Dosing nitrate question

TDTA1181 · Oct 1, 2015

I read the most recent thread on dosing potassium nitrate to keep nitrate levels up in thank. My skimmer has been off for a/b 3 wks now @ nitrate has been stuck on 2ppm for 2wks now. I have stronger lighting & would prefer 5 ppm. Can't detect any phosphate either. Both tests are Salifert test kits. I wanted to mix in 1 gal deionized water but don't know the mix rate or dose rate for DT. It's 100gal water volume. Any suggestions?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 1, 2015

It's easy to calculate how much you need to boost the water by 3 ppm, but I'd personally be surprised if moving from a real 2 ppm to a real 5 ppm nitrate was noticeable. Both are well above surface NSW levels.

That said, one cannot "calculate' how much you'd need to dose daily or weekly or whatever to maintain a specific level since it depends entirely in the demand in your tank.

Here's the recipe from the other thread:

Dissolve 10 grams in 1 liter of fresh water (37.9 grams per 1 gallon). That 10 grams contains 6.14 grams of nitrate, so that solution is 6,140 ppm nitrate.

If you add 1 ml of the solution per 2 gallons of tank water volume, that will boost nitrate by 0.8 ppm nitrate.

Adding 1.9 mL per gallon of tank water (190 mL per 100 gallons) will boost nitrate by about 3 ppm.

TDTA1181 · Oct 1, 2015

Thanks Randy. I have another nitrate test kit coming. Different brand, I wanted to test tank w/ it also b'f trying anything. Just didn't want to over do it.

twilliard · Oct 1, 2015

I feel the biggest noticeable change is going from 0 no3 to detectable no3 in a ULNS tank

TDTA1181 · Oct 1, 2015

I'm a little leary adding this stuff only wanting to bring nitrate up 3ppm. Just wondering if that extra will help w/ the stronger lighting I have? Thought I read that in the other thread a/b stronger lighting requires slightly higher nitrate levels? I may need to go over & read it again, it was pretty late last night & I was "skimming" over it. Appropriate or inappropriate choice of word for this topic??? Lol