DIY Ammonia dosing for low nitrate systems

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I now believe the low polyp extension of the Bubblegum Digi was related to low P04. Looking at my test results over a week, I went from 0.06 to 0.0 and didn't notice as I test P04 every other day. I've been dosing trisodium phosphate to keep in line with my N03 level and polyps have remained extended.

Ok, thanks for the update!

 

[JCOLE]

Couple of days so far dosing 50 ml at night and in the morning. NO3 has improved from 0.04 to 2.6 as of last night. Corals seem to be responding well to it so far.

I want to put this on a doser and dose throughout the day. My dosing container has a little vent port at the top. Do you see an issue with it losing strength sitting in the dosing container? I could make one that doesn't have a vent if it is an issue.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Couple of days so far dosing 50 ml at night and in the morning. NO3 has improved from 0.04 to 2.6 as of last night. Corals seem to be responding well to it so far.

I want to put this on a doser and dose throughout the day. My dosing container has a little vent port at the top. Do you see an issue with it losing strength sitting in the dosing container? I could make one that doesn't have a vent if it is an issue.

A small vent is no concern.

 

[Jon_W79]

I think that if you don't dose ammonia fast enough it may not be much better than dosing nitrate. I believe that the aquarium sides (some ways of providing water flow depend a lot on the sides) and to a lesser extent the bottom generally get a lot more water flow per square inch than corals do, and that if you dose ammonia too slowly I think that the algae and/or bacteria in or around those areas will have a large advantage in getting the ammonia, but if you dose ammonia fast enough you can overwelm the algae and/or bacteria in or around those areas and I think that the corals will probably get a lot more ammonia. I think that the more water flow pattern variation there is, the less important dosing ammonia faster may be.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I think that if you don't dose ammonia fast enough it may not be much better than dosing nitrate. I believe that the aquarium sides (some ways of providing water flow depend a lot on the sides) and to a lesser extent the bottom generally get a lot more water flow per square inch than corals do, and that if you dose ammonia too slowly I think that the algae and/or bacteria in or around those areas will have a large advantage in getting the ammonia, but if you dose ammonia fast enough you can overwelm the algae and/or bacteria in or around those areas and I think that the corals will probably get a lot more ammonia. I think that the more water flow pattern variation there is, the less important dosing ammonia faster may be.

That might be true, but I've not see any evidence that ammonia is converted to nitrate so rapidly that the dosing rate will matter.

 

[Vested]

Sorry if this has already been brought up, is ammonium hydroxide another valid way to add ammonia (nitrate) and would it raise ph?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Sorry if this has already been brought up, is ammonium hydroxide another valid way to add ammonia (nitrate) and would it raise ph?

Ammonium hydroxide is simply ammonia dissolved in water. Once the ammonia is consumed, there’s no net effect on alk or pH, although it will boost pH when first added and reduce it later. It’s an ok thing to dose.

 

[Vested]

Ammonium hydroxide is simply ammonia dissolved in water. Once the ammonia is consumed, there’s no net effect on alk or pH, although it will boost pH when first added and reduce it later. It’s an ok thing to dose.

lol thank you, dumb question

 

[JDJP]

I'm about theee weeks into dosing ammonium bicarbonate twice daily. I'm dosing 35-40ml just after the lights start to ramp up and again before lights out. I have a pretty heavily packed 420 gallon sps system with a large chaeto refugium. My nitrates (around 5ppm) seem to be climbing very slowly, less than .5 ppm a week and phosphate seems to drop faster than they did before, I'm able to feed more hpd with reef chili to maintain around .05 ppm.

Corals had a great improvement last week with color and polyp extension but that coincided with adjusting trace elements up to RM levels.
I'm pleased with it so far as an alternative to nitrate dosing with the potential benefit of providing the coral with a little extra ammonium.

How quickly would the ammonium be converted to nitrite/nitrate after dosing?

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

Five months now with no ill effects noted. Last month I did adjust my dosing regimen down a tad as nitrate started climbing (16.3 ppm). Again, I personally am not able to identify positives or negatives without them being so drastic as to have caused complete color loss/death or things started to glow brightly and grew out of the tank! Ha. I tried my best to grab a couple pics which are probably pretty blurry but oh well. I tried a zoomed in pic of a Sexys Orange Passion so hopefully the polyps and color can be seen.

 

[Jon_W79]

I think that we should consider how much and how ammonia dosing can differ from ammonia that comes from fish gills. A fish will release ammonia everywhere it goes, sometimes right next to a coral(and it probably creates a lot of variation of where the ammonia goes). If you use an average dosing speed dosing pump that doses ammonia near the return pump in a reef tank with reasonably spaced small frags in a tank with average back an forth water flow I think that any of the ammonia molecules that were dosed will very likely run into a non coral ammonia consuming organism (especially on the sides and on or near the bottom) many times or fewer, instead of a coral, and the corals in general probably will probably get very little (and probably not enough) of the ammonia. The more coral mass a tank has the more likely that corals will get more of the ammonia that is dosed (obviously), but I think that some corals may get a lot more of the ammonia that was dosed compared relatively to other corals if someone is dosing ammonia slowly.

I wonder if nitrifying bacteria can capture ammonia molecules because capturing and consuming can be two different things.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I'm about theee weeks into dosing ammonium bicarbonate twice daily. I'm dosing 35-40ml just after the lights start to ramp up and again before lights out. I have a pretty heavily packed 420 gallon sps system with a large chaeto refugium. My nitrates (around 5ppm) seem to be climbing very slowly, less than .5 ppm a week and phosphate seems to drop faster than they did before, I'm able to feed more hpd with reef chili to maintain around .05 ppm.

Corals had a great improvement last week with color and polyp extension but that coincided with adjusting trace elements up to RM levels.
I'm pleased with it so far as an alternative to nitrate dosing with the potential benefit of providing the coral with a little extra ammonium.

How quickly would the ammonium be converted to nitrite/nitrate after dosing?

I expect it is either consumed by organisms, or converted to nitrite within a few hours, just as if a fish were excreting it.

 

[jda]

If your tank has a lot of corals, then AOB are probably limited and the ammonia is getting used directly and not much enters the N cycle. Even if it does, there is still nitrite that can get used directly for a second chance.

I would dose it into the tank near a flow pump. If your flow is not good enough to circulate this all over the tank in 15-20 seconds, or so, flow might be more important than nitrogen.

 

[LOVEROCK]

Does anyone have a exact link to which ammonia to use ?

 

[PeterErc]

I use this one

Pure Original Ingredients Ammonium Bicarbonate (11oz) Baker's Ammonia, Traditional Leavening Agent, Food Grade https://a.co/d/fOzPORe

 

[LOVEROCK]

What’s the math if I want to hit .1 on a 60 gallon ?

 

[wattson]

Glad to see dosing ammonia and urea has gained a lot of traction or at least serious consideration. Blaster (member here from the past) started the ammonia dosing and started threads exposing it for open conversation with very mixed reactions but seems to be topic of positive conversation here.

 

[Miami Reef]

What’s the math if I want to hit .1 on a 60 gallon ?

5.3mL

 

[taricha]

Discussion with Sanjay and Mike Paletta talking about trying ammonia dosing recently and that they found positive effects from it.
Reefbum Sanjay and Mike Paletta 12/12/23 (from 5 min to 16min)
Their measurable observation is that they saw an increase in alk consumption and had to increase the alk input in response. They are too experienced to declare for sure it's the ammonia dosing, but they like how their systems are behaving since trying it.
Interestingly to me they talk about amino acid dosing later (at 1:22:30) and they don't have positive comments on it by comparison. I would have guessed they have the sorts of tanks that would benefit from amino acids - if they can benefit from ammonia.

 

[sanjay]

Discussion with Sanjay and Mike Paletta talking about trying ammonia dosing recently and that they found positive effects from it.
Reefbum Sanjay and Mike Paletta 12/12/23 (from 5 min to 16min)
Their measurable observation is that they saw an increase in alk consumption and had to increase the alk input in response. They are too experienced to declare for sure it's the ammonia dosing, but they like how their systems are behaving since trying it.
Interestingly to me they talk about amino acid dosing later (at 1:22:30) and they don't have positive comments on it by comparison. I would have guessed they have the sorts of tanks that would benefit from amino acids - if they can benefit from ammonia.

"They" implies both saw the same effect. I don't think I can say that there was a increase in Alk consumption in my system just because of dosing ammonium. I was dosing nitrates and I replaced that with Ammonium. At the low amount (.1 ppm of ammonia) I am dosing over a 24 hr period I still have a lot of questions about its availability to the zooxanthalle. How long does it stay in the water column before being converted to NO3. ? How much of it actually reaches the coral to get absorbed ? No idea.

I still think it might be a better form of N addition.

I do have a lot of fish and may be they produce enough ammonia