Dosing Nitrate

Evan West · Jan 17, 2018

Okay well despite feeding a mix of reef chilli, mysis, and Rods complete reef food 3 times a day...my No3 just won't come off 0 (Guess the over sized skimmer and fuge just work too well). As such I am thinking of just dosing nitrate but have little info on how how do so.

As such, how much should I dose? What form? And any other advice?

I've thought of running the skimmer only at night so it dosnt pull so much from the water.

hijinks7 · Jan 17, 2018

So I don't have any ideas other then over feeding.. but what a great time to be a reefer when we complain about no no3

Evan West · Jan 17, 2018

hijinks7 said:
So I don't have any ideas other then over feeding.. but what a great time to be a reefer when we complain about no no3

Yeah no kidding, I came from 2 years of fresh before I got into salt about a year or so ago and never thought I'd complain about not having No3

I don't wanna over feed more than the fish can eat as I don't wanna introduce toxins and other unwanted byproducts of food break down. Hence why I'm looking to just dose No3

rockslide123 · Jan 17, 2018

If your phosphates are also =0 then gradually reduce lights on period in the fuge. Monitor phosphate to make sure it doesn't escalate too much

tsav87 · Jan 17, 2018

@Randy Holmes-Farley

Juano908 · Jan 17, 2018

You can dose KNO3, I use Stump Remover to bring my NO3 up.

Holy_makerel · Jan 17, 2018

I dosed nitrate and did not realize it would bottom my po4 out as a result. Threw my whole system off. I'd strongly recommend dosing both and testing frequently if you go that route.

Coronus · Jan 17, 2018

Not sure I understand why you would want to dose nitrate. And I mean no disrespect here.
Keep it simple. I have had undetectable no3 and po4 I’m my tanks for several years. My current DT is 7 years old. With great color and growth. An adequate bioload and your set. Feed the fish, the fish poop and that feeds the corals. Having no3 linger is not a want for my system.
Nutrients in and then right back out.
I am assuming you want more color? If so, add more fish. Broadcast feeding IME does nothing but cause algae. All of sudden, Dino’s, hair algae or something caused by trying to raise no3.
My suggestion is to add more fish and don’t over feed. Color will come. Chasing numbers is dangerous. Things happen fast that are bad. The good always takes longer.

tsav87 · Jan 17, 2018

What about adding amino acids instead of NO3?

Evan West · Jan 17, 2018

tsav87 said:
What about adding amino acids instead of NO3?

Its all just one viscous cycle recently as ive been struggling to control what is suspected to be dinos and was told to stop dosing the Phols Xtra i had been dosing and to increase No3 so ive been feeding more and more and they went away for a while but after i went back to work and had to feed less because i wasn't around are back with a vengeance and No3 has zeroed out again, thus here we are.....ill post pictures in a few of what the "dinos" look like in the tank.

Very frustrated recently as i see all these amazing tanks and have been maintaining identical parameters and "keeping it simple" by just feeding more and nothing has been working, sps is growing but slowly and PE and color is lacking and i have these dinos.

Evan West · Jan 17, 2018

Coronus said:
Not sure I understand why you would want to dose nitrate. And I mean no disrespect here.
Keep it simple. I have had undetectable no3 and po4 I’m my tanks for several years. My current DT is 7 years old. With great color and growth. An adequate bioload and your set. Feed the fish, the fish poop and that feeds the corals. Having no3 linger is not a want for my system.
Nutrients in and then right back out.
I am assuming you want more color? If so, add more fish. Broadcast feeding IME does nothing but cause algae. All of sudden, Dino’s, hair algae or something caused by trying to raise no3.
My suggestion is to add more fish and don’t over feed. Color will come. Chasing numbers is dangerous. Things happen fast that are bad. The good always takes longer.

The tank is only 20g and the sump holds 10g......i have no more room for fish, I have 4 already. I suspect the tank is wayyyyy over filtered and the skimmer and fuge strip all the No3 before anything can take it up. Ill post more equipment details later when I have time.

Vaughn17 · Jan 17, 2018

Coronus said:
Not sure I understand why you would want to dose nitrate. And I mean no disrespect here.
Keep it simple. I have had undetectable no3 and po4 I’m my tanks for several years. My current DT is 7 years old. With great color and growth. An adequate bioload and your set. Feed the fish, the fish poop and that feeds the corals. Having no3 linger is not a want for my system.
Nutrients in and then right back out.
I am assuming you want more color? If so, add more fish. Broadcast feeding IME does nothing but cause algae. All of sudden, Dino’s, hair algae or something caused by trying to raise no3.
My suggestion is to add more fish and don’t over feed. Color will come. Chasing numbers is dangerous. Things happen fast that are bad. The good always takes longer.

Everyone's tank is different. Yours is clearly beautiful and working well, but what works for you isn't going to work for everyone.

Evan West · Jan 17, 2018

Here are some phone pics of said "dinos".....was a lot worse and covering most of the rocks but I blew it all off when I got home. This is just was had gotten caught up in the corals and on things as it's blown around

Vaughn17 · Jan 17, 2018

Evan West said:
The tank is only 20g and the sump holds 10g......i have no more room for fish, I have 4 already. I suspect the tank is wayyyyy over filtered and the skimmer and fuge strip all the No3 before anything can take it up. Ill post more equipment details later when I have time.

I dose both NO3 using NaNO3 and PO4 using Seachem's Activate, which is concentrated Phosphorus. My current tanks are 40 and 180 g, but I dosed both nutrients in a sumpless, skimmerless 38 g and had excellent results. Like Holymackrel said, PO4 (IME) tends to be the limiting nutrient and it can be dosed to help lower NO3, providing there is enough corals (or algae) to utilize it (the reverse can also be done). Also, like HM said, frequent testing is important, especially in smaller tanks. I would avoid dosing amino acids as (IME) they tend to benefit cyano, dinos, invasive macroalage, etc. more than the corals. Also, IME, if I keep my nutrients higher, I don't get dinos.

I'll post a poor photo(as I'm a crappy photographer) of my 8 month old 180 in a moment. I keep NO3 at about 10 ppm and PO4 between .1 and .5 ppm.

Darryl · Jan 17, 2018

why do you want to dose NO3?
i think you should just relax and enjoy the tank and stop mutsin.

tsav87 · Jan 17, 2018

How old is your tank?

Vaughn17 · Jan 17, 2018

Vaughn17 · Jan 17, 2018

Darryl said:
why do you want to dose NO3?
i think you should just relax and enjoy the tank and stop mutsin.

Try reading his entire post.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 17, 2018

It is fine to dose nitrate. I'd dose to 2 ppm, and do that as often as needed to get a level of 2 ppm to show on a kit.

This calculator shows how much is needed of certain additives:

http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/calculator.htm

I'd use food grade sodium or potassium nitrate (I prefer sodium). Both are available online.