Seachem Phosphorous vs. Brightwell Neophos.

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I do wish to caution people to really trust the seller especially off Amazon. I bought 'food grade' sodium nitrate off amazon from a seeming legit seller - everything appeared fantastic and professional. However it clearly was not very pure as it crashed my tank. I mean like every single coral, sps, softies, LPS bailed out of the skeletons. I have used nitrate solutions for years as needed without ever having a bad issue until then. The only reason I ever found out it was the nitrate was my friend borrowed some but needed far less, his tank started to suffer the same effects as mine almost instantly, thankfully his crash was just a few coral, mine was at least 5,000 of various coral.... almost 100% wipeout.

I am sure if Randy says this brand is ok then it is, but I just wish to caution folk to be 100% because the cost was so high losing everything. I almost left the hobby. So while some of these might have higher purity than aquarium branded solutions and be much cheaper, I am just no longer willing to take the risk.

What brand was it?

 

[hart24601]

What brand was it?

"Shor" - reagent grade sodium nitrate

Clearly wasn't legit.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

"Shor" - reagent grade sodium nitrate

Clearly wasn't legit.

OK, thanks for the heads up.

 

[hart24601]

Upside is it did give me the ability to document LPS bail out and skeleton regrowth, which I have never seen documented before:

Lobo regrowing skeleton after polyp bailout

I had a bit of a crash after buying some “food grade” chemicals (nitrate) off Amazon. It also taught me a lesson off buying chemicals off Amazon as clearly what they say doesn’t always mean much... I know it was the issue as my friend took a bit and had the same issue but added less so his...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Saltyanimals]

Sorry to hear that. I did check and that 'Shor' was the cheapest option. One reviewer said it was great for reef and another said it crashed their tank. Maybe you were the crash-tank reviewer? Again sorry to hear and thanks for the heads up.

I was thinking about using what I had, but may ditch it all and just buy the product that Randy pasted above. I have 180 gallons so may take some time before potassium builds up, but prob not worth it.

 

[hart24601]

I had to go back and look, wasn’t my review I guess I didn’t leave one, probably should have.

I sure learned my lesson. Here was pre crash side shot. Every single coral in these photos died after dosing except 3 including that lobo.

 

[Saltyanimals]

How soon after dosing did you first noticed issues? That's horrible.

 

[hart24601]

It’s been a few years so I don’t remember perfectly but I think the issues started right away. Of course I didn’t know what was causing it. Carbon, triton tests showed nothing abnormal, I stoped dosing about everything when corals took a turn for the worse as the tank didn’t need it, but the recession kept going a quite a while until everything was gone. Like I said I would have never known it was the cause but my friend used the same bag but thankfully much less and had the exact issue in his healthy tank although on smaller scale.

 

[helwrj28]

IMO, sodium is better unless you are monitoring potassium, but some folks use it.

What does "pure" mean?

Is this ideal?

 

[KStatefan]

Is this ideal?

I have used it.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Is this ideal?

Yes, that's a good choice.

 

[Steven Garland]

I have used SeaChem with zero ill effects.

 

[helwrj28]

I have used SeaChem with zero ill effects.

Do you have a reef tank? What coral do you have?

 

[helwrj28]

Yes, that's a good choice.

Thank you! And the calculator used at the beginning of this thread is still accurate?

 

[helwrj28]

And this might be a dumb question but what receptacle/container do you use to store the mixed materials?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thank you! And the calculator used at the beginning of this thread is still accurate?

FWIW, I see no reason to pick a hobby product for nitrate or phosphate dosing. You are just paying a middleman to make the solution for you, and often it lacks any purity info.

 

[helwrj28]

FWIW, I see no reason to pick a hobby product for nitrate or phosphate dosing. You are just paying a middleman to make the solution for you, and often it lacks any purity info.

Absolutely see that! Especially with how low concentration a lot of the products are you'd be paying 100x more for the same thing

 

[Steven Garland]

Do you have a reef tank? What coral do you have?

When I was using it yes,it was a mixed reef with zoa's,acan's and sps.

I just switched to BWA because every reef store sells BWA and it was more readily available.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Back to regularly scheduled programming…

 

[JoJosReef]

Back to regularly scheduled programming…

It looks like Loudwolf doesn't have sodium nitrate currently. Ca nitrate, Mg nitrate and K nitrate available. Would you look elsewhere or go with Ca or Mg nitrate?