Potassium nitrate (Spectracide stump remover) dosing steps

[marco fish]

 

[marco fish]

 

[marco fish]

 

[marco fish]

 

[marco fish]

Pictures taken from IPhone, don't have a good camera. Thanks for taking your time with me

 

[twilliard]

Well by looking at your tank increasing no3 may not help.
You have a lot of softies that will suck it up like candy.
Your current levels are great based on your GSP's health.
This is where we get into mixed tank issues.
You can crank up no3 for some corals but others will just thrive on it.

 

[marco fish]

Well by looking at your tank increasing no3 may not help.
You have a lot of softies that will suck it up like candy.
Your current levels are great based on your GSP's health.
This is where we get into mixed tank issues.
You can crank up no3 for some corals but others will just thrive on it.

So what's a good brand for test kits and what else you think I should do

 

[twilliard]

I use red sea for no3 and you can try to increase no3

 

[watchguy123]

Well by looking at your tank increasing no3 may not help.
You have a lot of softies that will suck it up like candy.
Your current levels are great based on your GSP's health.
This is where we get into mixed tank issues.
You can crank up no3 for some corals but others will just thrive on it.

Beautiful picture of your tank. Question though, do your Zoas and Xenia take up lots of nitrates or even though it's a mixed tank, have you found that sweet spot where your sps and your softies are both happy. Was that difficult to achieve?

 

[twilliard]

Beautiful picture of your tank. Question though, do your Zoas and Xenia take up lots of nitrates or even though it's a mixed tank, have you found that sweet spot where your sps and your softies are both happy. Was that difficult to achieve?

Great questions!
Yes i have found it hard to keep this tank in a happy spot. I have found the balance between feeding and dosing. I feed flake food in the morning to help keep my po4 up.
It is a tough balance and learned the hard way as my wifes sps have had a tough road while learning this balance.

 

[marco fish]

Thanks for your input and happy reefing

 

[SteelerMike]

Well by looking at your tank increasing no3 may not help.
You have a lot of softies that will suck it up like candy.
Your current levels are great based on your GSP's health.
This is where we get into mixed tank issues.
You can crank up no3 for some corals but others will just thrive on it.

This is very interesting. I have a mixed tank that I have been slowly converting to SPS but still have softies in the attached frag tank and some in the DT and have been having a hard time raising my PO3 by dosing spectracide... I wonder if that is why. I wonder if I just need to dose more volume so the sps can get some or if that would cause problems. Any thoughts?

 

[twilliard]

If you want to increase your no3 you will have to dose more to achieve your desired level
Now in turn your softies will continue to grow more than your sps corals

 

[Squadir]

I finally got my spectracide... takes so long to ship items to myself
I'm going to start dosing tonight and will let you know how it turns out in a week. i'll take some before and after pics to post as well.
just to be certain its 2 tablespoons to 2 cups water using kitchen liquid measuring cups?

 

[Jonathan Presseau]

Anybody else having Phos issues with this program? I was able to bring my zoa garden up to 5-10 ppm from zero after 2 weeks of dosing this supplement. In a 20 gallon system the last week I was doing 5 ml every 3 days. It has been 10 days since I have dosed and my N03 is still between 5-10 ppm. I would say that my tank consumes less than 0.5 ml per day if that even of N03.

My Phos at the start of this was zero and now reads 0.16 ppm. I will either use some GFO or Phos Guard to bring it down.

 

[twilliard]

Po4 issues from potassium nitrate?

 

[twilliard]

I finally got my spectracide... takes so long to ship items to myself
I'm going to start dosing tonight and will let you know how it turns out in a week. i'll take some before and after pics to post as well.
just to be certain its 2 tablespoons to 2 cups water using kitchen liquid measuring cups?

Yes that is correct

 

[Jonathan Presseau]

Po4 issues from potassium nitrate?

Yes, never had Phos readings in this tank until I started the Stump Remover. Using the same stuff as you.

 

[twilliard]

Just got my triton results this morning. Po4 is at .014
This IMO should have no impact on Po4 levels
@Randy Holmes-Farley what do you think of this?

 

[Jonathan Presseau]

Just got my triton results this morning. Po4 is at .014
This IMO should have no impact on Po4 levels
@Randy Holmes-Farley what do you think of this?

I am very eager to hear his thoughts as I hope you are correct. I can say that at the same time of dosing the NO3 I also cut back water changes from 25 % weekly to 25% twice per month and I have also kept up with my coral feeding schedule of everyother day or every 3rd day (reef roids, reef chili, acro power). Perhaps these 2 have increased the Phos? I use no supplements or filtration to lower phos as of right now.