Nitrate dosing

[Squadir]

After doing some reading on the forums I decided to try dosing Nitrate via Spectracide Stump Remover (potassium nitrate) as per @twilliard
It is a bit of reading, please excuse the length of the post but I put in as much as possible as it may (or may not) be useful to others.

First of all thank you @twilliard for the details and instructions.

Mixed up my solution of 2 table spoons stump remover to 2 cups water and put in a bottle.
Day one dosed 10ml and tested after an hour, still undetectable, another 10 ml and tested after an hour, undetectable... another 10ml and still undetectable after yet another hour.. decided that 30ml was probably enough for one day.

Day 2: tested before dosing anything, Nitrates at 0/undetectable so I dosed 10ml and tested after an hour. Nitrates 0 so the same process as day one was done, at the end of the day it was undetectable.... started thinking I may be doing something wrong but decided to stick with it.

By the beginning of the 3rd day I did notice that my GSP was showing signs of new growth, nothing else changed as far as I could tell.

Day 3: dosed 20ml and tested after 1 hour and finally saw a trace of NO3, at the end of the day it was back to undetectable.

Day 4 and 5 I dosed 20ml after checking levels and both days started off and ended at undetectable.

My GSP growth really took off by this time and colors on the sps were not really much different if at all, I believe that my softies (GSP, xenia, yellow polyps, zoas) were sucking it up like a sponge.

I dosed 20ml for days 6-10. My GSP doubled in size, it took 10 days to double in total size! I had this little piece of GSP for over 6 months and it never grew this quickly, it looks like my NO3 deficit was really keeping my growth stagnant. I also noticed a bit more colors on some SPS; my cotton candy acro tips were definitely a bit more purple, my bird of paradise polyps turned purple from a dull brown, and one or 2 more acros were better colored.

On days 11 and 12 I only dosed 10ml because testing after 1 hour showed some NO3, not quite 5 ppm but more than undetectable, I did not test before dosing taking for granted that it was back to undetectable levels. at the end of the day once again back to undetectable levels......

I feed flakes to keep some PO4 in there as recommended. Nothing else in my routine has changed and I have seen good results so far. I think I may have to increase my dosing amounts though so that there is some NO3 present in the system at the end of the day. It seems that my LPS and softies are using up the nutrients like starved animals and also I have a piece of macro algae that is probably using NO3 to its heart's content!!

I will continue dosing for the rest of the month and see how things go from here. BTW this process uses a lot of NO3 tests, be sure to have a lot on hand when/if starting dosing nitrates.
I'll be sure to let you guys know how it's going in the next week or so.

 

[drstratton]

Following! Glad to see you're getting some good results!

 

[twilliard]

For years I did everything I could to maintain 0 no3 not knowing the relationship to zooxanthellae
I am glad to hear that you are seeing results!

 

[Squadir]

For years I did everything I could to maintain 0 no3 not knowing the relationship to zooxanthellae
I am glad to hear that you are seeing results!

I believe that most articles out there lead people to believe that 0 NO3 and PO4 is best for a system so a lot of people aim for that mark, even I aimed for undetectable levels when I set up my system.
On another note some systems are quite successful running it that way but after reading up on the relationship of Nutrients and zooxanthallae I sometimes wonder if they actually have true 0.

 

[twilliard]

You are absolutely correct.

 

[Squadir]

@twilliard in your experience do you think I should aim to get a constant reading of NO3 in the system or will having it all consumed daily achieve same results as long as there is a daily supply?

 

[twilliard]

Soon you will not see these daily drops in no3 as long as you keep increasing the dose till you reach your target goal. Once reached then daily testing will show your daily consumption for use with a dosing method.
IMO it is best to maintain a stable number daily for consistent available no3 to be utilized

 

[CastAway]

This took the longest time for me to grasp, and I'm still trying actually, that a measurement of zero does not mean that none is present, but that there is simply no measurable excess. It means that whatever nitrate (or phosphate for that matter) that is being introduced, or produced, is being so effectively consumed or absorbed that it is undetectable. If this is true, then it really makes me curios about Ca, Mg, and dKH measurements....

 

[Squadir]

Soon you will not see these daily drops in no3 as long as you keep increasing the dose till you reach your target goal. Once reached then daily testing will show your daily consumption for use with a dosing method.
IMO it is best to maintain a stable number daily for consistent available no3 to be utilized

Noted, thanks

This took the longest time for me to grasp, and I'm still trying actually, that a measurement of zero does not mean that none is present, but that there is simply no measurable excess. It means that whatever nitrate (or phosphate for that matter) that is being introduced, or produced, is being so effectively consumed or absorbed that it is undetectable. If this is true, then it really makes me curios about Ca, Mg, and dKH measurements....

I may be wrong but my understanding of it is that the readings or levels we try to maintain is the range for best use/absorbtion by the creatures that we keep therefore dosing is needed in most cases so that the levels remain constant and the organisms are able to use what they need efficiently without levels dropping as they use them up. It isn't that it isn't being used up but we just try to maintain it at (excess) levels that make it easy for our corals, etc. to use.

In the case of NO3 a reading of zero may be exactly like you said, the test could read zero because there is no excess in the system to show up in the test.

Hope this helps.

 

[marco fish]

Great stuff keep it coming, it definitely helps on your details to understand what's going on, thanks

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

FWIW, the likely reason that some people find it desirable to keep nitrate higher in their aquaria than is typically present on coral reefs (which would typically be well below 1 ppm) is probably due to lower concentrations of other nitrogen-containing chemicals, especially organic foods that contain nitrogen (such as whole phytoplankton, etc.).

Many people have found that sources such as amino acids are beneficial, likely for this reason, if not others as well.

 

[Squadir]

Update: I have been dosing 25 ml nitrate daily, still reads 0 at the end of each day. I may consider dosing higher amounts daily but I am concerned if there might be any side effects of dosing that much potassium nitrate daily. My guess is that the softies, mainly my GSP is using it up quickly because of the rapid growth as compared to before I started dosing N03.
So far corals seem happy with good polyp extension, GSP is growing like crazy and colors on SPS are a bit better. I also have a bit of green algae growth popping up, nothing a little manual removal cant take care of.
My first batch of nitrate solution is done and I'm on a second batch already.
In my reef it seems beneficial to dose nitrate, especially for softies and LPS . I will continue for another month or so and see how things go.
Softies aren't really my thing though, they are just in there because my wife finds the sticks too boring lol so if there isn't much difference in my SPS I may stop and compare the difference of coloration and polyp extension to see if I will continue dosing nitrates. Its a tad tedious to dose manually and test daily, also uses up aloooottt of nitrate tests and I have to import those test kits which costs me quite a bit.

On another note I don't carbon dose so if I get a few more fish then I may not need to continue dosing, feedings and the fish mess should give me some nutrients in the system right?

 

[Squadir]

Ok, so my rainbow stylo started to STN/RTN, everything else looks fine and all parameters haven't changed. The only thing different over the past 6-7 months was the nitrate dosing trail going on for just about a month, I'm going to stop dosing nitrates and see if it recovers.
Unfortunately it STNed in the worst possible places leaving nowhere to cut off the 'bad spots' since its still pretty small, I hope it recovers, its such a nice piece.

 

[Squadir]

Its official, since I stopped nitrate dosing for the past 2 weeks the colors on my SPS have faded and the growth on my softies have slowed once more in my system. I'm thinking to start back dosing 20-25 ml nitrate solution but also dose carbon (vodka) to help remove some phosphates because of a spike in algae growth that is becoming too much work for manual removal on an almost daily basis.

 

[Squadir]

Its been a while since my last post on this thread so here goes:

Since my post on 1st March I have been struggling with an enormous algae bloom - turf, gha and a green stringy hair algae. Also had a few pieces of SPS get STN and fade drastically. Some softies also had some receding and die off (xenia which is almost impossible to kill, some zoas and yellow polyps) and my nitrates rose gradually even though I stopped dosing for over a week and was high (40+ppm) no matter what I did, I'm guessing from the die off of softies and whatever else may have died.

Things have recently stabilized and I'm finally really close to being back on track except for the algae which is a real pain. Colors have started coming back, I'm seeing some new growth on pieces that were affected, all SPS have recovered or are recovering except for 2 frags that didn't make it.

The only thing that was done differently was dosing the stump remover and at the beginning I saw good results but it headed downhill fast. I may have gotten a bad batch or done something wrong somewhere. One thing for sure is I will definitely not be dosing this anymore I was trying to add a little extra zing to my tank that was doing good but instead caused trouble lol... I think i'll stick to my old routine which was working for me even though I did get a bit better coloration on my sticks with the nitrate dosing.

I have read of people having awesome success with it on the forums and I'm glad you do!! Keep it up!!

 

[Squamosa]

Its been a while since my last post on this thread so here goes:

Since my post on 1st March I have been struggling with an enormous algae bloom - turf, gha and a green stringy hair algae. Also had a few pieces of SPS get STN and fade drastically. Some softies also had some receding and die off (xenia which is almost impossible to kill, some zoas and yellow polyps) and my nitrates rose gradually even though I stopped dosing for over a week and was high (40+ppm) no matter what I did, I'm guessing from the die off of softies and whatever else may have died.

Things have recently stabilized and I'm finally really close to being back on track except for the algae which is a real pain. Colors have started coming back, I'm seeing some new growth on pieces that were affected, all SPS have recovered or are recovering except for 2 frags that didn't make it.

The only thing that was done differently was dosing the stump remover and at the beginning I saw good results but it headed downhill fast. I may have gotten a bad batch or done something wrong somewhere. One thing for sure is I will definitely not be dosing this anymore I was trying to add a little extra zing to my tank that was doing good but instead caused trouble lol... I think i'll stick to my old routine which was working for me even though I did get a bit better coloration on my sticks with the nitrate dosing.

I have read of people having awesome success with it on the forums and I'm glad you do!! Keep it up!!

Good to see you're back on track.

I used to carbon dose heavily ,which together with aggressive GFO use, left little to no nutrients in the tank.

This resulted in my corals starting to get pale colours. To counteract this, I would dose sodium nitrate at 1 ppm/day.

This amount wasn't enough to show up on a test kit but it was utilised by the corals.

After colour and I must stress not a brown colour, but vibrant colour, came back to the sps corals, I would stop with the nitrates (typically in 5-7days). The trick was, to know what signs to look out for.

Another indicator of the nitrates would be the faint green tinge,seen on the glass again.