Potassium nitrate (Spectracide stump remover) dosing steps

mcarroll · May 29, 2017

Sounds like a good approach!

Just be very moderate in the amount you commence dosing with and be very patient in waiting for results. That makes it easy to back off if you see unfavorable changes.

BTW, would be OK if you just let cyano and GHA take over the refugium? That might actually be just what the tank needs.

VJV · May 29, 2017

Thanks! When you say to go slow, do you think that dosing for a target of 1 ppm initially and measure out to see what is the tank consumption, adjust until the 1ppm is maintained, than move on to 2ppm, wait for one month, increase to 3ppm... would be slow enough?

Regarding your last point, I did that the last time... to be honest, I believe that was part of the reason for the tank invasion. I did not clean the refugium for 6 months and when it was covered in cyano and GHA my water column was full of tiny (almost microscopic) algae hairs floating around. After a while I started seeing GHA and cyano popping up on the tank.

mcarroll · May 29, 2017

I think in a case like yours I would be leary of targeting a test number at all.....focus on the amount being dosed, and only increase if you see NO CHANGE after a good 3-4 weeks of dosing.

Sending PM

aznriceboi21 · Jun 12, 2017

Been Lurking on this thread for a while and decided to raise NO3 using the stump remover due to dull/brown corals. My Nitrates were in the 0-1 ppm range and phosphates constant at 0.05. When I added some stump remover my Nitrates jumped to around 2-3 ppm which is what I calculated but my Phosphates had a 0.00 reading for the 1st time ever! Is this because I had a unbalance in my system before? I am going to be testing daily as this is my 1st day around it

Thanks!

mcarroll · Jun 12, 2017

Too much NO3 compared to the PO4 available....be careful doing that.

I'd cut my ~~PO4~~ NO3 dose in half at least and start feeding the tank or corals a little bit more.

aznriceboi21 · Jun 12, 2017

Do you mean NO3 dose?

mcarroll · Jun 12, 2017

Fixed.

Todd31 · Jun 15, 2017

Started dosing 1 week ago on about 90 gallon total water volume that had no detectable nitrates and phosphates between .08 and .12 ..... 1 week later of dosing 15 ml a night and I think I'm getting .2 or .5 nitrate and phosphate has crashed down to 0. Also noticed a massive uptick in alk and calc consumption. Have these kind of results happened to people? Added a fish today... am thinking now that nitrate and phos are closer to in balance that it might be good to start backing off the dosing and trying to go the natural route with more fish and feeding.... any thoughts?

mcarroll · Jun 15, 2017

That's how you'd expect it to go......I'd have warned against dosing so much so fast because you can crash your PO4....which can be a bad thing.

Definitely scale back your NO3 dose.....I was only adding 5mL per day on a 100 Gal system that's packed with corals and still quit after a month or two.

Definitely feed more too....but make your changes few and far between. It take a long time (3-4 week+) for all the effects of a feeding change to show up.

Feeding regularly is underestimated IMO....do anything you can to feed regularly. Use an auto-feeder if you have to. (Eheim's is my fav. Regular does not mean "more".)

happyhourhero · Jun 24, 2017

If I have very high phosphates and very low nitrates would dosing a bit of this be a good thing? Coral colors are all good but I feel like my caps are starting to lighten up in the centers. Last test showed nitrates at 2.5 and p04 at .5

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jun 24, 2017

happyhourhero said:
If I have very high phosphates and very low nitrates would dosing a bit of this be a good thing? Coral colors are all good but I feel like my caps are starting to lighten up in the centers. Last test showed nitrates at 2.5 and p04 at .5

2.5 ppm, if accurate, is plenty.

mcarroll · Jun 24, 2017

Possibly, and N is a little on the low side, but....make sure it's not a flow thing.

The center of a cap plate (or other similarly shaped coral) is kinda designed as a low flow (low pressure) area to capture food....once the plate gets "about so big" the effect starts to become a lot more pronounced. It may cause some tissue loss in the very center, but as long as conditions are favorable overall it should not hurt the colony at all. The corals is hypothetically waiting on a good surge of water to get it cleared out.....something that's lacking in many tanks. Make a typhoon by using a powerhead in your hand to blast the rocks, sand and coral off as-needed.

Increasing overall flow, or even simply changing the positioning of flow pumps, may alleviate the effect.

RyanCSGO · Nov 5, 2017

Well started this yesterday.
Wanted to say thanks for this thread. Gave me a great understanding of the method. Lps have opened up like crazy already.

mcarroll · Nov 7, 2017

RyanCSGO said:
Well started this yesterday.
Wanted to say thanks for this thread. Gave me a great understanding of the method. Lps have opened up like crazy already.

You (anyone!

) might find the writeup here to be more accessible:
A Nitrate Dosing Calculator For Better Tank Health (And Better Coral Color!)

sloanhaus · May 4, 2018

This is a great thread and I am going to start dosing tomorrow. My question is, if increasing nitrates is the way to go, is there any reason for me to use my water fall scrubber anymore? Or skimmer?

Randy Holmes-Farley · May 4, 2018

sloanhaus said:
This is a great thread and I am going to start dosing tomorrow. My question is, if increasing nitrates is the way to go, is there any reason for me to use my water fall scrubber anymore? Or skimmer?

Skimmers do a lot more than reduce nutrients. Aeration, organic, and particulate removal, including whole bacteria. Scrubbers remove phosphate.

FWIW, I’d recommend a food grade sodium or potassium nitrate for dosing. They are easy to buy online. [emoji3]

mcarroll · May 4, 2018

sloanhaus said:
This is a great thread and I am going to start dosing tomorrow. My question is, if increasing nitrates is the way to go, is there any reason for me to use my water fall scrubber anymore? Or skimmer?

Make sure your water has available phosphates as well....increasing N without available P leads to bad things.

tracey_79 · Mar 15, 2019

Hi all I no this is an old thread and I want to start getting my nitrates up I cannot find the spectracide in the UK on line anywhere although I have found potassium nitrate via the bay but it's food grade is this the same thing?

beaslbob · Mar 15, 2019

tracey_79 said:
Hi all I no this is an old thread and I want to start getting my nitrates up I cannot find the spectracide in the UK on line anywhere although I have found potassium nitrate via the bay but it's food grade is this the same thing?

generally anything that is food grade is actually best for our tanks. Even better the reagent.

You could also use calcium nitrate as well. Check out feed and seed type stores. It is used as fertilizer for fruits that do better with calcium.