Can sodium nitrate be dangerous to corals?

[Docdiggy]

It's a 100 gallon system. I'm doing 1 gallon water changes with RODI every day or 2.

 

[Slicktop]

I might have had the same issue with sodium nitrate. I got some and started dosing and lost several frags and colonies. I never saw any changes in my nitrates, always came up zero. I have a total 116 gal system and never dosed more than 1.0 ml at a time. Not sure if it lowered phosphate to quick or what. I have stopped trying to chase nitrate and dosing for it and corals look alot better. I am just going to get more fish and reduce photo period on refuge and pull out some of my cheato.

 

[Docdiggy]

That's a really small dose. I stopped dosing because I'm in the 2-3ppm range now. For a while I was at 1ppm and I kept dosing 5-6ml a day for days till I got to where it's at. I'm still on the fence with my salinity being my problem. I need someone with a really nice setup and compare water and refractometer differences.

 

[Lovefish77]

I know this thread is old, but just experienced the same with sodium nitrate dosing. Nitrate went up like 2 ppm over one week, and phosphate up to 0.1 from .06 over like 3 weeks. Hell broke loose, lost all acros and some lps are affected too.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I know this thread is old, but just experienced the same with sodium nitrate dosing. Nitrate went up like 2 ppm over one week, and phosphate up to 0.1 from .06 over like 3 weeks. Hell broke loose, lost all acros and some lps are affected too.

I do not believe that could have resulted from sodium nitrate dosing, unless it was contaminated.

What product did you use?

Most likely it is a coincidence.

 

[Lovefish77]

I do not believe that could have resulted from sodium nitrate dosing, unless it was contaminated.

What product did you use?

Most likely it is a coincidence.

Randy it cannot always be a coincidence, when I used tree stump this happened. When I used food grade potassium nitrate this time...the same thing happened again. Dont believe I am that unlucky really. I dosed until i reached 2ppm nitrates by the way and then I stopped dosing. Just tested now nitrates are like 8-10 ppm no idea how!!!!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Randy it cannot always be a coincidence, when I used tree stump this happened. When I used food grade potassium nitrate this time...the same thing happened again. Dont believe I am that unlucky really. I dosed until i reached 2ppm nitrates by the way and then I stopped dosing. Just tested now nitrates are like 8-10 ppm no idea how!!!!

There's a constant stream of folks posting threads about coral problems when they changed nothing recently. If we look at every person who had a coral problem after eating a hamburger, I'll bet there are a lot of them. Coincidence? Or cause and effect?

You now mention potassium. You are dosing sodium, or potassium?

In any case, the rise in any of these from appropriate dosing would not be much different than from feeding fish food, unless you overdosed or used an impure material.

 

[Lovefish77]

I first tried potassium several months back and I lost all sps (non acros) and some lps got affected to a lesser degree. Lately I also tried to raise nutrients using sodium nitrate (food grade) and the same thing happened again. The analogy of the hamburger does not really hold Randy as I am talking about stuff that I added directly to the tank, hope you get the point

 

[Lovefish77]

This is sodium nitrate I used 2 weeks ago. Mixed I spoon with 500 ml of rodi and added like 60ml of it supposed to bring nitrates up by 2 ppm.

I personally think that playing with nutrients by additives alters the bacterial balance in the tank somehow....no idea how it actually works though as I cannot test it.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I first tried potassium several months back and I lost all sps (non acros) and some lps got affected to a lesser degree. Lately I also tried to raise nutrients using sodium nitrate (food grade) and the same thing happened again. The analogy of the hamburger does not really hold Randy as I am talking about stuff that I added directly to the tank, hope you get the point

I understand your point, but my point about coincidence cannot be proven wrong because something happened twice. I just do not believe either the sodium or the nitrate caused any harm with a 2 ppm nitrate addition. Neither value is a problem, and many folks dose that every day.

You might get a nitrate rise that big from a feeding.