Safe stuff for nitrate dosing

Bp870 · Jul 3, 2019

Hey guys I’m looking for a safe source of nitrate that is readily available at a Walgreens or the like. I live in a small town not alot of sources around. Thanks in advance

EmdeReef · Jul 3, 2019

Bp870 said:
Hey guys I’m looking for a safe source of nitrate that is readily available at a Walgreens or the like. I live in a small town not alot of sources around. Thanks in advance

Not sure if you can get it at a Walgreens but some people use stump remover potassium nitrate. Make sure there’s no addition of anything dangerous.

Your best bet is to order online sodium or potassium nitrate, ideally try to find something with high purity / food grade.

Variant · Jul 3, 2019

Just got my sodium nitrate in the mail, mixed it up and started dosing yesterday. Why not just have it delivered?

I got my sodium nitrate from Loudwolf and it's reagent grade, which I believe is pretty darn good. Recommended by Randy on one of the many nitrate dosing threads out there.

You can use this calculator to mix the powder with RODI. Just multiply the amount of powder you mix with water by 0.84 if you're going with sodium nitrate versus potassium nitrate.

Bp870 · Jul 3, 2019

Thanks for the reply. I saw where some used the stump remover can't find it locally. My cheato is apparently doing a really good job of removing the nitrate because it went from 2ppm to apparently zero in a few days turned the sump light off and fed a little heavier but trying to avoid an ammonia spike as well. Does gfo remove nitrate or just phosphate. I was thinking that maybe the was some kind of supplement that the pharmacies may carry. Having a hard time finding a balance seem to be going from one extreme to the other.

EmdeReef · Jul 3, 2019

Bp870 said:
Thanks for the reply. I saw where some used the stump remover can't find it locally. My cheato is apparently doing a really good job of removing the nitrate because it went from 2ppm to apparently zero in a few days turned the sump light off and fed a little heavier but trying to avoid an ammonia spike as well. Does gfo remove nitrate or just phosphate. I was thinking that maybe the was some kind of supplement that the pharmacies may carry. Having a hard time finding a balance seem to be going from one extreme to the other.

You can safely feed more in a cycled tank, there’s no risk of an ammonia spike unless you pour in a full bag of pellets or something. Even then depending on the tank size you likely wouldn’t see much of a spike.

GFO won’t remove nitrates.

Variant · Jul 3, 2019

Bp870 said:
Thanks for the reply. I saw where some used the stump remover can't find it locally. My cheato is apparently doing a really good job of removing the nitrate because it went from 2ppm to apparently zero in a few days turned the sump light off and fed a little heavier but trying to avoid an ammonia spike as well. Does gfo remove nitrate or just phosphate. I was thinking that maybe the was some kind of supplement that the pharmacies may carry. Having a hard time finding a balance seem to be going from one extreme to the other.

The things you find in stores and even stump remover has compounds other than nitrate and over time, it can create problems so I would try to get a high quality one (food grade, lab grade, reagent, etc).

Also, GFO only removes phosphates. Alternatively, you can reduce your photoperiod on your refugium to get your nitrate consumption lowered and therefore increase it in the water.

Bp870 · Jul 3, 2019

My plan is ideally getting my lighting schedules and stocking levels to where I won't be dependent on dosing. Im fairly certain my birds nest frag is toast and I'm getting a little worried about the zoas, acans seem fine though. Thanks for all the input. How long do you think the corals could last at zero nitrate.