NDoc Report Help

StevePhx · Nov 5, 2019

Need some help understanding my first Triton NDoc report.

Organic and inorganic carbon are in range but my nitrogen is really high. Triton recommends I start dosing Bio-base, which I’m assuming is a form of carbon dosing.

My question is two fold, what would cause my nitrogen levels to be so out of balance to carbon and second without just blindly dosing Bio-base how do I fix this.

140g system SPS tank with heavy fish load. Refugium for nutrient removal using Kessil H380. Run ROX carbon and occasionally GFO.

Flippers4pups · Nov 6, 2019

Not sure. Let's get more eyes on this.

Righteous · Nov 6, 2019

What’s your nitrate reading? So I think they are calculating that nitrogen set point to be the equivalent of about 2ppm nitrate. They can’t really know, since there could be other sources of nitrogen (ammonia, etc) so it’s like a best guess estimate is my understanding.

Basically if you want to lower your nitrates, they’re showing that you are also on the lower end of organic carbon, so organic carbon dosing like vinegar might help lower the nitrates.

It’s not been made clear to me what bio base is composed of, but I have some and it does have a strong vinegar smell.

If your tank is otherwise healthy, and you have no issue with your nitrate levels causing problems, then you don’t really need to worry.

StevePhx · Nov 7, 2019

Nitrates are 10.

Dan_P · Nov 7, 2019

StevePhx said:
Need some help understanding my first Triton NDoc report.

Organic and inorganic carbon are in range but my nitrogen is really high. Triton recommends I start dosing Bio-base, which I’m assuming is a form of carbon dosing.

My question is two fold, what would cause my nitrogen levels to be so out of balance to carbon and second without just blindly dosing Bio-base how do I fix this.

140g system SPS tank with heavy fish load. Refugium for nutrient removal using Kessil H380. Run ROX carbon and occasionally GFO.

The numbers in the report are blurry. Would you type out what they are so I can answer your question. Thanks.

Cory · Nov 8, 2019

Dan_P said:
The numbers in the report are blurry. Would you type out what they are so I can answer your question. Thanks.

Dan_P · Nov 8, 2019

Cory said:

Below is a survey of other N-DOC test results recently posted on R2R. I plotted total nitrogen against total organic carbon. Most test results were below 2 mg/L and were not correlated to the amount of TOC. Unfortunately, the contribution from nitrate is unknown. Nitrate contributes about 0.25 mg/L nitrogen for every mg/L NO3 in the water. I would conclude that systems with 2 mg/L TN have less than 8 mg/L NO3

Here is how total (TN) and nitrate nitrogen are related. A 5 mg/L TN result in the presence of 10 mg/L NO3 would mean that there is (5 mg/L TN - 2.5 mg NO3-N) = 2.5 mg/L organic nitrogen. This calculation assumes 0 mg/L ammonia and nitrite. I have no idea if that is undesirable. TRITON has not been transparent about how they determined the 0.4 mg/L set point for TN, but it would correspond to about 1.6 ppm NO3 if no organic nitrogen was present (highly unlikely, so, even less nitrate).

If the nitrogen level in the system is considered too high, carbon dosing is an effective way to reduce it, though some folks prefer adding a refugium. Dosing vinegar, vodka or a mixture of vinegar and ethanol are examples of carbon dosing.

Does this help?

Cory · Nov 8, 2019

I would just go with numbers that the ocean generally has and compare that way so its not so confusing. But i dont have that data sorry.

BeejReef · Nov 8, 2019

Triton sets their warnings for both nitrogen and phosphate on the extreme low end of the scale. I got a red lamp for .08 phosphate.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Nov 9, 2019

As far as I'm concerned, I think such measurements are a curiosity/learning experience, not something we know what is good or bad. I'm not sure that will ever be possible. Not all N and C are the same.