Question about Spectracide Stump Remover dosing

kewadiak · Oct 12, 2015

Do you guys think going from zero to 16ppm would make my torch start losing a head?

veselym · Oct 15, 2015

Could dosing this cause phosphates to spike as well? seems as soon as I started dosing it I got a rapid growth of algae and then browning/fading

I never went above .50 ppm nitrate

I did however have a wrasse die 3 months ago and never found it, then had a random bacteria bloom so maybe it was the dead fish...just a coincidence?

I am currently doing WC's to get the phosphates down but not sure if I was causing it

bneufelder · Oct 15, 2015

I had a similar thing happen. I quit dosing nitrates. Not sure if it was impurities in the stump remover or the algae bloom. My frag tank had a major bloom and then the fading like you described. My DT which I dosed less didn't have a bloom but started to stn multiple sps.

veselym · Oct 15, 2015

I don't have a PO4 reactor so been doing WC's...I wish there was a good test kit out there but have been doing smaller WC's to not drop levels drastically

Randy Holmes-Farley · Oct 15, 2015

veselym said:
Could dosing this cause phosphates to spike as well? seems as soon as I started dosing it I got a rapid growth of algae and then browning/fading

I never went above .50 ppm nitrate

I did however have a wrasse die 3 months ago and never found it, then had a random bacteria bloom so maybe it was the dead fish...just a coincidence?

I am currently doing WC's to get the phosphates down but not sure if I was causing it

I don't see how dosing nitrate can make phosphate rise, but it could allow the growth of numerous other things that might need nitrate, which includes bacteria.

veselym · Oct 15, 2015

true, however the bloom happened before I dosed so I know the stump remover did not cause a bloom

veselym · Oct 16, 2015

So I moved my fruit loop zoanthids which looked pale in the previous spot but now look brownish in a bit more shade...maybe I was freaking over the lights and have not been running them high enough

still don't know where all the phosphates came from.....

pedro · Nov 22, 2015

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Here's a recipe:

Dissolve 10 grams in 1 liter of fresh water. That 10 grams contains 6.14 grams of nitrate, so that solution is 6,140 ppm nitrate.

If you add 1 ml of the solution per 2 gallons of tank water volume, that will boost nitrate by 0.8 ppm nitrate.

if i use KNO3 that recipe its correct?
thanks

Randy Holmes-Farley · Nov 22, 2015

pedro said:
if i use KNO3 that recipe its correct?
thanks

yes

Mark75 · Dec 17, 2015

I am very nervous so I need someone to double check I am doing this right!

I am going to mix 1 teaspoon of Spectraside stump remover in 250ml of ro/di.

I am going to add 10ml of this mixture to my 55g of water volume.

It will raise my nitrates by .71ppm?

Is this correct?

dh350twin · Dec 17, 2015

Mark75 said:
I am very nervous so I need someone to double check I am doing this right!

I am going to mix 1 teaspoon of Spectraside stump remover in 250ml of ro/di.

I am going to add 10ml of this mixture to my 55g of water volume.

It will raise my nitrates by .71ppm?

Is this correct?

I would def get Randy to answer this before proceeding and I am not sure why you would want to have nitrates at that high of a level?

twilliard · Dec 17, 2015

dh350twin said:
I would def get Randy to answer this before proceeding and I am not sure why you would want to have nitrates at that high of a level?

.71 is high?
I keep my tank at 2ppm

twilliard · Dec 17, 2015

Oops!
Here is a simple step to dosing

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/potassium-nitrate-spectracide-stump-remover-dosing-steps.215730/

dh350twin · Dec 17, 2015

twilliard said:
.71 is high?
I keep my tank at 2ppm

My fault. Didn't see the ........71 and thought is was just 71.
Yes I keep mine at 5ppm

hawkinsrgk · Dec 17, 2015

Been dosing this 6140 ppm solution for a while now so I can offer this. Whatever you think you need to dose... Dose half that amount. It is very easy to overshoot this. Another thing that I noticed as odd as this sounds is that my tank seemed to soak up a certain amount and then it doesn't deplete near as rapidly

1fstnsx · Dec 18, 2015

so...wanted to give this a shot today...my nitrates have been at 0 or undectable for a couple of months and my PO4 @ 0.02

going to be taking daily pictures.

I have a 70G tank and 30G sump (skimmer, GFO, Macro Algae, chemipure, purigen, bioballs etc)

Today, I dosed 2 tbsp in a plastic cup with ~3/4 RODI, mixed it up. Dosed 10ml into the tank in a syringe. Checked the Nitrate level with my Red Sea Test kit 40min after dosing, showed some purple and measured 1ppm. Usually, its pretty clear when I test.

Going to go slow, and probably keep it @ 1-1.5ppm and feed heavier, and see what it does, and then slowly start removing stuff out of the sump and refugium.

Excited to see what this will do to the tank. Its pretty SPS dominated with some LPS.

BryanS4 · Mar 4, 2016

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Here's a recipe:

Dissolve 10 grams in 1 liter of fresh water. That 10 grams contains 6.14 grams of nitrate, so that solution is 6,140 ppm nitrate.

If you add 1 ml of the solution per 2 gallons of tank water volume, that will boost nitrate by 0.8 ppm nitrate.

@Randy Holmes-Farley

I'm wanting to make this way more concentrated. I'm not using stump remover, but pure potassium nitrate, 99.8% which I'll guess is same solution.

Going with the above formula for my tanks that I need to dose total water for 140 and 50 I'd need 70ml and 25ml to raise .08

Let's say I mixed 50g instead of 10g with 1l of water, would I be correct in saying I'd need 28ml for the 140 and 10 for the 50?

Appreciate your help in making this stronger concentration.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 5, 2016

BryanS4 said:
@Randy Holmes-Farley

I'm wanting to make this way more concentrated. I'm not using stump remover, but pure potassium nitrate, 99.8% which I'll guess is same solution.

Going with the above formula for my tanks that I need to dose total water for 140 and 50 I'd need 70ml and 25ml to raise .08

Let's say I mixed 50g instead of 10g with 1l of water, would I be correct in saying I'd need 28ml for the 140 and 10 for the 50?

Appreciate your help in making this stronger concentration.

If you mix in 5 times as much potassium nitrate, which should be fine, you will need 5 times less. So 70 mL before would become 14 mL now.

BryanS4 · Mar 5, 2016

Thanks Randy.

Geez, should have paid more attention to math back in the day. Not sure why I was dividing by the total water volume and not the dosing amount. Glad I checked.