Do you dose Nitrate and Phosphate?

[Ocean’s Piece]

Do you dose Nitrates and/or Phosphates? In this video, I’ll show you how I made myself Sodium Nitrate for my reef tank. Share why or why you don’t dose nitrates/phosphates?

Why I dosed nitrate:
When my nitrates bottomed out, ostreopsis dinos hit hard and killed some of my most valuable corals. To combat this, I had to increase nitrates. Long story short, my tank was running successfully at 0 nitrate for many months until I turned off the protein skimmer, let them raise, turned the skimmer back on, nitrates bottomed out and DINOS! Until recently, I didn’t know why nitrates were always 0. I thought this was the only solution. This did help me get out of Dinos, but I traced my nitrate issue to the frequency I was changing mg mechanical filtration! Would have never guessed! Poly-Fil sucks nitrates out like crazy. Now, I always keep a dirty one in there and nitrates stay at 10-15 ppm.

Have you ever had to dose nitrate and phosphate? Why do you dose it? Too raise levels? Coral growth? Share all below!

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[shwareefer]

I dose nitrate. I'm thinking of trying ammonia instead. Not only is there evidence that some corals (and of course algae) prefer it, but I was thinking that we are not benefitting the bacteria in the nitrogen cycle by just dosing the end product. I'd rather have a robust population of the various nitrifying bacteria than other less desireable things...

 

[MaxTremors]

I dose phosphates because they are consistently limited (virtually undetectable). I suspect that some of the dry rock in my tank is absorbing a lot of it, but with dosing I’ve finally been able to keep it consistently 0.03 to 0.05ppm.

 

[Sean Clark]

I stopped dosing due to the corals clearly not liking it. I was at 0/0 and trying to get the levels up. I could tell after a few weeks that the corals did not agree with it. I stopped and the corals look much happier after. I don't understand why they didn't like it, but that is what my tank was telling me so I listened and stopped dosing.

 

[shwareefer]

I stopped dosing due to the corals clearly not liking it. I was at 0/0 and trying to get the levels up. I could tell after a few weeks that the corals did not agree with it. I stopped and the corals look much happier after. I don't understand why they didn't like it, but that is what my tank was telling me so I listened and stopped dosing.

I think it's reasonable to assume any testable amounts denote a lack of equilibrium. If uptake matched input everything would be happy but we would be testing 0/0 and unfortunately that would leave us in the dark.

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

I dose phosphates because they are consistently limited (virtually undetectable). I suspect that some of the dry rock in my tank is absorbing a lot of it, but with dosing I’ve finally been able to keep it consistently 0.03 to 0.05ppm.

Man I wish. Phosphate is such a problem that I run GFO. And I don’t even feed that much.

 

[billyocean]

After adding a bunch of sps my phosphates have been dropping to 0.00 on hanna ulr. I had to dose phos and nitrate originally to register readings. For a couple of months it's been stable at .03-.06 and 7-11 nitrates. After the sps (for whatever reason) I've had to dose phos to keep my levels detected. I've never ran a skimmer on this tank (125) because my levels are either low or stay where I want them.

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

After adding a bunch of sps my phosphates have been dropping to 0.00 on hanna ulr. I had to dose phos and nitrate originally to register readings. For a couple of months it's been stable at .03-.06 and 7-11 nitrates. After the sps (for whatever reason) I've had to dose phos to keep my levels detected. I've never ran a skimmer on this tank (125) because my levels are either low or stay where I want them.

I should get more SPS then to suck up my phosphates lol.
Honestly, I don’t know how this would go long term, but dosing nitrates and phosphates in a ULR environment is probably better than having too much. Plus you can fine tune how much you want of each. Weird knife though, because too little is bad and too much is bad.

 

[Waters]

I dose nitrate occasionally as needed.....I indirectly dose phosphates with coral food/poylp booster. I use that only when phosphates are low.

 

[billyocean]

Yeah it's strange that phos dropped after sps addition...don't know if its coincidence or what. Spot feeding reef roids is a good way to add some phos too as waters said

 

[HuduVudu]

I used to dose nitrate (calcium nitrate and mag nitrate) and then I found out that with all of the anaerobic breakdown in my tank I am actually driving my alk up. This is not a situation that I do not want so I stopped dosing nitrates.

I do use nitrates for my phyto cultures this seems to keep them growing quickly.

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

I used to dose nitrate (calcium nitrate and mag nitrate) and then I found out that with all of the anaerobic breakdown in my tank I am actually driving my alk up. This is not a situation that I do not want so I stopped dosing nitrates.

I do use nitrates for my phyto cultures this seems to keep them growing quickly.

I’m not all too sure but I remember something about that, I think sodium nitrate doesn’t impact any critical parameters like the others so that’s why it’s used

 

[damsels are not mean]

Does fish food count?

 

[HuduVudu]

I’m not all too sure but I remember something about that, I think sodium nitrate doesn’t impact any critical parameters like the others so that’s why it’s used

Nitrate is nitrate.

It doesn't mater what the metal ion is. Anaerobic breakdown of nitrate produces the alkalinity issues. Normally this wouldn't be too much of a problem because aerobic breakdown would be consuming alkalinity and you would have balance, but if you add nitrate in and skip the aerobic breakdown acidification you are weighing towards alk production.

 

[Uncle99]

Just phosphate in the first 6 months to maintain .1ppm in a mixed.
After 6 months, it no longer needed the boost.

 

[PandorasChalk]

I've been dosing Phosphate as it hit 0 and I had a dino outbreak. Even with increased feeding and no GFO in the tank it's been tough to keep it above .01. Dosing has been the only way to keep it up.

 

[Steven Garland]

I started dosing because once my cycle was complete,with the addes piece of LR I seeded my cycle wIth from TSA and the added beneficial bacteria and jar of live pods I could not keep either one in my system,nor keep them stable.

Even with heavy feeding,after a day they would be back at zero. Once I started dosing,which I felt like I had no choice but to dose them everything gained all their colors back and looked better than ever and took off shooting off new heads on everything.

I used NeoNitro and NeoPhos btw.

 

[EakTheFreak]

No chance, I’m running GFO & dosing NoPox to hold Nitrates from 5-10 ppm

 

[Lavey29]

I had to double dose neophos and neonitro early on to maintain levels and then as the tank matured with more fish and corals the levels rose on their own. I now have a healthy refugium going that seems to help balance everything out nicely so no dosing just feed 2 or 3x daily frozen food. Occasionally some pellets. Tank is a year now and looking as good as it ever has.

 

[Ocean’s Piece]

Does fish food count?

Not really, was referring more to actual nitrate chemicals. But fish food is definitely a fat dose of nitrate lol.