DIY Ammonia dosing for low nitrate systems

[805reeftank]

What kind of containers are you guys using for dosing? Something air tight? I’m using a bottle of Redsea AB+ and added a small hole on the top as a breather or should I have left it sealed? My thoughts was it would create a vacuum, or should I add a 1/8 check valve to stop the ammonia from losing its potency? Using ammonium bicarbonate. @Randy Holmes-Farley

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

What kind of containers are you guys using for dosing? Something air tight? I’m using a bottle of Redsea AB+ and added a small hole on the top as a breather or should I have left it sealed? My thoughts was it would create a vacuum, or should I add a 1/8 check valve to stop the ammonia from losing its potency? Using ammonium bicarbonate. @Randy Holmes-Farley

Small hole is fine for the products described here.

 

[805reeftank]

Small hole is fine for the products described here.

One more question Randy, can I add some sodium phosphate solution to my ammonia? Will that cause any problems mixing it. My p04 hovers around .02-.04 thinking of adding a small amount to my ammonia solution that’s on a doser. But don’t know with they can mix

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

One more question Randy, can I add some sodium phosphate solution to my ammonia? Will that cause any problems mixing it. My p04 hovers around .02-.04 thinking of adding a small amount to my ammonia solution that’s on a doser. But don’t know with they can mix

Generally they can be mixed, but which type of sodium phosphate?

 

[805reeftank]

Generally they can be mixed, but which type of sodium phosphate?

Sodium phosphate dibasic from loudwolf​

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Sodium phosphate dibasic from loudwolf​

That is fine to mix.

 

[drawman]

That is fine to mix.

Out of curiosity what about trisodium phosphate?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Out of curiosity what about trisodium phosphate?

It is probably ok since the amount will be much lower than the ammonium bicarbonate, but it raises pH substantially and might cause more out gassing of ammonia from an open container.

 

[dmsc2fs]

Dosing

Don't be overly afraid of dosing ammonia due to toxicity, but one cannot dose substantial amounts all at once. IMO, it is safe to add 0.1 ppm ammonia (equivalent to 0.36 ppm nitrate) at once to any reef tank, and one can likely add more, if it mixes in well.

To add 0.1 mg/L ammonia to an aquarium, you would need to add 2.3 mL of either stock solution to a 100 L (26 gallon) aquarium. You may need to add this amount multiply times per day to dose enough.

For those of us with a lack of wrinkles in our brains can you confirm that you are stating that .1PPM = .1 mg/L?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

For those of us with a lack of wrinkles in our brains can you confirm that you are stating that .1PPM = .1 mg/L?

yes.

While the conversion is not exact, it is close enough for any reefing purpose.

For the nerds...

1 ppm = one part per million = 1 mg/kg

1 liter of seawater weighs about 1.024 kg (depends on salinity and temperature)

So 1 mg/L = 1 mg/1.024 kg = 0.98 mg/kg = 0.98 ppm

 

[dmsc2fs]

yes.

While the conversion is not exact, it is close enough for any reefing purpose.

For the nerds...

1 ppm = one part per million = 1 mg/kg

1 liter of seawater weighs about 1.024 kg (depends on salinity and temperature)

So 1 mg/L = 1 mg/1.024 kg = 0.98 mg/kg = 0.98 ppm

Thank you.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Happy Reefing.

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

@Randy Holmes-Farley I’m curious as to the effect of ammonia in regards to phosphate. I’ve had to dose nitrate and phosphate in this tank since I started it several years back. It is a bare bottom, dry rock setup. I’ve been dosing this ammonia chloride recipe for over six months now. Last month, with no changes to anything, my phosphate started to creep up quite a bit. Nitrate has been rock solid. Last week phosphate hit .3ppm, so I ran some gfo in a reactor for 24 hours, waited 24 hours, tested and repeated. A total of 72 hours of gfo to get to .13ppm of phosphate. I’m fine with that for now, I don’t want to strip out too much at once. Could rising phosphate be an indicator of dosing too much ammonium chloride? In my mind it’s either that (or a conversion process of the ammonium), or it took several years of dosing phosphate daily to hit critical mass within the dry rock.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I don’t see any fashion that dosing N in any form not containing P will result in rising phosphate. The reverse can happen, dosing N increases consumption of phosphate by eliminating N availability as a limitation on the growth of something.

I’d focus on other possible reasons.

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

I don’t see any fashion that dosing N in any form not containing P will result in rising phosphate. The reverse can happen, dosing N increases consumption of phosphate by eliminating N availability as a limitation on the growth of something.

I’d focus on other possible reasons.

Thank you Randy. I’ll keep tabs on it. I stopped dosing phosphate last month, but it continued to rise. I haven’t made any changes at all otherwise. Same feeding, dosing, water changes, etc. Rodi is 0tds. It’s really hot here and the water company pumps water from the aquifer to above ground ground storage vessels. Maybe they started adding something to the water. I’m at a loss.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thank you Randy. I’ll keep tabs on it. I stopped dosing phosphate last month, but it continued to rise. I haven’t made any changes at all otherwise. Same feeding, dosing, water changes, etc. Rodi is 0tds. It’s really hot here and the water company pumps water from the aquifer to above ground ground storage vessels. Maybe they started adding something to the water. I’m at a loss.

Do you use tap water?

 

[TastyScrants]

Just checking in with an update. Things are still going well and I haven’t needed to increase my dose yet from 0.1ppm/day.

Nitrate has reached 10ppm and is settling there. I’m getting good polyp extension and colour in my SPS.

I’ve recently had an alk spike (1dKh in a day unfortunately due to unnoticed settling in my sump which is now resolved) and have been fighting (and winning) tin contamination coming down from 12ug/L to 3ish/L via water changes. This was due to a crack in the Nero 3 I used for water change mixing.

I feel like the availability of ammonium has helped my corals deal with these unexpected stresses.

I don’t have a closeup but there are around 20 growth tips on that “sunset millie” at the top-front of the left stack, in front of the strawberry shortcake acro. My Bali slimer which is hidden behind the pearl berry has grown rapidly since starting ammonium dosing.

FTS under blues with Orphek filter:

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Just checking in with an update. Things are still going well and I haven’t needed to increase my dose yet from 0.1ppm/day.

Nitrate has reached 10ppm and is settling there. I’m getting good polyp extension and colour in my SPS.

I’ve recently had an alk spike (1dKh in a day unfortunately due to unnoticed settling in my sump which is now resolved) and have been fighting (and winning) tin contamination coming down from 12ug/L to 3ish/L via water changes. This was due to a crack in the Nero 3 I used for water change mixing.

I feel like the availability of ammonium has helped my corals deal with these unexpected stresses.

I don’t have a closeup but there are around 20 growth tips on that “sunset millie” at the top-front of the left stack, in front of the strawberry shortcake acro. My Bali slimer which is hidden behind the pearl berry has grown rapidly since starting ammonium dosing.

FTS under blues with Orphek filter:

Thanks for the update, and that does sound like a good dose for you.

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

Do you use tap water?

Oh hale no! Rodi at 0tds. There was an event last month where my first sediment filter clogged with some nasty brown mud and the pressure dropped significantly. I thought maybe there was a line repair or something. I replaced the filter. The secondary sediment filter was fine. Maybe I didn’t catch the drop in pressure in time and had a batch of rodi with low rejection. Although, I have alarms set if it takes over ten hours to fill, and all the resin (2xanion, 1xcation, 1x mixed) was fine. I guess it’s time to get that iot tds meter…I was waiting for a three meter option as they’re only single meter currently.

 

[Justin A.]

Ive been dosing Ammonium bicarbonate but a few of my sps have melted like an alk tip-burn and some bleached.

How much impact does the ammonium bicarbonate have on pH/Alk? I don't have a pH probe, that's my next purchase, but based on observations of the sps I'm assuming this is what's happening but I'm unsure of if its related to the ammonium bicarbonate dosing.

Alk test have been stable around 8.5-8.7 but it isn't tested around the dosing time. I stopped dosing for now.