May 8, 2014

redfishbluefish said:
One oh so minor correction....which for your purpose really doesn't matter, but for the chemistry purists it does........it is 85 grams made up to one liter of RO/DI water (using a volumetric flask.) Don't want to get overly technical, but close-order packing would require slightly more than 938 mls (or 915 mls) of water.

If you are a chemist and need this to be more exact you would: dissolve 85 grams of sodium nitrate in enough RODI water to produce exactly 1 volumetric liter of solution. The partial molar volume of sodium nitrate is not easily found and the density cannot be used because it is irrelevant in solution.

rock_lobster · May 8, 2014

Just curious, what is your reason for dosing nitrates? I think it would be more beneficial to dose some organic mixture and monitor your nitrates unless you are trying to grow macro algae, in which case you would also need to dose phosphates.

mcarroll · May 8, 2014

rock_lobster said:
Just curious, what is your reason for dosing nitrates? I think it would be more beneficial to dose some organic mixture and monitor your nitrates unless you are trying to grow macro algae, in which case you would also need to dose phosphates.

I think it goes back to the Redfield Ratio...something else I don't yet know enough about. Lol.

-Matt

StikHedRon · May 8, 2014

rock_lobster said:
Just curious, what is your reason for dosing nitrates? I think it would be more beneficial to dose some organic mixture and monitor your nitrates unless you are trying to grow macro algae, in which case you would also need to dose phosphates.

My reasoning behind this is..... to try and get a more rich color out of my sps. I have always had 0 nitrates according to my test kits, and I keep my po4 pretty low at .01-02. I used to run a refugium but I got on this kick that I want to have control of the levels of my tank and not rely on natural bacteria, macro and my skimmer to control it. So I began carbon dosing which is fine and I will continue to carbon dose. A few of my sps have always been a bit pale and I've seen some amazing tanks running with upto 10ppm of nitrate. I could never get my nitrates up naturally so.... why not dose it to get them up. My plan is to raise the tank to 1ppm and keep it there for 3 weeks and see if I see a change, if not.... go to 2ppm and keep this up until I find that sweet spot if there is one. I will have to monitor my tank and inhabitants very closely as if something gets outta whack I can abandoned it right away. I don't know if this will work or give me the results that I'm looking for but hey why not give it a shot. All I do is have time on my hands watching this tank grow. Might as well give it the best opportunity for success.

StikHedRon · May 8, 2014

OH and thanks everyone for providing me the needed information to complete this. I really do appreciate it!

howaboutme · May 8, 2014

mcarroll said:
I think it goes back to the Redfield Ratio...something else I don't yet know enough about. Lol.

-Matt

Dosing nitrate based on the Redfield ratio is to reduce po4. It's another reason, not the op's reason as stated above.

rock_lobster · May 11, 2014

ronhaskovec said:
My reasoning behind this is..... to try and get a more rich color out of my sps. I have always had 0 nitrates according to my test kits, and I keep my po4 pretty low at .01-02. I used to run a refugium but I got on this kick that I want to have control of the levels of my tank and not rely on natural bacteria, macro and my skimmer to control it. So I began carbon dosing which is fine and I will continue to carbon dose. A few of my sps have always been a bit pale and I've seen some amazing tanks running with upto 10ppm of nitrate. I could never get my nitrates up naturally so.... why not dose it to get them up. My plan is to raise the tank to 1ppm and keep it there for 3 weeks and see if I see a change, if not.... go to 2ppm and keep this up until I find that sweet spot if there is one. I will have to monitor my tank and inhabitants very closely as if something gets outta whack I can abandoned it right away. I don't know if this will work or give me the results that I'm looking for but hey why not give it a shot. All I do is have time on my hands watching this tank grow. Might as well give it the best opportunity for success.

Ok this is an interesting theory then. I will be following this post keep us updated!

Alabamareef · May 18, 2014

following along. I'm using bio pellet reactor and my Nitrates are 0. I'm slowly turning it back, the feed line into the sump, to try to raise my nitrates to something readable. Also have some pale color that I'd like to richen up.

Jon Warner · May 18, 2014

Alabamareef said:
following along. I'm using bio pellet reactor and my Nitrates are 0. I'm slowly turning it back, the feed line into the sump, to try to raise my nitrates to something readable. Also have some pale color that I'd like to richen up.

feed

Acro · May 18, 2014

I've been toying with this idea too. I've always had zero nitrates and phosphates. Tank is at this point spotless, but have lack of color on some corals and really dark rich colors on others. Hmmmm