Do we need Nitrate in a reef tank?

[Kato]

You can glean a bit of what you are asking about, dinos in new sterile tanks, in the BRS Biome Cycling experiment. The final video, where they discuss conclusions is probably the best one for the topic you are interested in.

Thanks, will take a look.

 

[biom]

Just curious. Has anyone measured the amount of ammonia adsorbed by zeolites in saltwater?

It is known that clinoptilolite (a particular zeolite) will bind ammonia and that the ammonia bound can be displaced by salt. Thus I expect the amount bound in seawater is pretty low. We do not know what zeolite zeovit uses, or if it binds any ammonia (at least not that I have seen).

IMO, some of the zeovit ideas around ammonia are not logical. For years folks claimed the ammonia binding helped bacteria on the zeolite take up that ammonia, but that is not sensible since the zeolite does not attract ammonia toward the zeolite, but rather once ammonia is right adjacent to the zeolite pore opening and it drifts into the pore, the zeolite grabs and holds it, making bacteria getting it less likely, not more likely.

It is quite funny because we started discussion with Randy in 2016 exactly on Zeolite and Ammonia in saltwater, and I started the thread with: "I know Randy's strong opinion that zeolites are useless in salt water..." lol
more here, but yes it looks zeolites are still working in saltwater:

Do Zeolite work in sea water?

I know Randy's strong opinion that zeolites are useless in salt water and they are serving mostly as substrate for bacteria :) but in this particular case I'm not fully agree. Actually zeolites (and particularly sodium–potassium forms like clinoptilolite) do work in salt water - they do remove...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[vahegan]

I can certainly see how too much amino acid dosing could be an issue since amino acids are very useful for microorganisms to grow rapidly.

What did you find was different dosing urea than nitrate, and how did you decide how much urea to dose?

I have not experimented with urea that long. Maybe a couple of months only. I have no objective data in its favor, but it seemed to me that polip extension was more expressed and coloration was a tad better compared with when I was dosing nitrate. As for determining the dose, I assumed that it won't stay in water column for long, before being eaten by myriads of bacteria and converted into nitrate. Therefore I was adjusting the dose, starting from low and gradually increasing in an attempt to keep it in the 3-5ppm NO3 range.
And then it has occurred to me that aminos are building blocks of proteins, and their direct consumption (I have read some papers telling that they ARE able to directly absorb it from water) would be energetically more advantageous for corals, compared with other sources of nitrogen. And I tried to do the same thing I was doing with urea, but now using aminos: I was gradually increasing the daily dose in an attempt to achieve the desired level of nitrates. This was a wrong decision, as soon I had to fight a huge dyno outbreak and have spent months filtering the water in the tank with a 5-um cartridge attached to a pump - I had to wash it daily under the tap and then remove the external layer with trapped slime - until I took it under control. I think now that a better approach would be through the dosing of a mix of nitrogen sources, including both nitrate, urea, and aminos. Whereas I find that corals suffer when nitrates and phosphates are too low, and especially if the light is strong: they are not able to obtain sufficient nutrients while there is light energy available for this digestion - they starve.

 

[vahegan]

I decided to change the nitrogen dosing from urea to an equivalent (regarding nitrogen) dose of nitrate. I expected to see it at once if there would be a problem. No problem until I left for holidays. After I returned I found large parts of a plating Montipora burnt and dead and most of the other parts bleached. After changing back to urea the surviving parts gained back color and started to grow again. Since then I refrain from dosing nitrate only.

This is what oxidative stress from reactive oxygen species (ROS) means.

This is very interesting - you tried the change in the opposite direction than what I (I switched from nitrate to urea for a couple of months, as I have described in the message above).
How did you come to urea dosing and how did you determine the urea dose, before your experiments with switching to nitrate?
I had the feeling that dosing too much urea also wasn't good but I had not thought of a better method of determining the dose, except for measuring the resulting nitrate in water (assuming that all the urea is quickly consumed by bacteria and very little will be dynamically left, if adding continuously.

 

[LaloJ]

Maybe the question is off topic, I have read from many reefers that nitrite is not even toxic in reef tanks, I assume nitrate is even less toxic. So in the case of fish, how would a dosage of nitrates or ammonia affect the tank? especially for delicate fish such as angelfishes and butterflies.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

It is quite funny because we started discussion with Randy in 2016 exactly on Zeolite and Ammonia in saltwater, and I started the thread with: "I know Randy's strong opinion that zeolites are useless in salt water..." lol
more here, but yes it looks zeolites are still working in saltwater:

Do Zeolite work in sea water?

I know Randy's strong opinion that zeolites are useless in salt water and they are serving mostly as substrate for bacteria :) but in this particular case I'm not fully agree. Actually zeolites (and particularly sodium–potassium forms like clinoptilolite) do work in salt water - they do remove...

www.reef2reef.com

FWIW, my Norton antivirus just blocked the web page with the original pdf described in that thread as dangerous in a big red warning sign, so I'm not going back to it. lol

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Maybe the question is off topic, I have read from many reefers that nitrite is not even toxic in reef tanks, I assume nitrate is even less toxic. So in the case of fish, how would a dosage of nitrates or ammonia affect the tank? especially for delicate fish such as angelfishes and butterflies.

i don't now if it is less, or just both are very low. No one ever seems to get nitrite into the danger zone to really know.

Folks dosing either ammonia or nitrate use low enough amounts at once that it is not an issue.

 

[Spare time]

I think Hans said it best here: "Nitrate is rather a waste product, the ashes of burnt excess nitrogen compounds."

NP Plus - Phosphate / Nitrate ratio

According to previous threads on NP Plus, I am suppose to test phosphate only because nitrate is expected to remain 0 while using NP Plus. I did not know that at first so I kept dumping NP Plus and testing my nitrate. I finally got a Hanna Phosphate test kit and it is reading 0.39 for...

www.reef2reef.com

I have issues trusting Tropic Marin's people since they are using these statements to sell an extensive product line aimed to have you do everything but have nitrate.

 

[Spare time]

Is the lack of measurable nitrate a contributing factor to Dino outbreaks, or is it the lack of any nitrogen compounds in general?

Phosphate is the apparent correlate, not available nitrogen. In the several hundred dino cases I have seen, I don't think nitrogen is something to consider as a possible correlate.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

I have issues trusting Tropic Marin's people since they are using these statements to sell an extensive product line aimed to have you do everything but have nitrate.

They are one of the few vendors I do trust. E.S.V and TLF are the only other vendors that I consider worthy of my trust.

 

[Dan_P]

It is known that clinoptilolite (a particular zeolite) will bind ammonia and that the ammonia bound can be displaced by salt. Thus I expect the amount bound in seawater is pretty low. We do not know what zeolite zeovit uses, or if it binds any ammonia (at least not that I have seen).

IMO, some of the zeovit ideas around ammonia are not logical. For years folks claimed the ammonia binding helped bacteria on the zeolite take up that ammonia, but that is not sensible since the zeolite does not attract ammonia toward the zeolite, but rather once ammonia is right adjacent to the zeolite pore opening and it drifts into the pore, the zeolite grabs and holds it, making bacteria getting it less likely, not more likely.

Thanks.

I was reading the Zeovit instruction manual after reading your response and came across this item

The material does not directly remove nitrite (NO2), nitrate (NO3), or phosphate (PO4) from the tank water. It permanently absorbs ammonium (NH4+) and ammonia (NH3), the first two chemicals in the nitrification cycle, thus preventing the formation of nitrite (NO2) and nitrate (NO3).

This made me wonder if it was as effective as Seachem Prime? Would stirring Zeivit zeolite in Instant Ocean containing 1 ppm total ammonia show a decline in total ammonia over time?

 

[sixty_reefer]

Phosphate is the apparent correlate, not available nitrogen. In the several hundred dino cases I have seen, I don't think nitrogen is something to consider as a possible correlate.

Why not? To my knowledge is fairly difficult to deplete a system from nitrogen

 

[sixty_reefer]

The thread title says it but I want to discuss if there is any need of nitrogen in form of nitrates in a reef tank. I am not aware of any desirable organisms in our reefs which are dependent of nitrate availability in the water with the exception of denitrification bacteria.
Just to stress out again I am not talking about the Nitrogen per se but Nitrogen in the form of Nitrates.

The simple answer is YES and NO.

Depleting a system from nitrates or phosphates is a tool that not many will understand how to use it.
Done properly you can increase nitrogen if done incorrectly you can have a hand full of nuisance one after the other.

Depleting Nitrates or phosphates in a new or young system is a definitely NO, as the system won’t be able to process the excess nitrogen and a pest will soon bloom.

 

[Spare time]

Why not? To my knowledge is fairly difficult to deplete a system from nitrogen

I am confused. I didn't say anything about how easy it easy to deplete a tank from available nitrogen. What I was talking about is that 0 nitrate doesn't appear to be a possible correlate with dinos, compared to 0.00 phosphate. I emphasize "appear" because anyone who thinks they know what causes dinos needs to reassess how one can "know" things.

 

[Spare time]

Fair, I agree it's certainly the easiest to communicate to a newer reefer and be at least somewhat sure stuff is going in. But would be good to move the discussion forward as we do here. I wish BRS or someone with access to a fair amount of identical tanks would do some experiments here. Especially around dinos and new sterile tanks

The problem with BRS is they don't know how to run and analyze experiments.

 

[biom]

Thanks.

I was reading the Zeovit instruction manual after reading your response and came across this item

The material does not directly remove nitrite (NO2), nitrate (NO3), or phosphate (PO4) from the tank water. It permanently absorbs ammonium (NH4+) and ammonia (NH3), the first two chemicals in the nitrification cycle, thus preventing the formation of nitrite (NO2) and nitrate (NO3).

This made me wonder if it was as effective as Seachem Prime? Would stirring Zeivit zeolite in Instant Ocean containing 1 ppm total ammonia show a decline in total ammonia over time?

Have you look at the old thread I was referring to? If the link is not working for you too here is the name of the paper to google it:
Use of Zeolite for Removing Ammonia and Ammonia-Caused Toxicity in Marine Toxicity Identification Evaluations

The research seems trustworthy - researchers from US EPA and Harvard School of Public Health. They found out ammonia adsorption in 30-35ppt saltwater is about 60-70% of the adsorption in 0 salinity, if i recall correctly.

About the Seachem Prime - I'm not sure how it is even possible to "detoxifies" ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate (nitrate is generally not considered toxic) , never heard such binders exist but this is another topic to discuss, there were a thread about this if I am not mistaken.

 

[biom]

The problem with BRS is they don't know how to run and analyze experiments.

With all the respect to their efforts to make this hobby more popular I tend to agree. With their resources they can organize experiments in far better way to be scientifically sound. They can make partnership with an University and provide them with topic and resources. There are hundreds of scientifically challenging topics in this hobby and I can see tens of Masters and PhD thesis on them.

 

[biom]

Phosphate is the apparent correlate, not available nitrogen. In the several hundred dino cases I have seen, I don't think nitrogen is something to consider as a possible correlate.

Can you give some more details or direct to thread on this, this statement sounds interesting and more info will be appreciated.

 

[sixty_reefer]

I am confused. I didn't say anything about how easy it easy to deplete a tank from available nitrogen. What I was talking about is that 0 nitrate doesn't appear to be a possible correlate with dinos, compared to 0.00 phosphate. I emphasize "appear" because anyone who thinks they know what causes dinos needs to reassess how one can "know" things.

For a start studying is usually a good start to know things it has been like that for many centuries.
You mentioned that phosphates seems to be the connection, I’m curious why you pointing out just one nutrient wend we need several nutrients to sustain life forms.
I just pointed out that once nitrates are depleted other forms of nitrogen are still available to sustain organisms same with phosphates once they are depleted other forms of phosphates are still available to sustain them (usually in their preferred form) in addition if we were to look at the molar ratio in dinoflagellates or Cyanobacteria we could observe that this organism don’t require much phosphorus or nitrogen to gain mass.

There was a chap called Guillard that made a popular fertiliser called f2 that contains all essential nutrients to cultivate dinoflagellates and diatoms not sure if you familiar with it. That formula is still used today by many aquarists and scientists to cultivate Several types of phytoplankton the phosphates and nitrates can actually be changed to organic and speed up growth in comparison to the original formula.

 

[Hans-Werner]

This is very interesting - you tried the change in the opposite direction than what I (I switched from nitrate to urea for a couple of months, as I have described in the message above).
How did you come to urea dosing and how did you determine the urea dose, before your experiments with switching to nitrate?
I had the feeling that dosing too much urea also wasn't good but I had not thought of a better method of determining the dose, except for measuring the resulting nitrate in water (assuming that all the urea is quickly consumed by bacteria and very little will be dynamically left, if adding continuously.

It is more than 25 years ago and now I work for a company. I don't recall exactly the dosing at that time. I recall that I tried N : P ratios between ca. 12 : 1 and 25 : 1, around the Redfield ratio, and around 15 : 1 caused the least cyanobacteria growth.

If I recall it right my approach was not too different from yours, I wanted to find some nitrate to see it was enough nutrients.

I came to urea because finally it is a kind of non-toxic form of ammonium. And I already knew at that time that urea is involved in many calcification processes.

Before doing the N and P trials I had developed a trace elements formula putting the trace elements into a ratio to calcium and alkalinity supply. From this I knew that urease is a nickel enzyme that is involved in calcification processes by catalyzing the hydrolysis from urea to ammonia and CO2. So why not get both, improved calcification and nitrogen supply, with one compound?

I think especially when dosing amino acids you have to take care of phosphate. Finally amino acids are ammonium + organic carbon dosing at the same time.

The dosing of urea is also not as simple as it may look at first glance. The processing and metabolization of urea by corals and other organisms depends on the trace element nickel which activates the urease, the urea hydrolyzing enzym. Natural levels and even more depleted levels of nickel may activate urease incompletely and insufficiently.