Potassium nitrate (Spectracide stump remover) dosing steps

kewadiak · Oct 4, 2015

Went to lowes picked up two bottles of stump remover. Came home measured nitrates got zero as i always do. Mixed 2 tbs to 2 cups of ro water dosed 60ml of this solution. Came back an hour later i had my first reading of .2 nitrate i am super excited! My plan is to reach 2ppm and run my tank there since i do have a mixed reef.

kewadiak · Oct 4, 2015

Double post mods can you delete

diggler93 · Oct 4, 2015

So if you will be running 2ppm of nitrate, then shouldn't your phosphate be 16 times less to get the proper ratio?

kewadiak · Oct 4, 2015

diggler93 said:
So if you will be running 2ppm of nitrate, then shouldn't your phosphate be 16 times less to get the proper ratio?

Im not sure thats two advanced for me. I never have a phosphate reading using salifert test kit I'm wondering if i should dose that next. I always feel i starve everything in my tank and it eventually dies all my lps have receding tissue. My tank is to clean i feel.

zemuss · Oct 5, 2015

Ok is there a limit to the amount of stump remover to RO water you can use before it precipitates?

Or is it just easier to mix 2 tbs to 1 solo cup and rinse and repeat?

twilliard · Oct 5, 2015

zemuss said:
Ok is there a limit to the amount of stump remover to RO water you can use before it precipitates?

Or is it just easier to mix 2 tbs to 1 solo cup and rinse and repeat?

I put it in a sealed container. Stays mixed and does not precipitate
1 tbsp per 1 cup of water is the most I do.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 5, 2015

zemuss said:
Ok is there a limit to the amount of stump remover to RO water you can use before it precipitates?

Or is it just easier to mix 2 tbs to 1 solo cup and rinse and repeat?

Solubility limit of potassium nitrate at room temp is pretty high (>300 g/L). Higher than you'd likely want to use.

twilliard · Oct 5, 2015

diggler93 said:
So if you will be running 2ppm of nitrate, then shouldn't your phosphate be 16 times less to get the proper ratio?

Welcome to R2R!
Randy has good information on his chemistry forum.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 5, 2015

diggler93 said:
So if you will be running 2ppm of nitrate, then shouldn't your phosphate be 16 times less to get the proper ratio?

No. The Redfield ratio (the ratio that certain organisms incorporate the atoms C, N, and P) is unrelated to the concentrations of those same atoms in the water. It is not a goal to have the water at those ratios.

This thread covers that issue (and related topics) in great detail:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/redfield-ratio-significant-factor-in-reef-tanks.215833/

twilliard · Oct 5, 2015

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
No. The Redfield ratio (the ratio that certain organisms incorporate the atoms C, N, and P) is unrelated to the concentrations of those same atoms in the water. It is not a goal to have the water at those ratios.

This thread covers that issue (and related topics) in great detail:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/redfield-ratio-significant-factor-in-reef-tanks.215833/

Thank you Randy, I'm trying to keep the chemistry end of things to you and keep this a "how to"

diggler93 · Oct 5, 2015

Thanks

chefjpaul · Oct 5, 2015

Thanks for this post.
The seachem product is getting spendy.

Crackem · Oct 8, 2015

I just got my Seachem flourish nitrogen today. I tested no3 with my salifert kit and it was 0 before adding flourish. My tank is a 120 with 40 breeder. Tank is fallow with a large cuc and 2 pale sps and a tiny chalice frag. I wanted to be semi conservative with dosing but I wasn't seeing the results I wanted to I got a little aggressive towards the last dose. These are my test results so far.

10/8/15 2:45 pm
Nitrates 0
Added 20 ml flourish nitrogen at 3pm
Nitrates 0.5 at 4pm
Added 10ml flourish nitrogen 4pm
Nitrates .5-1 at 8pm
Added 30ml of flourish at 8pm

I will be testing around 9pm

Crackem · Oct 8, 2015

Nitrates are now at 2.5 according to salifert. Could be as high as 4.5 because it's at least at 25 but less than 50 but for low range you divide by 10. I'll retest tomorrow.

JFrar · Oct 10, 2015

Hey everyone, i did not read through all 5 pages so this might of been answered. I've been wanting to do this for awhile as i keep SPS and always have 0 no3 and po4... when you mixed that in the cup its about 12oz. and your dosing 10ml a day that means that batch will last you a little over a month with no issue ? just store room temp i assume?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 10, 2015

JFrar said:
Hey everyone, i did not read through all 5 pages so this might of been answered. I've been wanting to do this for awhile as i keep SPS and always have 0 no3 and po4... when you mixed that in the cup its about 12oz. and your dosing 10ml a day that means that batch will last you a little over a month with no issue ? just store room temp i assume?

Potassium nitrate alone in RO/DI water will not degrade in any reasonable time (years).

ssdawood · Oct 18, 2015

Crackem said:
I just got my Seachem flourish nitrogen today. I tested no3 with my salifert kit and it was 0 before adding flourish. My tank is a 120 with 40 breeder. Tank is fallow with a large cuc and 2 pale sps and a tiny chalice frag. I wanted to be semi conservative with dosing but I wasn't seeing the results I wanted to I got a little aggressive towards the last dose. These are my test results so far.

10/8/15 2:45 pm
Nitrates 0
Added 20 ml flourish nitrogen at 3pm
Nitrates 0.5 at 4pm
Added 10ml flourish nitrogen 4pm
Nitrates .5-1 at 8pm
Added 30ml of flourish at 8pm

I will be testing around 9pm

I will be careful of adding flourish. Ot has ammonia in it too.

Maybe randy will correct me if I am wrong. But flourish has regular nitrates and ammonia which gets converted into nitrates by your bacteria.

Me and couple other reefers had problem with stn in sps after adding this.

One reefer dosed a little extra and was able to even get an ammonia reading on the test kit.

Flourish was designed for planted tanks. Nitrates and ammonia both act as fertilizers for them.

You have to be careful of ammonia.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 18, 2015

Seachem Flourish is actually a bit vague about what it has in it, listing something that isn't a clear chemical name:

" It provides nitrogen in both the nitrate form and the plant-preferred ammonium form. However, no free ammonia is released because the ammonium in Flourish Nitrogen™ is complexed and unavailable until utilized by the plants. "

and

"Derived from: potassium nitrate, urea (iminium salt)"

If it actually contains urea, then it is no toxicity concern, but chemically I cannnot umambiguously identify what an imimium salt of urea would look like.

JFrar · Oct 25, 2015

starting this today

Crackem · Oct 27, 2015

So I added approximately 60ml of seachem flourish on
October 8th to get my first measureable amount of nitrates in my barebottom 120. I tested using salifert at 2.5-4ppm and I have yet to see a drop below that level since. Is this normal? I remember reading that it's possible that my tank just needed a kickstart. Side note is that my tank is fallow and I only have a large cuc but my brown snotty diatom algae will not go away and is definitely getting worse. It used to be only on powerheads, overflow, and the back glass , and now it has moved to my rocks and is really getting disgusting. I recently changed my filter socks but I haven't done a water change since 9/16/15. I turned up the flow and my t5 and LED lighting periods have been reduced. I am ghost feeding pellets every other day to keep the bacteria alive. I'm also running gfo. Tank has only been running since June. Any tips or suggestions are welcome.