Help - ALK drop and corals closing up

[JCOLE]

You should order some sodium nitrate to go with it. Or you can overfeed the tank for now. You want detectable levels of both. Yes, that phosphate will work fine. Most get from loudwolf.

I tried to find Sodium Nitrate on Amazon and I couldn't find any pure or food grade.

 

[JCOLE]

Chasing the number/value will Not help. Did you dump kalk or diluted Kalk into the sump? Mine runs about 7.7 with happy corals. We will never maintain perfect numbers and to me over the 30 years in saltwater, perfect number are . . . S T A B L E NUMBERS !

No. My Kalk is in my top off water. I have been running Kalk only for two months. I wanted to switch to two part for my new 150 gallon. I decided to switch last week to help condition the system for this weekend switch. I replaced the kalk solution with plain RODI water. Started dosing two part along with reef plus and reef trace last Friday. All of this started happening around that time. However, I think the skimmer was way to efficient for the 55 gallon also.

 

[Sod Buster]

 

[JCOLE]

Is that on Amazon?

 

[Sod Buster]

No. From the loudwolf website. Lower price from the company.

 

[JCOLE]

I found this that looks good. One review says they use it for their reef tank.

 

[Sod Buster]

2 pounds will be a lifetime supply! You might get put on a gov't watch list also. It is saltpeter common name. I'll refrain from any more knowledge.
Edit: don't purchase 2lbs of potassium nitrate at a time. I'm a farmer and get 10's of tons of it. You are safe with the sodium.

 

[JCOLE]

2 pounds will be a lifetime supply! You might get put on a gov't watch list also. It is saltpeter common name. I'll refrain from any more knowledge.
Edit: don't purchase 2lbs of potassium nitrate at a time. I'm a farmer and get 10's of tons of it. You are safe with the sodium.

Lol. Yes I found other uses for it on a google search... Good thing I looked at it again. That was for sodium nitrite and not nitrate. I just ordered the 4oz bottle of sodium nitrate from loudwolf

 

[Sod Buster]

Yea, sodium nitrate is what you want.

 

[High ICP]

Weird

Dosing nitrate and phosphate

I’ve been out since 2015

Lots of changes

 

[stacksoner]

Is this an acceptable product to dose with??

 

[Sod Buster]

Yup. He put a 200 gallon skimmer on a 50 gallon tank and bottomed out nutrients. The skimmer is resting, and he could have got it back overfeeding the tank, but a little dose now and then is pretty clean.

 

[JCOLE]

Yup. He put a 200 gallon skimmer on a 50 gallon tank and bottomed out nutrients. The skimmer is resting, and he could have got it back overfeeding the tank, but a little dose now and then is pretty clean.

I am feeding reef roids every day. I will test again tomorrow and see if levels went up. If not then I will dose phosphate and nitrate slowly until levels come back up. Hopefully I am moving the 150 in this weekend so that might help as well....

 

[Sod Buster]

Be very careful w/ reefroids. Lots of nutrients in it. I got a little crazy with it before, and I run a scorched earth tank.

 

[Neoalchemist]

Weird

Dosing nitrate and phosphate

I’ve been out since 2015

Lots of changes

More efficient equipment and mostly tanks starting with dry rock these days.
Real aged live rock comes packed with nutrients and microbial diversity.
We have to add those to the dry rock which takes years in most cases.
Plus all these super nutrient busting chemical and bacterial additives that we all wish we had back in the day.