Ammonium Chloride to increase Nitrate

[DexterKarin]

Just wanted a bit of support I guess. I have had undetectable nitrate for some time now and am super nervous about the whole bottoming out nutrients and dinos phenomenon.

Quick Background: 13.5 gallon evo cycled 12/30/23. Dr Tims, Dry rock, caribsea live sand. Two clowns who 3 weeks later got ich/velvet. Removed for treatment (success) into hospital tank and evo had hermit crabs and snails and corals. Will go back in next week.

Testing: Ammonia 0 Nitrite 0 Nitrate 0 Ph 8.2, Alk varies 7-8.5, Mag 1470, Cal 500 Phosphate came down from high to last reading .07.

This is what I did. Using an ammonia calculator and reading more about Dr, Tim's ammonium chloride, I put .4 ml in the tank and got readings of 0.5 ppm ammonia last night. This morning, ammonia is 0, nitrite 0.05 and nitrate detectable somewhere between 0-1, probably close to 0. (Using red sea tests).

Plan is to put in .2 ml ammonia chloride in AM and PM until nitrate is clearly 1-2 and until fish go back in which now are two small clowns.

Does that sounds reasonable?

Thank you for any thoughts.

 

[Spare time]

DIY Ammonia dosing for low nitrate systems

Some reef aquaria have chronic low nitrogen availability. One indicator is very low nitrate. Nitrate dosing is a fine remedy, but it is possible that ammonia dosing may be more beneficial for some organisms since ammonia can be energetically easier to assimilate than is nitrate. For this...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I'd personally buy food grade ammonium chloride or ammonium bicarbonate. Dr Tim's does not have a purity guarantee that I am aware of, and is not intended for dosing forever in a reef tank, so may only be deemed suitably pure for its intended purpose.