Dosing measurements

[Baigent87]

Hi everyone,

I hope you’re all having a great weekend!

I really need some help on some dosing measurements. I’m very inexperienced when it comes to dosing, so I apologise in advance for any silly questions on this one.

My nitrate and phosphate is currently sitting at 0 and my LFS recommended various methods before going down the dosing route. 3 months on and I’m still at 0!

My LFS recommended Colombos phosphate plus and nitrate plus and I’m having real trouble getting my head around the dosing measurements and so scared of getting it wrong!

My tank currently has around 45l and recommends the following to increase nitrate levels.


I’d be so grateful to get some help on this

 

[Baigent87]

Note to self Nitrate plus will burn your skin if you don’t wash it off quick enough ouch lol

 

[Uncle99]

I’d double check your “zero” test result.
It’s very hard to get double zeroes.
Is it possible your test kit can’t read below a certain amount, so gives a zero.
3 months dosing even minor amounts should definitely show at least, Trace, say nitrate of maybe 1ppm and 0.04ppm phosphate. It’s only trace your looking for.
I struggled for a year with a phosphate of .25ppm, and even with a GFO, stayed at .25ppm.
I found out in the end it was actually 0.05ppm all the time.
Hobby grade testing!
Test twice if answers seem strange.

 

[Baigent87]

I’d double check your “zero” test result.
It’s very hard to get double zeroes.
Is it possible your test kit can’t read below a certain amount, so gives a zero.
It’s only trace your looking for.

I’ve been using Red Sea test kits. Would ideally like to invest in a digital test kit in the future, but just going with what I have at the moment. I’m just coming off the back of a big algae bloom that killed off 90% of my invertebrates. Vibrant seemed to do a good job of cleaning up the algae but my test kit is still showing 0.

 

[Uncle99]

I would have thought that the use of Vibrant would increase phosphate as the algae is disolved into the column.

I use the Hanna UL Phosphorus Checker, very accurate read and in line with ICP. Well worth the investment.

After 3 months, to get a double zero, means your export is able to convert 100% of the waste.

Im suspicious of that number, but of course it’s possible.

 

[Baigent87]

I would have thought that the use of Vibrant would increase phosphate as the algae is disolved into the column.

I use the Hanna UL Phosphorus Checker, very accurate read and in line with ICP. Well worth the investment.

After 3 months, to get a double zero, means your export is able to convert 100% of the waste.

Im suspicious of that number, but of course it’s possible.

I’ve herd great things about the Hanna digital testers and will 100% be investing in some in the near future. The guy at my LFS seems to think that the algae is absorbing all my phosphate and nitrates, although the algae is probably 50% less than what is was and therefore would have expected some kind of reading?
This was my tank a few weeks ago.

 

[Uncle99]

That’s very likely, that does not look at all like a double zero water chemistry.
I’d toss those RS Tests kits if they give zeroes from that water.

 

[Baigent87]

I would have thought that the use of Vibrant would increase phosphate as the algae is disolved into the column.

I use the Hanna UL Phosphorus Checker, very accurate read and in line with ICP. Well worth the investment.

After 3 months, to get a double zero, means your export is able to convert 100% of the waste.

Im suspicious of that number, but of course it’s possible.

Just ordered a Hanna phosphate tester

 

[Dennis Cartier]

You appear to have an imbalance and dinos. Dino-flagellates take advantage of situations where the water column has too little of a limiting nutrient, in this case most likely phosphate, but yet enough for it to take hold an out compete the neighbours, so to speak. They can be really tough to combat. They also can be toxic to corals, fish and inverts depending on the strain that is present. If your snails start to die, then it is most likely from the dinos.

One method of combating them is to raise the nutrients, and run the tank 'dirty'. This gives the competition a chance to take root and out compete the dinos. Once the crutch the dinos are benefiting from in the form of the nutrient limitation, they usually fade as they are not nearly as good at flourishing with competition.

I would suggest raising your phosphate to 0.06 - 01.00 ppm range once you get your Hanna ULR in hand. You may need to supplement Nitrate as well. Once you get some other algae's, like say GHA taking hold, the dinos will disappear. You can then slowly deal with the nuisance algae that sent the dinos packing. Unless of course you got lucky and just coralline was the benefactor.

Running tanks at 0.0 phosphate for long periods of time makes the chance of a dino bloom very likely.

 

[Baigent87]

You appear to have an imbalance and dinos. Dino-flagellates take advantage of situations where the water column has too little of a limiting nutrient, in this case most likely phosphate, but yet enough for it to take hold an out compete the neighbours, so to speak. They can be really tough to combat. They also can be toxic to corals, fish and inverts depending on the strain that is present. If your snails start to die, then it is most likely from the dinos.

One method of combating them is to raise the nutrients, and run the tank 'dirty'. This gives the competition a chance to take root and out compete the dinos. Once the crutch the dinos are benefiting from in the form of the nutrient limitation, they usually fade as they are not nearly as good at flourishing with competition.

I would suggest raising your phosphate to 0.06 - 01.00 ppm range once you get your Hanna ULR in hand. You may need to supplement Nitrate as well. Once you get some other algae's, like say GHA taking hold, the dinos will disappear. You can then slowly deal with the nuisance algae that sent the dinos packing. Unless of course you got lucky and just coralline was the benefactor.

Running tanks at 0.0 phosphate for long periods of time makes the chance of a dino bloom very likely.

Hi Dennis,

I really appreciate you taking the time to comment on my post.

strangely enough I had 3x turbo snails, 2x cleaner shrimp and a small emerald crab die within a few weeks of each other.

All 3 of my Zoas completely closed up, strangely my candy cane coral seemed perfectly fine.

I started dosing 2 days ago with copepods, plankton, 0.1ml phosphate and 1.0ml nitrate and some of my Zoas have already started opening up. My glass is getting filthy lol Fighting the urge not to break the cleaner out!

 

[Baigent87]

I forgot how beautiful these guys are!!

 

[Dennis Cartier]

Hi Dennis,

I really appreciate you taking the time to comment on my post.

strangely enough I had 3x turbo snails, 2x cleaner shrimp and a small emerald crab die within a few weeks of each other.

All 3 of my Zoas completely closed up, strangely my candy cane coral seemed perfectly fine.

I started dosing 2 days ago with copepods, plankton, 0.1ml phosphate and 1.0ml nitrate and some of my Zoas have already started opening up. My glass is getting filthy lol Fighting the urge not to break the cleaner out!

The CUC deaths would suggest that your dinos were/are the kind that produce toxins. Your photos with the long stringy snot like growths on the sand (with the trapped air bubbles), are the typical appearance of dinos. Watch for those disappearing from your sand and rocks.

You can go ahead and clean the glass. Other surfaces will be growing surface algae, so no need to keep your glass looking shabby.

Your rocks and sand are going to suck up a lot of the phosphate that you are dosing. So don't be surprised if it still shows low or 0. They will continue doing that until they become saturated and then the water column reading will start to rise. You want to watch for the increasing reading from the water column and be prepared to intervene to prevent over shooting your phosphate. It could take awhile (like months), before you see a rise.

It sounds like things are headed in the right direction.

 

[Baigent87]

Nitrates are steadily rising Currently at around 3ppm ish (per my Red Sea test kit). Down side is my tank is getting dirty and fast! Hoping my Hanna phosphate tester will arrive tomorrow. I went with the LR and not the ULR, not sure if I made the wrong choice on that?

 

[Dennis Cartier]

Nitrates are steadily rising Currently at around 3ppm ish (per my Red Sea test kit). Down side is my tank is getting dirty and fast! Hoping my Hanna phosphate tester will arrive tomorrow. I went with the LR and not the ULR, not sure if I made the wrong choice on that?

The LR will get you started, but you will probably want to switch to the ULR in the future. The reason is that the range that we commonly target is a very small part of the range offered by the units. The LR provides an accuracy of +/-0.04 ppm and 0.0 - 2.50 ppm, where the ULR has an accuracy of +/- 0.02 ppm and supports 0.00 - 0.90 ppm. So with most people targeting from 0.03 - 0.1 ppm, the smaller range and tighter accuracy of the ULR is a better fit. The LR will still get you started though.

For nitrate, you may want to slow down the nitrate a bit unless you are wanting to run higher amounts (like 5 - 10 ppm). I prefer 0.5 - 2.0 ppm as I find that corals are fine with lower levels and algea loves higher levels. It all depends on what you want to target.

I expect your dinos are in retreat or all gone?

 

[Dennis Cartier]

Also, the nitrate range depends on your coral types. Zoa's and LPS really prefer higher nitrate ranges (5+ ppm), where as SPS are on the lower side. I know you have zoa's and candy cane's, but I am not sure if you are mixed with SPS.

 

[Baigent87]

Thank you for the advice on the Hanna test kit. I was dosing vibrant for a couple of weeks which seemed to have done the trick, however my phosphates and nitrates were still at 0 and as soon as I stopped dosing vibrant they would come back. It seems that the dinos are growing slightly and as soon as I clean my glass it’s dirty again within 15-20 minutes.

 

[Baigent87]

Also, the nitrate range depends on your coral types. Zoa's and LPS really prefer higher nitrate ranges (5+ ppm), where as SPS are on the lower side. I know you have zoa's and candy cane's, but I am not sure if you are mixed with SPS.

At the moment I only have 3 Zoa’s and a candy cane. My LFS recommended getting my nitrates up to around 5-10.

How about you? What size tank and coral do you have?

 

[Dennis Cartier]

At the moment I only have 3 Zoa’s and a candy cane. My LFS recommended getting my nitrates up to around 5-10.

How about you? What size tank and coral do you have?

For softies and LPS, that is a good target.

Unfortunately, Vibrant use is known to lead to dinos taking over. It is also not the natural product it claims to be. You should read the threads on Vibrant in this forum to have an understanding of what it really is.

I have an 80 gallon frag tank for holding my fish and corals from my previous tank while I get my 500 G tank up and running. The build has been long delayed, so I have had everything in the frag tank longer than planned and had a crash last summer. So now it is just survivors and a few new LPS colonies that I have picked up since (I like pectinia's). Hopefully this summer will be the of the wait in getting the big tank running.

 

[Baigent87]

Man I would love a 500g 1 day!!! Water changes must be time consuming

need to get my head around my 52l first lol

Will you be documenting your build on R2R? Would be great to get an insight on what’s required and some of the difficulties etc.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

Man I would love a 500g 1 day!!! Water changes must be time consuming

need to get my head around my 52l first lol

Will you be documenting your build on R2R? Would be great to get an insight on what’s required and some of the difficulties etc.

The water changes are easy so far, it's still empty, lol.

If you click on my Build Thread badge or the link in my signature, you can see the progress so far. It is still going, hopefully this summer I will finally be getting it wet.