Sodium nitrate source?

saltyhog · Dec 22, 2017

I have struggled to get my nitrate to even be detectable. Does this source from Amazon look to be ok?

https://www.amazon.com/Sodium-Nitra...513964024&sr=8-2&keywords=sodium+nitrate+pure

My tank is 72x24x21 and I have two Brightwell X port NO3 bricks in my sump. My chaeto grows very well . No visible algae in the tank except for a brown biofilm on the glass and sand that has to be cleaned every other day. Some green turf algae growing in the overflow but none in the tank. SPS is doing well but acans, and LPS struggle a little.

Ashish Patel · Dec 22, 2017

This reminds me of my tank at around 3-4 month mark... Cheato grew well but no algae in the tank and 0 nitrates. My SPS where encrusting and growing but i thought they would grow more with more nitrates.
However, when I dosed nitrates I went to fast and brought it up to 3PPM in few days. some SPS stop encrusting and bleaching instead, and created an algae problem.. Your tank is just new and maturing..I would look into feeding the tank more or reducing skimmer line before dosing nitrates. I used flourish nitrogen by seachem and have it in the garage now.. My nitrates have been detectable every since at .2 and I am fine with that, just gives me more excuse to feed more aminos and food. I would dose nitrates in a fish-less system only but thats just me.. Hope this helps get more replies for u

chipmunkofdoom2 · Dec 22, 2017

I used this from Etsy. I believe I recall Randy saying this is suitable pure for our purposes.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 22, 2017

Both of the links are suitable, IMO.

Food grade and reagent grade are different, but one isn't necessarily better or worse.

saltyhog · Dec 22, 2017

Ashish Patel said:
This reminds me of my tank at around 3-4 month mark... Cheato grew well but no algae in the tank and 0 nitrates. My SPS where encrusting and growing but i thought they would grow more with more nitrates.
However, when I dosed nitrates I went to fast and brought it up to 3PPM in few days. some SPS stop encrusting and bleaching instead, and created an algae problem.. Your tank is just new and maturing..I would look into feeding the tank more or reducing skimmer line before dosing nitrates. I used flourish nitrogen by seachem and have it in the garage now.. My nitrates have been detectable every since at .2 and I am fine with that, just gives me more excuse to feed more aminos and food. I would dose nitrates in a fish-less system only but thats just me.. Hope this helps get more replies for u

Thank you!

My tank is a re-do after a move. It was about 3.5 years old at the time of the move an I was actually carbon dosing to keep nitrates in the 2-4 range. The move was a little over a year ago and other than a couple of SPS colonies I had I started completely over. I feed about 3-4 cubes (or their equivalent) of LRS, Hikari mysis, frozen blood worms and occasionally Nutramar ova. Mix it up each day. Only thing different this time around is the Brightwell bricks. In my old tank nitrates elevated to 10 about the 8 month mark prompting my carbon dosing.

Ashish Patel · Dec 22, 2017

saltyhog said:
Thank you!

My tank is a re-do after a move. It was about 3.5 years old at the time of the move an I was actually carbon dosing to keep nitrates in the 2-4 range. The move was a little over a year ago and other than a couple of SPS colonies I had I started completely over. I feed about 3-4 cubes (or their equivalent) of LRS, Hikari mysis, frozen blood worms and occasionally Nutramar ova. Mix it up each day. Only thing different this time around is the Brightwell bricks. In my old tank nitrates elevated to 10 about the 8 month mark prompting my carbon dosing.

Nice, I am using 1 marinepure block which i believe is helping a little too much! I actually removing 10LB of LR and 5LB of miracle mud, and about 40LB of Sand from my 9 month old tank and nitrates are now even lower as are phosphates. I would say its a high powered import export machine like the ocean regardless of removing much nitrate media.

Are you SPS dark in color or fadeing?
Why do you want to dose nitrates?
Do you know how bright your light is?

If you can achieves these low nutrients naturally its a very good balance already and adding more nutrients to fast just gives way to pest algae. When you dose go slow regardless of others recommendation on this forum who will say "dose more the first few days your tank will consume". Dont listen them. I wouldnt bring nitrates from 0 to 1PPM in more than 1-2 weeks. This will give you corals more of a chance to consume these nitrates instead of other pest algaes.

saltyhog · Dec 22, 2017

My SPS is pretty colorful. No brown colors, some are a little on the pale side which is why I was thinking of nitrate dosing.

My lights are AI Hydra 52HD X 3 that are about 11" off the water. The blue settings are at about 80%, the white 30%, Red and UV are off and Green at 12%.

Ashish Patel · Dec 22, 2017

saltyhog said:
My SPS is pretty colorful. No brown colors, some are a little on the pale side which is why I was thinking of nitrate dosing.

My lights are AI Hydra 52HD X 3 that are about 11" off the water. The blue settings are at about 80%, the white 30%, Red and UV are off and Green at 12%.

If some of your acros have dark color and some are paling you should rule out lighting or placement first on the paling ones. Let me guess are your Montis, stylos, and porcilipora fading and acros colored?

saltyhog · Dec 22, 2017

No it seems kind of random. Montis are very bright. It seems like the blue acro are the ones that are a little pale. The green ones are very bright. Dont have any stylos or pocillapora (except for a neon green one thats a hitch hiker).

bdejong1112o · Dec 28, 2017

I bought the same stuff from amazon and it arrived today. Used the calculator that Randy referenced in another thread. I mixed it up with 150g of the sodium nitrate into 400ml of water. I dosed 1ml into my 320g system and it did finally register a slight bit of nitrate on the red sea kit. I can see needing the low range test kit for more accurate results but i have to admit it did put a little into the system.

Now to monitor and determine where the tank wants to be at to get my cheato to grow and the myriad of LPS corals to thrive. Going to take it very slow with this one. Will test and determine consumption before adding any more.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 29, 2017

bdejong1112o said:
I bought the same stuff from amazon and it arrived today. Used the calculator that Randy referenced in another thread. I mixed it up with 150g of the sodium nitrate into 400ml of water. I dosed 1ml into my 320g system and it did finally register a slight bit of nitrate on the red sea kit. I can see needing the low range test kit for more accurate results but i have to admit it did put a little into the system.

Now to monitor and determine where the tank wants to be at to get my cheato to grow and the myriad of LPS corals to thrive. Going to take it very slow with this one. Will test and determine consumption before adding any more.

Sounds good.

Good luck!

bdejong1112o · Dec 29, 2017

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Sounds good.

Good luck!

Well, I hope that by using science there is less need for luck aince my luck mostly sucks. Lol

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 29, 2017

bdejong1112o said:
Well, I hope that by using science there is less need for luck aince my luck mostly sucks. Lol

Ah, that's too bad. I've always been lucky.

bdejong1112o · Dec 29, 2017

Well then all hope is list. I was banking on your Harvard science... woe is me what am I to do?

Well, two days and I dosed 1ml each day and I have just 2ppm of Nitrate in the tank. Will not dose again until I see it drop. My phosphates are at 0.03 and hopefully holding there. Solid LPS only tank ao far and everything seems to be happy.

I will, say that according to the calculator and the fact I used sodium nitrate this rise is more than expected. So anyone doing this should go slowly.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Dec 30, 2017

lol

Keep us updated!

bdejong1112o · Dec 30, 2017

Ok, so here is the update for today. My nitrates are still at about 2 on the red sea high range kit. I did not dose any nitrate today and will monitor to see what the consumption is. Phosphates using the hanna ULR phosphorous checker is at 0.03 again today, same as yesterday. I like these numbers and will try to keep them there for now.

To early to tell if anyone will complain but after three days nothing has died so thsts a start. Lol....

I am thinking that i will get the hanna checker for nitrate. I have all the other ones and love them.