Potassium nitrate (Spectracide stump remover) dosing steps

[twilliard]

That is key
Reduced changes with the foods fed will raise Po4
As randy would say..
Even though your fish eat it does not change the amount of Po4 added to the water.

 

[Jonathan Presseau]

That is key
Reduced changes with the foods fed will raise Po4
As randy would say..
Even though your fish eat it does not change the amount of Po4 added to the water.

I am going to toss a bag of Phos Guard in the sump tonight to try and keep the Phos in check and I will try to monitor from here how adding the Sump Remover going forward effects the Phos. Basis your reading and the fact that it does not have an active Phos ingredient I would imagine that it would not.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

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?

That Triton measurement is of what exactly?

 

[twilliard]

That Triton measurement is of what exactly?

Po4 .014 mg/l

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Po4 .014 mg/l

Sorry, what liquid solution was being tested.

 

[twilliard]

Sorry, what liquid solution was being tested.

Randy you have lost me on this one
That is my tanks Po4 level through triton.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Randy you have lost me on this one
That is my tanks Po4 level through triton.

Sorry. From the way you wrote an earlier post, I thought you were testing the Spectracide solution.

That seems like a fine tank level to me. It would be OK if it drifted up a bit too. I'd usually target around 0.02 ppm if you have such fine control.

 

[Squadir]

I'll be starting a thread with my experience dosing nitrate so as to not hijack your thread. i'll share the thread link when I do

 

[Squadir]

here is the link to my NO3 dosing experience

 

[hingisp]

So I started with this method and got my nitrate up to 3 ppm and definitely noticed a difference in the tank, in a good way of course.. Once I reached my level of 3ppm I stopped dosing altogether and just did weekly checks and it remained there.. Disclaimer - this was tested using red Sea nitrate test kit. I then thought I would invest in the better red Sea nitrate PRO test kit and checked today that my nitrate was actually at 10 ppm.. Way higher than I wanted.. How do I lower the nitrate now, other than doing a water change. Or is that the quickest way to lower it. Thought about red sea's no pox solution, but I think that will take ages to lower the levels. Phosphate tested at 0.04ppm, have tried dosing Microbelift Phosphate remover but that doesn't seem to be lowering the Phosphate level.

 

[Vaughn17]

Here are some pics from my mixed reef 40g breeder that I've been dosing with potassium nitrate for the past five weeks. I'm no photographer, as you'll be able to tell.

 

[DLuce510]

So I started with this method and got my nitrate up to 3 ppm and definitely noticed a difference in the tank, in a good way of course.. Once I reached my level of 3ppm I stopped dosing altogether and just did weekly checks and it remained there.. Disclaimer - this was tested using red Sea nitrate test kit. I then thought I would invest in the better red Sea nitrate PRO test kit and checked today that my nitrate was actually at 10 ppm.. Way higher than I wanted.. How do I lower the nitrate now, other than doing a water change. Or is that the quickest way to lower it. Thought about red sea's no pox solution, but I think that will take ages to lower the levels. Phosphate tested at 0.04ppm, have tried dosing Microbelift Phosphate remover but that doesn't seem to be lowering the Phosphate level.

I used NoPoX, my No3 lowered in 2 days and within a week was back to undetectable. Then I slowly started dosing again. Besides a slight pH drop it worked great.

 

[marco fish]

Nice tank by the way, I am waiting on UPS to deliver the spectracide and I am going to do a before and after pics. A lot of good advice has come from Twillard, and I think a lot of people have benefitted from all the trial and error we do for the love of this great hobby

 

[marco fish]

And sorry about the late response, but I fish yellowtail snapper for a living in Key West and sometimes I am out for a couple of days

 

[jumplittlechloe]

I use Aquaforest in my tank and tested my NO3 and it would not register on the Salifert test. I ended up dosing 30ml and got my nitrate up to 5 ppm. I have checked it for the past 3 days and it seems to be holding. I had some GFO running in a reactor that I also removed. I hope to see some of the color in my SPS return. The more that I read on dosing nitrates I am starting to think that this was the issue on another tank I had where I dosed NO3POX. I had cyano really bad. I bet the nitrates were so low it was affecting the ratio between Nitrate and Phosphate.

 

[The-Russ]

After reading this and other items, I am going to start dosing Potassium Nitrate. I started a thread and will try to document my progress. This is a little scary because it goes against the 0 Nitrate I believed was the target for the past 10 years.

Here I GO!!!

650 total water volume, 0 nitrates. My goal is to take it to 4 and try t maintain it.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/starting-to-dose-nitrate.235096/

 

[AustinAquaculture]

I just recently got back into the hobby after a 3 year hiatus. The hiatus was caused by a completely devastating loss of all of our fish and coral for some unknown reason.

I would've never thought of this. As I look back now, I feel like the PO4 & NO3 levels in my tank could've attributed to the loss of the majority of our SPS. Things just clicked for me as I read this thread, and the 39 pages from @Russ265 's thread...

I cannot WAIT to implement this into my new tank.

Just to summarize:

1. 2 x tbs of spectracide w/ 2 cups of water
2. NO3 of 2ppm - 5ppm (depending on your needs)
3. PO4 of .02ppm - .08ppm
4. Regular monitoring of both PO4 & NO3 (Red Sea tests seem to be good?)
5. Pray to God that your tank is happy

 

[Russ265]

I just recently got back into the hobby after a 3 year hiatus. The hiatus was caused by a completely devastating loss of all of our fish and coral for some unknown reason.

I would've never thought of this. As I look back now, I feel like the PO4 & NO3 levels in my tank could've attributed to the loss of the majority of our SPS. Things just clicked for me as I read this thread, and the 39 pages from @Russ265 's thread...

I cannot WAIT to implement this into my new tank.

Just to summarize:

1. 2 x tbs of spectracide w/ 2 cups of water
2. NO3 of 2ppm - 5ppm (depending on your needs)
3. PO4 of .02ppm - .08ppm
4. Regular monitoring of both PO4 & NO3 (Red Sea tests seem to be good?)
5. Pray to God that your tank is happy

make sure your corals can handle 500+ par if you are going the nutrient rich route of .08 po4. shoot for 11 alk as well. iirc from a white paper anything above .16 is dangerous. - but i could misremember.

more nutrients require more light or you will sacrifice color.

tbh ive gone as high as 10ppm nitrate with no ill effects. i think @Greenstreet.1 keeps his nitrate above 20.

i still suggest 5ppm nitrate, .02 po4 until you get the hang of things. 9 alk would do fine under those settings.

another tip... raise alk with nutrients or the color will rob the alk and you will get no growth.

 

[Reef UP]

Ok so I may have missed it but and could I just mix a stock solution by the gallon? If so how much stump to water ratio ha thanks

 

[AustinAquaculture]

make sure your corals can handle 500+ par if you are going the nutrient rich route of .08 po4. shoot for 11 alk as well. iirc from a white paper anything above .16 is dangerous. - but i could misremember.

more nutrients require more light or you will sacrifice color.

tbh ive gone as high as 10ppm nitrate with no ill effects. i think @Greenstreet.1 keeps his nitrate above 20.

i still suggest 5ppm nitrate, .02 po4 until you get the hang of things. 9 alk would do fine under those settings.

another tip... raise alk with nutrients or the color will rob the alk and you will get no growth.

Thank you so much for the tip! Using my Red Sea test kits now!