Do you dose Nitrate and Phosphate?

Ocean’s Piece · Apr 3, 2022

HuduVudu said:
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.

Good to know.

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

Hahaha. The struggle is real

Sean Clark · Apr 3, 2022

The diversity of consensus here should confirm that we all have different tanks and thus different solutions. Nitrate dosing was unheard of years ago. Phosphate dosing was borderline crazy. Here we all are trying to meet in the middle while sharing our own experiences. Are we right? NO. Are we wrong NO. I love this hobby.

Ocean’s Piece · Apr 4, 2022

Sean Clark said:
The diversity of consensus here should confirm that we all have different tanks and thus different solutions. Nitrate dosing was unheard of years ago. Phosphate dosing was borderline crazy. Here we all are trying to meet in the middle while sharing our own experiences. Are we right? NO. Are we wrong NO. I love this hobby.

Exactly. 100000000000000000000000000000000000 ways to run a tank and many more different events and scenarios that happen in each

Screwgunner · Apr 7, 2022

I am running a ats and it wipes out my phosphates fast but my nitrate stay around 4.5 so yes I dose neophos!!!

Timfish · Apr 7, 2022

Everytime I feed my fish.

nereefpat · Apr 7, 2022

My tanks drop to near zero N & P with a Red Sea kit and ULR checker. I've tried dosing, but got bad results.

When I add trisodium phosphate, I get hair algae and cyanobacteria.
When I add sodium nitrate, I get dinos, and the nitrate value quickly drops back to zero.

Robinreefs94 · Apr 7, 2022

Dosed both nitrates and phosphates the first 1,5 years in my latest setup for some periods when the nutirents dropped. Now I when I got fully stocked with fishes and they´re getting bigger it's no longer necessary.

Reefbuds · Apr 8, 2022

I had to dose phos and nitrates for the longest time to keep them above 0. Haven't had to dose in weeks now tho. I feed roids when needed. My tank seems to love high phosphate tho for some reason. Going to try and drop them slowly. Nitrates always seem to stay around 10ppm.

ZoWhat · Apr 8, 2022

Been using Bacto for 6mos now.... best stuff I've ever dosed.

My test are rock solid stable at 0.01 po4 and 5 no3

Seen various zoas spread and grow at higher rates

I dose it religiously every morning

evrydayzawrkday · Apr 8, 2022

I am the only "other"

There are times where I would reduce feeding to solve issues, and if my nitrate/phosphate drop below a certain threshold (so I try to keep phos around .01-.05 and nitrate 3-5) then I would do a single, small dose.

thatmanMIKEson · Apr 9, 2022

zoa what said:
Been using Bacto for 6mos now.... best stuff I've ever dosed.

My test are rock solid stable at 0.01 po4 and 5 no3

Seen various zoas spread and grow at higher rates

I dose it religiously every morning

I have tried this before, but I didn't stick with it, I was getting cyano spots and that was my only change, I quit using it and cyano stopped popping up.

Have you had any issues with this in the beginning of using this product?

thatmanMIKEson · Apr 9, 2022

I'm not at all saying bacto-balance is or was the cause of any issue, I was just wondering if you noticed any issues similar when you started using it that maybe stoped as time went on, or maybe still occurring but non issues.

I've thought about trying this product again , the problem is I dose n03/p04 occasionally now, and with bacto I was undetectable, so maybe continuing occasional dosing while beginning.

I like the ideal of an all in one product, I basically shouldn't have to test as often to stay in range.

Microcosm Reefer · Apr 24, 2022

I only dose to keep from bottoming out.. sort of a crutch to regain balance. Feeding more is my preference but not always the answer.

Starganderfish · May 5, 2022

Started adding Nitrates to my tank recently in an ad hoc manner. Hannah test is consistently showing 0.0 Nitrates, even though I feed heavily. Chaeto Fuge does TOO good a job.
LIvestock and corals haven;t seemed to have an issue but idn;t want to risk it.

Spare time · May 5, 2022

shwareefer said:
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...

Less desirable things most likely use ammonia too

Reefahholic · May 5, 2022

Sean Clark said:
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.

It could be because you were dosing too much and not spreading the dose out. I dose frequently and my corals appreciate it.

Not having enough nutrients in a system is going to slow growth and lead to issues if it’s truly depleted. I’d send an ATI ICP to see what it comes back as. This will typically paint a better picture as to what’s really in the tank.

AnnaG · May 5, 2022

Ocean’s Piece said:
Man I wish. Phosphate is such a problem that I run GFO. And I don’t even feed that much.

Do you use any other methods of nutrient exportation like a refugium ?

Ocean’s Piece · May 5, 2022

AnnaG said:
Do you use any other methods of nutrient exportation like a refugium ?

I use a polyfil, GFO, and chemi-pure blue.

Sean Clark · May 5, 2022

Reefahholic said:
It could be because you were dosing too much and not spreading the dose out. I dose frequently and my corals appreciate it.

I really doubt that dosing too much or too fast was the issue. I had them on x1 dosers and spread out throughout the day. I started at 1ml/day PO4 and 2ml/day NO3 on 200 gallons. I ramped it up to 5ml/day PO4 and 10ml/day NO3 over several weeks.

Reefahholic said:
Not having enough nutrients in a system is going to slow growth and lead to issues if it’s truly depleted. I’d send an ATI ICP to see what it comes back as. This will typically paint a better picture as to what’s really in the tank.

I believe my situation is more about input matching uptake and output more than a deficiency of nutrients. Growth and color are good. Could those be better? Probably.
I have done ICP test in the past. This dosing that I stopped was almost a year ago so ICP wouldn't help me much now to better understand where I was at when this was happening. They are good tools indeed.

I personally think that my experience had something to do with the product that I was dosing possibly being contaminated with metals. But without a before and after ICP I can't be sure.