That’s right. You explained how nitrates add back alkalinity. Thanks
I run a calc reactor, which was unchanged in drip rate or effluent ph throughout the dosing of the sodium nitrate.
But again, just speculating why, if true, Coral Euphoria is successful with 0 NO3 0 PO4. In God we trust, all others bring data
coraleuphoria.com
Yep. Seems to me that they had a perfect equilibrium that they were feeding the perfect amount where the NO3 and PO4 created daily by the fish was being used up by the corals in the same amount so testing would show them at zero(aka zero “excess” nutrients) but there is actual nutrients present for them to use. Increasing the NO3 increased a bacteria population that in turn decreased the daily available PO4 and starved the corals.
My nitrates lowered from 7 to 0.0 in 13 days, without doing any dosing or anything, so I’m trying to figure out where they went. But now I’m concerned about Dino’s my phos is .02
Tested 2 times with Hannah and one time with salifert. I haven’t checked it prior 13 days, because it’s been stable for 9 months
@125 in post #15 quoted (sort of) a Coral Euphoria YouTube video as having 0 and 0. I haven't tried to find the video. Yeah, I saw those numbers also, so I'm skeptical they're actually 0. I just spent 6 months dealing with dinos probably due to 0 and 0, and I wouldn't wish them on anyone.Are they? Why do you think so?
Coral Euphoria says this on their web site:
General FAQs – Coral Euphoria
What parameters are your corals grown in?
Our corals are grown in these approximate water conditions:
- Specific gravity: 1.025 (refractometer)
- Temperature: 79.4 – 79.8 F (controller)
- Alkalinity: 8.0 dkH (Salifert test kit)
- Calcium: 410 ppm (Salifert test kit)
- Magnesium: 1400 ppm (Salifert test kit)
- Nitrate: 0.1 – 5 ppm (from ICP results)
- Phosphate: 0.01 – 0.03 ppm (from ICP results)
Nothing has changed. I was dosing gfo a very very small amount. Other than that I added a torch coral, which wouldn’t lower my nitrates lol
When you dose nitrates of any kind it will slowly increase nitrate levels but almost always it will also increase alkalinity .My SPS dominant tank was doing great, I would rate it an 8 out of 10 with regards to my hapiness with color and polyp extension. In my need to tweak (mistake, should've left good enough alone) to increase coloration I thought it would be a good idea to raise nitrates from 0 (where they have been for 10+ years) to 5. After reviewing these forums I decided to follow @Randy Holmes-Farley guidence and dose Sodium Nitrate.
I purchased lab grade soidum nitrate and mixed in the following calculation:
At first I was dosing into my sump 10ml /day for 3 days and there was no change in the tank's nitrates. Increased dosing to 20ml/day for 3 days and tank nitrates went to 1ppm. I continued dosing 20ml/day for another 5 days and tank nitrates were at 5ppm. Bingo!
Once I hit 5ppm I reduced dosing back to 10ml/day.
Problems started happening a day or two later. The tips of my sps started to recede and tissue started peeling back on other corals. Some corals lost their color. I immediately stopped dosing. Tested nitrates at 7ppm. Also tested alk at 12dkh which was very high compared to my normal 8.7dkh
Performed a few 10% water changes over the next couple of days.
It's now about 6 weeks later and half of the corals in my tank have died. Most remaining sps's have tissue damage and I snipped them back to cut off the dead portions.
At this point I am back to 8.5-9dkh and nitrates are back to 0 and the corals that have survived are recovering and getting some of their color back.
What happened? I was testing my nitrates daily throughout the entire dosing process and they never went higher than 7ppm.
Could it have been a shock to my tank since it's been at close to 0ppm nitrates for so many years? Could the sodium nitrate have caused a raise in my alk?
