Spectracide help

zack801 · Jan 30, 2018

So I've been reading through many of these threads but I'm still a little confused so please bare with me. I'm never able to get a reading above 0ppm for my nitrates for whatever reason. My total system volume is around 50-55g. If i wanted to mix up a gallon of water to use for dosing spectracide how much would i need to add to it to get around 2-5ppm i guess preferably closer to 5? According to plantedsite calculator adding 20 tablespoons to this amount of water i would need to dose 10ml to raise my tank to 2.8ppm. Does this sound correct? 20 tablespoons sounds like a lot to me and im afraid of raising too much too fast. Thanks in advance

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 30, 2018

zack801 said:
So I've been reading through many of these threads but I'm still a little confused so please bare with me. I'm never able to get a reading above 0ppm for my nitrates for whatever reason. My total system volume is around 50-55g. If i wanted to mix up a gallon of water to use for dosing spectracide how much would i need to add to it to get around 2-5ppm i guess preferably closer to 5? According to plantedsite calculator adding 20 tablespoons to this amount of water i would need to dose 10ml to raise my tank to 2.8ppm. Does this sound correct? 20 tablespoons sounds like a lot to me and im afraid of raising too much too fast. Thanks in advance

Yes, that looks correct. 20 tablespoons is a lot, but you are adding only 1/4 of 1% of the total stock solution volume.

zack801 · Jan 30, 2018

Thanks Randy. So dosing 10ml at one time and monitoring shouldn't cause any issues?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 30, 2018

zack801 said:
Thanks Randy. So dosing 10ml at one time and monitoring shouldn't cause any issues?

Should be fine.

I slightly prefer food grade material, but I've not heard of significant issues with Spectracide.

zack801 · Jan 30, 2018

sodium nitrate preferred to potassium nitrate?

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 30, 2018

zack801 said:
sodium nitrate preferred to potassium nitrate?

Just a small preference there, to avoid risk of rising potassium.

lariat8099 · Jan 30, 2018

I’m using sodium nitrate and it mixes easy. I’m slowly adding and testing daily to get a good feel of what’s good. Right now I’m at 0.5 nitrate after 24 hours.

zack801 · Jan 31, 2018

So i used the stump remover last night to raise around 2.8ppm. I could be crazy but im almost positive im already getting much better polyp extension

I also have on order sodium nitrate so as soon as that arrives I will mix up a batch of that to avoid any unwanted effects of raised potassium levels (though i honestly don't know what those would be).

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jan 31, 2018

Great!

zack801 · Jan 31, 2018

@Randy Holmes-Farley one thing I'm noticing is a film almost like cyano covered in tiny bubbles on my rocks. I did just add brand new rock to the tank the two little fishes Stax that are just calcium carbonate I believe. Do you think it is at all related to nitrates raising? My phosphate today is around .10ppm according to Hanna. Also I'm running some rowaphos but is there anything else I can do to lower phosphates without lowering nitrates as well?