Neonitro from Brightwell aquatics, anyone used?

[cooltowncorals]

Look on amazon something similar to Loudwolf sodium nitrate.

Or any food grade sodium nitrate then create a stock solution more than a few threads around and how to do that and calculators

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I think you can add both, yes.

 

[Minnesota Coral Reef]

I think you can add both, yes.

Hi Randy, I’m hoping you could give me some guidance. I’ve been using Neonitro to increase my nitrates in a 2000 gallon reef. Over time it’s increased my potassium significantly, recently Triton measured it at 550. I’m wondering if a simple switch to sodium nitrate would solve the issue. I don’t want to make any bad moves. Please advise. Thanks, Sean

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Hi Randy, I’m hoping you could give me some guidance. I’ve been using Neonitro to increase my nitrates in a 2000 gallon reef. Over time it’s increased my potassium significantly, recently Triton measured it at 550. I’m wondering if a simple switch to sodium nitrate would solve the issue. I don’t want to make any bad moves. Please advise. Thanks, Sean

Yes, that's a good plan.

 

[Ed Chan]

I just ordered NeoNitro and was wondering if it's necessary to use it in conjunction with Microbacter and Biofuel like they state on the BRS site.

I simply want to raise my nitrates without raising my phosphates.

 

[Minnesota Coral Reef]

I have used NeoNitro for over a year now. My understanding is that you need a good bacteria source (Microbacter) to bind with the Nitrate to make it a positive source for corals. In addition, keep an eye on potassium levels as NeoNitro contains potassium.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I have used NeoNitro for over a year now. My understanding is that you need a good bacteria source (Microbacter) to bind with the Nitrate to make it a positive source for corals. In addition, keep an eye on potassium levels as NeoNitro contains potassium.

I'm not sure what you mean, but corals can take up nitrate directly and it can be an important source of nitrogen for them. They also take up ammonia.

 

[Ed Chan]

If I decide to use NeoNitro, should I also purchase Microbacter and Biofuel as the BRS description implies that I should?

My current parameters are:

Alk: 9.2
Ca: 405
Mg: 1350
NO3: 1
PO4: 0.08 (currently dosing Phosphate E to bring it down to 0.05)

Acros, and most LPS and Softies are fine, but I lost a hammer and a head of torch recently. I'm thinking it could be due to a lack of nutrients which is why I'd like to get my NO3 around 5-10.

Thanks in advance for all the input!

I'm not sure what you mean, but corals can take up nitrate directly and it can be an important source of nitrogen for them. They also take up ammonia.

 

[Minnesota Coral Reef]

I'm not sure what you mean, but corals can take up nitrate directly and it can be an important source of nitrogen for them. They also take up ammonia.

If I decide to use NeoNitro, should I also purchase Microbacter and Biofuel as the BRS description implies that I should?

My current parameters are:

Alk: 9.2
Ca: 405
Mg: 1350
NO3: 1
PO4: 0.08 (currently dosing Phosphate E to bring it down to 0.05)

Acros, and most LPS and Softies are fine, but I lost a hammer and a head of torch recently. I'm thinking it could be due to a lack of nutrients which is why I'd like to get my NO3 around 5-10.

Thanks in advance for all the input!

If I decide to use NeoNitro, should I also purchase Microbacter and Biofuel as the BRS description implies that I should?

My current parameters are:

Alk: 9.2
Ca: 405
Mg: 1350
NO3: 1
PO4: 0.08 (currently dosing Phosphate E to bring it down to 0.05)

Acros, and most LPS and Softies are fine, but I lost a hammer and a head of torch recently. I'm thinking it could be due to a lack of nutrients which is why I'd like to get my NO3 around 5-10.

Thanks in advance for all the input!

This part of the hobby has always been a foggy for me, so please forgive me if it’s misleading or bad advise. I was told that by adding a good bacteria source, when needed, is recommended because it competes with algae. I’m guessing that by adding nitrate to the system you run the risk of an algae bloom of sorts if there’s no competition. The bacteria take up nitrate compounds as food and digested by the coral. Is this wrong?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

If I decide to use NeoNitro, should I also purchase Microbacter and Biofuel as the BRS description implies that I should?

My current parameters are:

Alk: 9.2
Ca: 405
Mg: 1350
NO3: 1
PO4: 0.08 (currently dosing Phosphate E to bring it down to 0.05)

Acros, and most LPS and Softies are fine, but I lost a hammer and a head of torch recently. I'm thinking it could be due to a lack of nutrients which is why I'd like to get my NO3 around 5-10.

Thanks in advance for all the input!

What is the goal?

if it is raising nutrients, there's no reason to buy anything else, except perhaps phosphate if it gets too low, and maybe trace elements if they are being consumed.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

This part of the hobby has always been a foggy for me, so please forgive me if it’s misleading or bad advise. I was told that by adding a good bacteria source, when needed, is recommended because it competes with algae. I’m guessing that by adding nitrate to the system you run the risk of an algae bloom of sorts if there’s no competition. The bacteria take up nitrate compounds as food and digested by the coral. Is this wrong?

That's one process. Is it the major one? Don't know, but probably not for photosynthetic corals.

Bacteria are not typically a big user of nitrate unless you are organic carbon dosing.

Corals DEFINITELY use nitrate and ammonia directly. It is easily demonstrated in the scientific literature how much:

Nitrate uptake in the scleractinian coral Stylophora pistillata

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/22868201.pdf

" Nitrate can therefore be considered as an important source of nitrogen for corals, at least when ammonium concentrations are low in seawater. "

 

[Ed Chan]

Thanks Randy. I'll start off with NeoNitro.

Is there a Brightwell product for trace elements or any other product you'd recommend?

What is the goal?

if it is raising nutrients, there's no reason to buy anything else, except perhaps phosphate if it gets too low, and maybe trace elements if they are being consumed.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thanks Randy. I'll start off with NeoNitro.

Is there a Brightwell product for trace elements or any other product you'd recommend?

i'm not a fan of Brightwell's product claims, but I don't know anything about its trace element additives.

I don't have a particular brand that I think is best.

 

[Orion_OTS1]

@Randy Holmes-Farley
Hello All! New to this forum. Stumbled upon this very useful thread!

I have about a year old system, with total 100 gallons water volume. A mostly SPS dominated system. Running both a refugium and a decent skimmer. Even with feeding relatively heavy I have been unable to measure nitrates or phosphates in the past 9 months. I have tried testing Nitrates with salifert, LaMotte, Hanna, ICP. As you can image I am battling a "paleness" issue with my SPS.

I recently received a bottle of NioNitro and to be honest I am a bit confused with the instructions.

Following the calculator I should dose ~6ml to raise .5ppm. (100 * .5 * .1261 = 6.305). I wanted to start slowly as I have always done in this hobby. So the question is how often do you dose NioNitro? Daily? Weekly?

and should I worry about not detecting any phosphates as well?

Stable average parameters
alk: 8.2
Calc: 430
Mag: 1530 (slowly bringing it down)
NO3: 0
PO4: 0

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

@Randy Holmes-Farley
Hello All! New to this forum. Stumbled upon this very useful thread!

I have about a year old system, with total 100 gallons water volume. A mostly SPS dominated system. Running both a refugium and a decent skimmer. Even with feeding relatively heavy I have been unable to measure nitrates or phosphates in the past 9 months. I have tried testing Nitrates with salifert, LaMotte, Hanna, ICP. As you can image I am battling a "paleness" issue with my SPS.

I recently received a bottle of NioNitro and to be honest I am a bit confused with the instructions.

Following the calculator I should dose ~6ml to raise .5ppm. (100 * .5 * .1261 = 6.305). I wanted to start slowly as I have always done in this hobby. So the question is how often do you dose NioNitro? Daily? Weekly?

and should I worry about not detecting any phosphates as well?

Stable average parameters
alk: 8.2
Calc: 430
Mag: 1530 (slowly bringing it down)
NO3: 0
PO4: 0

Most people dosing nitrate will dose daily, but if you dose up to, say 2-5 ppm and it stays there, there's no need to dose again until it drops below your target level.

Yes, look to dose phosphate too, or feed more.

 

[ClownWrangler]

I came across this thread doing research for a macro algae tank. I ordered some NeoNitro from BRS, but now I'm going to try to cancel the order before it ships. This is absolute garbage. They use a "proprietary" blend, hence the confusion about potassium content. Seachem discloses this, so I would recommend just going with Seachem so you at least know how much potassium you are adding. Better yet, just go with dry fertilizer. Sodium nitrate or ammonium nitrate if you don't want to raise potassium and potassium nitrate if you do. None of these options should raise phosphates, but may actually lower phosphates by accelerating growth of chaeto if you have it since macro algae uptakes nitrogen and phosphorus at a fixed ratio.

 

[Tundra Cuttle]

This is extremely interesting to me because Brightwell has some pretty ambitious claims surrounding NeoNitro, they make it sound like nitrate alone is not enough but you need to add some sort of proprietary blend of nitrogen compounds in order to feed bacteria that will in turn feed your corals, providing that adequate nitrogen source. I think this may be what is confusing many of us, this made me question which is better as well. But I haven't seen anyone doing a controlled experiment comparing different nitrogen sources, so that is what has kept me very skeptical. Looks like sodium nitrate is what you want to use (I trust Randy) unless you are unable to get any of these nitrate compounds like the person in Canada. I think the whole study of how bacteria may be important or impactful to coral health is confusing right now to most in the hobby, though there have been some compelling talks on the subject. For instance Brightwell's Bacterioplankton supplement suggests that this is a good way to round out coral nutrition, I have questioned whether I need this too as the marketing is pretty convincing. Life is just so adaptable and variable it's hard to nail down many things biological in a way we would like, I think many of us would like a formula to follow that would give a known output or result for a given input. AKA put life in a "box" so to speak...even though that's what we literally do in this case with our aquariums, that's not what I'm referring to.

Anyway just my rambling thoughts on what I have been going through with this bit of light research.

 

[Tundra Cuttle]

I came across this thread doing research for a macro algae tank. I ordered some NeoNitro from BRS, but now I'm going to try to cancel the order before it ships. This is absolute garbage. They use a "proprietary" blend, hence the confusion about potassium content. Seachem discloses this, so I would recommend just going with Seachem so you at least know how much potassium you are adding. Better yet, just go with dry fertilizer. Sodium nitrate or ammonium nitrate if you don't want to raise potassium and potassium nitrate if you do. None of these options should raise phosphates, but may actually lower phosphates by accelerating growth of chaeto if you have it since macro algae uptakes nitrogen and phosphorus at a fixed ratio.

This is also really interesting because I am running a macroalgae display attached to my grow out system for nutrient control and because macroalgae is pretty, I had no clue what I was getting into. I grew a ton of film algae, bought snails, snails ate all film algae, macroalgae took off growing like crazy, film algae would not grow anymore, snails all died but one, hermits ate the dead snails, macroalgae kept growing. Then hit a wall, tested found out my phosphate was 0, bought a phosphate supplement and iron supplement, I have been dosing these and I have grown more algae than I was able to before but I have hit a wall again even though my phosphate is like 1ppm it's tough to grow algae, tested nitrate near 0. Now I'm finding out that nitrate is also a macronutrient for algae, feeding reef roids heavy every day, nitrate still near 0, add liquid fertilizer (flourish), still near 0 but my algae popped off some sprouts of new growth. I have learned that growing algae without fish is harder than I ever thought possible.

I'm sorry for my huge long posts, I've just been digging into this and documenting my process so much that I have a lot to say about it. But hey maybe it will help someone.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

This is extremely interesting to me because Brightwell has some pretty ambitious claims surrounding NeoNitro, they make it sound like nitrate alone is not enough but you need to add some sort of proprietary blend of nitrogen compounds in order to feed bacteria that will in turn feed your corals, providing that adequate nitrogen source. I think this may be what is confusing many of us, this made me question which is better as well.

Where do you see claims that suggest neonitro contains different forms than nitrate alone?

 

[Tundra Cuttle]

Where do you see claims that suggest neonitro contains different forms than nitrate alone?

BRS stated that it was more than just nitrate but the bottle just states "proprietary nitrogen salts", to me that seemed to suggest that there was more than potassium nitrate or sodium nitrate. Maybe I'm mistaken or missed a piece of the puzzle, but that on the bottle in conjunction with how BRS explained it made me think this was claiming to be more.