Bad experiences with nitrate and/or phosphate dosing

[HBL]

Great thanks for sharing, I've heard similar stories of folks having issues with stump remover but not lab grade stuff, makes sense. Sure it could be fine, but it might not.....

Btw, just trying to help, if it is 16% more potent you would actually multiply the potassium nitrate dose by 84% to get the equivalent, not add an additional 16% (to something that is already stronger).

Obviously it's working for you but I just wanted to make sure you knew that.

So, the calculator link i posted only have the option to chose potassium nitrate and not sodium nitrate. I have 113 grams in sodium nitrate and it is 16% more potent than potassium nitrate. I needed to convert the 113 grams of sodium nitrate to the equivalent of potassium nitrate to input to the calculator. Is my math not correct here?

 

[BigJohnny]

So, the calculator link i posted only have the option to chose potassium nitrate and not sodium nitrate. I have 113 grams in sodium nitrate and it is 16% more potent than potassium nitrate. I needed to convert the 113 grams of sodium nitrate to the equivalent of potassium nitrate to input to the calculator. Is my math not correct here?

Oh if your doing it that way then yes that's correct. I thought you were calculating your potassium nitrate dose using the calculator then adding 16% to the potassium nitrate dose to get your sodium nitrate dose.

 

[BigJohnny]

Hopefully more folks will share their bad experiences!

I tried nitrate dosing 3 years ago on an immature understocked tank. My goal was to improve growth rates and coloration. I dosed 1ppm equivalent of potassium nitrate from green leaf aquariums every day for 1 week and had 50% rtn of my acro frags. I think the nutrient levels or bacterial populations fluctuated too much too quickly which stressed the corals, which were already not happy from being in a nutrient poor environment. I believe it failed because i had low phosphate and the tank was immature and therefore had unstable bacterial populations. Thats my theory at least.

I ended up adding more fish to that tank and saw immediate improvement and the results I had been looking for previously. I have not tried it again since but I've been toying with the idea after losing 4 fish in a row in QT while my system has been begging for fish poop. My current tank is more mature and has decent phosphate levels but low nitrate, so I believe it's a good candidate. Having said that I am pretty gun shy as you can imagine. If I do it I will take it more slowly and monitor phosphate levels closely as well.

@bubbaque
@Abhishek

Correct me if I'm wrong but haven't both of you tried nitrate dosing and either a) had a bad experience or b) didnt see the results you were shooting for? Please share if so

Thanks!

 

[Sallstrom]

Hopefully more folks will share their bad experiences!

I tried nitrate dosing 3 years ago on an immature understocked tank. My goal was to improve growth rates and coloration. I dosed 1ppm equivalent of potassium nitrate from green leaf aquariums every day for 1 week and had 50% rtn of my acro frags. I think the nutrient levels or bacterial populations fluctuated too much too quickly which stressed the corals, which were already not happy from being in a nutrient poor environment. I believe it failed because i had low phosphate and the tank was immature and therefore had unstable bacterial populations. Thats my theory at least.

I ended up adding more fish to that tank and saw immediate improvement and the results I had been looking for previously. I have not tried it again since but I've been toying with the idea after losing 4 fish in a row in QT while my system has been begging for fish poop. My current tank is more mature and has decent phosphate levels but low nitrate, so I believe it's a good candidate. Having said that I am pretty gun shy as you can imagine. If I do it I will take it more slowly and monitor phosphate levels closely as well.

@bubbaque
@Abhishek

Correct me if I'm wrong but haven't both of you tried nitrate dosing and either a) had a bad experience or b) didnt see the results you were shooting for? Please share if so

Thanks!

I can see that inpurities in addetives for nitrate and phosphate can be really bad for the livestock in a tank. But nitrate and phosphate in itself won't harm anything if you don't overdose or dose one of them and forget the other(like adding nitrate and a carbon source, but get 0 phosphate).

My only bad experience was just that, adding KNO3 and got too low phosphate instead. Pale corals mostly, but it turned quite easy when started to add KH2PO4.

/ David

 

[tomte25]

I started dosing both a couple of months ago to solve a dinos issue that nothing else was helping. The dosing got rid of the dinos. I saw coral coloration improvement in my acro and torches. The torches’ polyp extension haven’t liked my frequency of dosing sometimes though. I’ve been dosing once or twice a week so levels fluctuate more than they like I think. I may try dosing more frequently to level off the readings a little bit or get more fish for my tank. I’ve been using the stump remover and Flourish. Thanks for the impurities post, if I continue I’ll be looking for the lab grade stuff instead of the stump remover even though I haven’t seen problems with my bottle.

 

[tomte25]

Btw, I also removed about half my sand when fighting the dinos mostly in the front of my DT. That may have contributed as well in ridding the tank of dinos.

 

[PaulK]

I tried dosing sodium nitrate for a few months. I got immediate color improvement from the SPS and better polyp extension from LPS. But I also got cyano—lots of it—on the sand bed. It didn’t go away, so I decided to stop dosing nitrate for a while. That took care of it.

 

[siggy]

Great subject. This seems to be the new norm with Fuge based systems. Following

My P&N crashed and acros paled, I piled on the food cubes and oyster-feast shut down the fuge and P skyrocked but still no N started dosing Brightwells NeoNitro in topoff but is still very low @2 and p is still @.5-6

 

[BigJohnny]

I can see that inpurities in addetives for nitrate and phosphate can be really bad for the livestock in a tank. But nitrate and phosphate in itself won't harm anything if you don't overdose or dose one of them and forget the other(like adding nitrate and a carbon source, but get 0 phosphate).

My only bad experience was just that, adding KNO3 and got too low phosphate instead. Pale corals mostly, but it turned quite easy when started to add KH2PO4.

/ David

Thanks David, your aquariums are spectacular so people can learn a lot from you. I agree that most issues people run into are related to those two things, impurities and phosphate dropping.

 

[BigJohnny]

I started dosing both a couple of months ago to solve a dinos issue that nothing else was helping. The dosing got rid of the dinos. I saw coral coloration improvement in my acro and torches. The torches’ polyp extension haven’t liked my frequency of dosing sometimes though. I’ve been dosing once or twice a week so levels fluctuate more than they like I think. I may try dosing more frequently to level off the readings a little bit or get more fish for my tank. I’ve been using the stump remover and Flourish. Thanks for the impurities post, if I continue I’ll be looking for the lab grade stuff instead of the stump remover even though I haven’t seen problems with my bottle.

Thanks for sharing. Here's a food source for lab grade sodium nitrate if you live in continental US:

Lab Grade Sodium Nitrate, 500g for sale. Buy from The Science Company.
https://www.sciencecompany.com/Sodium-Nitrate-500g-P16240.aspx

 

[LoneStarReef]

Reason for dosing was dinos due to bottoming out PO4 with NO3 already at zero.

1. Yes, took about 8 weeks of dosing but my dino problem resolved.

2. did not see any deleterious effects, stopped dosing and levels have stayed stable at NO3 4-5, PO4 0.06-0.08

3. I used lab grade NaNO3, tbs in 200 cc of RO/DI water and dosed as needed to keep nitrates above 5. I used Seachem Flourish (made for planted freshwater tanks)for PO4 and dosed to keep PO4 >0.1

Doing the same here. Dinos we’re kicking my rear end. Realized my nitrates and phosphates were zero (which I thought was good at the time). Dosing seachem nitrates and phosphate now to get the levels up. Seeing a difference. Seeing some green algae but it’s out competing the dinos. Allowing my clean up crew to take care of the good algae. This along with increasing biodiversity and adding UV sterilization has helped a ton.

 

[Catfish2]

Ok, I'll go...

I have had 2 terrible experiences with doing nitrates.

I initially started dosing nitrate to improve colors. N had been undetectable (red sea) and p near zero (hanna) since the start of the tank about 8 months before I started dosing.

The system is a 70g bare bottom frag tank with 75 g sump including a skimmer and large chaeto refugium. 1 marine pure block and 1.5 marine pure plates.

Before dosing anything, I tried to increase nutrients by adding more fish and feeding excessively. This increased algae growth and P (0.009 to 0.03), but N remained undetectable. After I couldn't handle the algae, I stopped over feeding. P decreased to very near zero again and algae cleared up.

Once everything stabilized, I tried my first attempt at dosing nitrates. I used food grade sodium nitrate by loudwolf.

I used this calculator: http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/calculator.htm and corrected for sodium nitrate (ther calculator gives you dosing for potassium nitrate) Over ther course of a week I went from 0ppm to 5ppm (3-5 was my goal). P went from 0.03 to 0.012 during that time. Before I could see any benefits, I had a horrible algae outbreak and sps started to STN. I debated leaving things where they were since I had hit my goals, but I couldn't watch my sps wither away. I stopped dosing and let everything return to baseline. Some sps died others barely survived, but it was about a $400 loss in coral. You can imagine the heartbreak.

3 months later, I attempted another round of dosing. I assumed I went to quickly the first time (even though I attempted to go slowly). The second time I used ME coral Nitrate:

I used way less than the recommended amount. I wasn't really soothing for a number this time, I was just trying to supply a little bit of nitrate each day. I dosed 7.5 ml (1 capful) for about a month. N was still undetectable and no benefit was seen. During this time, P dropped from 0.015 to undetectable. Then... disaster struck!

I had an outbreak of ostreopsis dinos! (presumably from the bottomed out nutrients) I watched for 3 days, but they persisted and sps started to really suffer. I stopped dosing the nitrate, did at 3 day blackout, ran uv and thankfully the dinos went away. I lost 1 frag and some others started to stn, but were able to survive.

After that, I bought some brightwell neophos:

To dose in conjunction with the nitrate, but I just can't bring myself to try it again. I have to many frags now to risk losing them and with the dino scare, I don't want to go there.

Over the last week, I've returned to overfeeding which I see as a safer option. Well see where things go.

Im frustrated to say the least. I have some potentially beautiful frags, but they are very pale and slow growing.

 

[Wen]

Thanks!

So my questions are:

1. Did you see any positive effects while dosing?

2. What negative effects did you see, if any, or did you just not like the instability?

3. What formulations of nitrate and phosphate did you use?[/QUOTE]

My 150 gal mixed reef has tested for years 0 nitrates and 0 phosphates, thank you prolific refugium. LPS and Softies did fine, SPS did not grow well or color up. After I went fallow 76 days, all corals were very pale and growth stopped. So I decided to start slowly hand dosing nitrates and feeding fish extra for phosphates.

1. Yes, after dosing only nitrates all corals colored up quickly. 5 stars!!!

2. While I set up a doser to keep Nitrates stable, I struggled with phosphate stability. Cyano showed up a month later. I began hand dosing phosphates, and phosphate readings were not stable. Cyano began getting out of control. Water changes, sand siphoning, rock siphoning, increased water flow, in desperation 2x chemi clean and cyano still rules 3 months later and today. All corals are still growing fast and have great color.

3. I continue to Apex dose 65 mL LoudWolf Potassium Nitrate daily (solution is 2 tsp per 800 mL RODI), and as of 1 week ago, I now Apex dose 30 mL LoudWolf Trisodium Phosphate daily (solution is 1 tsp per 1 L RODI). Nitrates are stable at 5ppm and Phosphates holding at .02. All corals have great color and growing.

My cyano plan is to continue weekly deep cleaning water changes and wait for the tank to settle in to the stable Nitrate and Phosphate levels. It is a battle. My mistake not to address phosphate stability when I tackled the Nitrate stability. I am paying the price.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I dose Red Sea Po4 plus use of algae scrubber and No issues

 

[Docdiggy]

I used sodium nitrate. I overdosed and weeks later things went down hill. I set up a new tank and dosed again, but much slower. My levels were 0, but once getting my nitrates to 5 they've remained there. I feed 2 cubes of mysis a day to only six fish in a 125 with 55 sump so I needed some help getting that level up. My tank is still kinda in rough shape, but I'm waiting on results from ati on some samples I sent in.

 

[Docdiggy]

After getting some nitrates in the water my cyano slowly disappeared and hasn't returned.

 

[Skep18]

I've dosed both, nothing but positive experiences in my case so can't help ya there.

+1.

Didn't realize people had problems. I just thought people didn't "believe" in it. Kinda like using LED's.

Interesting thread.

 

[BigJohnny]

I used sodium nitrate. I overdosed and weeks later things went down hill. I set up a new tank and dosed again, but much slower. My levels were 0, but once getting my nitrates to 5 they've remained there. I feed 2 cubes of mysis a day to only six fish in a 125 with 55 sump so I needed some help getting that level up. My tank is still kinda in rough shape, but I'm waiting on results from ati on some samples I sent in.

2 cubes a day in a 125/55 is nothing. I feed one chunk of lrs fish frenzy, 2 cubes hikari spirulina brine, and live blackworms to my 90/40 every day. You can definitely feed more just spread it out. I feed 4x a day.

 

[BigJohnny]

I dose Red Sea Po4 plus use of algae scrubber and No issues

Red sea has a po4 product?

 

[PigFarmer]

why not just dose the tank with reef oyster or phytoplankton? seems to keep me off of zeros just fine