Question about Spectracide Stump Remover dosing

mr neon · Oct 4, 2015

Nitrates dropped a bit more to about 40ish. Heading in the right direction. Remember to make sure your test kits are fresh unlike mine that I thought was good.

vuqdao · Oct 5, 2015

Any issues with that, mr neon? Are you doing water changes to lower it?

vuqdao · Oct 5, 2015

Sfg, what part of NOLA are you from? I'm from the east by Michoud Blvd

sfg · Oct 5, 2015

I'm on the wank.. Lower Algiers to be specific. You on Larc or BRK?

vuqdao · Oct 5, 2015

No sir. I reside in Texas now, but my family is still there

mr neon · Oct 5, 2015

vuqdao said:
Any issues with that, mr neon? Are you doing water changes to lower it?

Right now I'm dosing sugar to lower nitrates. Did a few water changes and its coming down but slow. I lost some snails but everything else is holding their own. I run a bare bottom and just live rock in my sump with a skimmer so I don't have much build up but I am thinking a good cleaning of the sump is due and can't hurt. I'll test in a few day and report my results.

vuqdao · Oct 5, 2015

Good luck

veselym · Oct 11, 2015

The only negative I have seen is that some of my sps seem to be browning/some zoanthids are fading a bit...they are growing at a good rate however

I have a little algae growth in the main display but nothing crazy, I am only running around .50 nitrates so maybe I need to up them around 2ppm?

I have also noticed cyano in my sump

any suggestions???

My parameters are

Alk 9.0
Cal 420
Mag 1280
PH 8
Sal 1.025
Temp 79
NO3 .50
PO3 0 (not sure as don't have a great test kit)

running AI vega's at 20% white, 60% blues for 5 hours max intensity with a 4 hour ramp at 10' off water line

Pete polyp · Oct 11, 2015

veselym said:
The only negative I have seen is that some of my sps seem to be browning/some zoanthids are fading a bit...they are growing at a good rate however

I have a little algae growth in the main display but nothing crazy, I am only running around .50 nitrates so maybe I need to up them around 2ppm?

I have also noticed cyano in my sump

any suggestions???

My parameters are

Alk 9.0
Cal 420
Mag 1280
PH 8
Sal 1.025
Temp 79
NO3 .50
PO3 0 (not sure as don't have a great test kit)

running AI vega's at 20% white, 60% blues for 5 hours max intensity with a 4 hour ramp at 10' off water line

In betting the zoax is thickening and that's why you're seeing a loss of color.

hawkinsrgk · Oct 11, 2015

I have been running 2ppm for a couple of weeks and have noticed the overall health of the corals seem better

veselym · Oct 11, 2015

Should I keep doing what I am doing then?

I keep all my parameters super stable...only thing I am not confident with is the lights

some zoas seem faded which makes me believe too much light but I am barely running any percentage on the white spectrum and they are all in the lower 1/4...I also have screen tops which do cut out light

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 12, 2015

If the SPS are beginning to brown up (which comes from the zoox in them growing) adding more nitrate is not going to reduce that.

veselym · Oct 12, 2015

Then I will lower nutrients...could nitrients also cause zoas to fade?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 12, 2015

veselym said:
Then I will lower nutrients...could nitrients also cause zoas to fade?

They could, either too low or way too high, but I do not know if that is the reason yours are.

veselym · Oct 12, 2015

I only got my nitrate to .50 max but I believe my phosphates have risen which prob caused browning...the zoas I am worried about are some fruit loops, they have no purple on them but are growing

all my zoas are growing but they are growing down, along with my acro's...they are only encrusting down

here is a pic of the fruit loops

kewadiak · Oct 12, 2015

I accidentally overdosed to 16ppm nitrate confirmed by red sea pro kit. I kept dosing because my salfriet test kit was just barley detecting 2ppm so i kept dosing when i got my new redsea it actually says i have 16ppm so far one of my sps completely lost all of its flesh and my orange monti cap is getting white spots. What a bummer i have 320 gallons and a little of this mixture goes a long way. Lessened learned make changes super slow!

Pete polyp · Oct 12, 2015

kewadiak said:
I accidentally overdosed to 16ppm nitrate confirmed by red sea pro kit. I kept dosing because my salfriet test kit was just barley detecting 2ppm so i kept dosing when i got my new redsea it actually says i have 16ppm so far one of my sps completely lost all of its flesh and my orange monti cap is getting white spots. What a bummer i have 320 gallons and a little of this mixture goes a long way. Lessened learned make changes super slow!

This is why I continually recommend against dosing kno3 unless absolutely necessary.

kaskiles · Oct 12, 2015

Won't dosing Nitrate that taken up by an organism (algae, coral, bacteria, etc.) and used, tend to increase alkalinity without a corresponding increase in Calcium (Potassium is going in instead), potentially skewing your Calcium/Alkalinity balance?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 12, 2015

kaskiles said:
Won't dosing Nitrate that taken up by an organism (algae, coral, bacteria, etc.) and used, tend to increase alkalinity without a corresponding increase in Calcium (Potassium is going in instead), potentially skewing your Calcium/Alkalinity balance?

Yes, but the effect is fairly small.

Consumption of 10 ppm nitrate will boost alkalinity by 0.45 dKH.