Nitrates too low

[chris k.]

My nitrates have dropped to near zero. Im wondering how to raise nitrates a more natural way. I dont want to use chemicals. I just need to raise it gradually. It has been holding steady at 2. And dropped to 0 in the last 2 weeks.

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

What have you been testing nitrates with, some test kits will appear to show 0 when in fact there is enough in the tank for a coral system. Do you have any algae growing in the tank?

 

[chris k.]

Red sea test corresponds with lfs tests. I have coraline and gha in tank but not much the cuc keeps it in check.

 

[chris k.]

I have .2 po4

 

[2Wheelsonly]

I have .2 po4

.02 or .2? .2 is alot! That could be what's limiting your nitrates...you do have alot of cyano in the tank right now?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

My nitrates have dropped to near zero. Im wondering how to raise nitrates a more natural way. I dont want to use chemicals. .

lol

You want to raise a chemical, but don't want to use a chemical.

Seems rather ironic to me.

FWIW, fish food is a bunch of chemicals formed into a tasty glob.

 

[chris k.]

I thought there would be a more natural way to raise than to just dump something in there. The lfs measures my po4 at .16. My test is either .1 or .2. Hard to tell the colors sometimes.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I thought there would be a more natural way to raise than to just dump something in there. The lfs measures my po4 at .16. My test is either .1 or .2. Hard to tell the colors sometimes.

I'm just funning you. I understand what you mean. More fish food will raise nitrate, but also phosphate.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

They aren't any less chemical than sodium nitrate, but if you prefer organic chemicals, you can dose amino acids as a source of N that might also boost nitrate.

 

[chris k.]

Thanks

 

[Charles4400]

I' going through low nitrates as well. Here' my thread with help from Randy and others:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/what-to-use-to-dose-nitrate.344294/

In short dosing works for raising nitrates. Get sodium nitrate (reagent grade, I got mine through amazon) or potassium nitrate , mix according to calculator , test and dose. Just feeding more did not work for me but dosing did. Its interesting to see how much your system absorbs nitrate in 1 day. Mine eats up 2ppm in a day.

I just started dosing and you can get the levels you want with the calculator (in above mentioned thread).

Thanks again Randy for the help on all that.

 

[saltyhog]

The calculator in your thread only has potassium nitrate and no sodium nitrate. Do you dose them the same?

 

[Charles4400]

The calculator in your thread only has potassium nitrate and no sodium nitrate. Do you dose them the same?

I dosed the same as if using potassium naitrate and got the same results. Probably off by a little but nothing significant.

Randy can chime in, but I read in a thread Randy replied back to to someone (can't find it right now) in which he said to multiply the result or amount of potassium nitrate by .84 or something of the sort.

I just decided to try using the dosage of potassium nitrate without conversion and it worked out the same for me using a salifert test.

 

[Servillius]

I dosed the same as if using potassium naitrate and got the same results. Probably off by a little but nothing significant.

Randy can chime in, but I read in a thread Randy replied back to to someone (can't find it right now) in which he said to multiply the result or amount of potassium nitrate by .84 or something of the sort.

I just decided to try using the dosage of potassium nitrate without conversion and it worked out the same for me using a salifert test.

You almost certainly want a correct answer from Randy regardless of what I say but Ill take a shot for fun. Since sodium nitrate is three oxygen and a sodium and potassium nitrate is three oxygen and potassium and since sodium and potassium are fairly similar in mass, you’re not far off.

The atomic weight of sodium is roughly 23, potassium roughly 39, and oxygen roughly 16 all in grams per mole. So sodium nitrate is 23 + (16 x 3) ~ 71 g/mole and potassium nitrate is 39 + (16 x 3) ~ 87 g/mole.

 

[Servillius]

My nitrates have dropped to near zero. Im wondering how to raise nitrates a more natural way. I dont want to use chemicals. I just need to raise it gradually. It has been holding steady at 2. And dropped to 0 in the last 2 weeks.

Oh, it’s unlikely your nitrates are too low.

You really want to get over the chemical vs. natural thing since there is literally no difference. Everything in nature is made of chemicals and nothing but chemicals.

Once you’re past that, if your corals are hungry you should feed them more. Add coral food and/or amino acids. It turns out these will also include nitrate. People are going overboard on the nitrates are too low schtick. We’re going to hear a lot soon about algae blooms in newer tanks after we saturated their rock with nutrients.

Do your corals show signs of stress? If so, what do you see?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The calculator in your thread only has potassium nitrate and no sodium nitrate. Do you dose them the same?

If you did dose them the same, you are unlikely to be able to detect the small difference, but for perfection, dose 84% of the potassium nitrate dose when using dosium nitrate.

That means if the needed dose is 1 gram, dose 0.84 g.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

You almost certainly want a correct answer from Randy regardless of what I say but Ill take a shot for fun. Since sodium nitrate is three oxygen and a sodium and potassium nitrate is three oxygen and potassium and since sodium and potassium are fairly similar in mass, you’re not far off.

The atomic weight of sodium is roughly 23, potassium roughly 39, and oxygen roughly 16 all in grams per mole. So sodium nitrate is 23 + (16 x 3) ~ 71 g/mole and potassium nitrate is 39 + (16 x 3) ~ 87 g/mole.

Don't forget to add a nitrogen into each.

 

[Servillius]

Don't forget to add a nitrogen into each.

As soon as I saw your .84 answer I knew there was a mistake somewhere! Thanks.

 

[chris k.]

The corals seem happy. I do feed red sea parts a and b. I just dont want to wait till they are unhappy.

 

[Servillius]

The corals seem happy. I do feed red sea parts a and b. I just dont want to wait till they are unhappy.

I think this is a case of responding to the coral, not the numbers.

I’m not saying they might not need more food along the way. I’d just be inclined to wait for signs it’s actually necessary before acting.

There’s a lot of uncertainty near zero nutrients. The ocean has near zero nutrients in solution at any one time and things seem to do fine there. You can absolutely go overboard, but just because a test kit gives a low result is probably not the time to worry too much.