Thinking about starting stump remover dose.

[SashimiTurtle]

I have a 14g IM Fusion peninsula. All SPS with one duncan. Its currently fallow after a velvet breakout. Even before that my NO3 and PO4 were showing up 0 with the Red Sea pro kit. My corals are doing well and growing, they just don't have the color they used too. My green monti is really the canary, its a pale green instead of the neon when I bought it.

Filtration is an inTank media basket with a blue and white filter pad, 100ml bag of Seachem Purigen, and half a 6.5oz container of Chemipure Elite. I dose 2ml of Red Sea energy A and B a day based on the 4ml/day for ULNS.

What is the recommended dose for the KNO3? Who's doing it with success? Should I just remove the filtration during the fallow period?

 

[kazikage42]

I'm in the same situation and wondering the same thing. Following...

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

There's a great threat here on stump remover use.

I'm curious as to why you don't just pull the chem media out. It's stripping the nutints out and now it seems you want to put them back in with dosing.

 

[LV3]

I used sodium nitrate instead of stump remover. There are calculators out there that can help you determine the dosage. Start small, test, and repeat if necessary.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

There's a great threat here on stump remover use.

I'm curious as to why you don't just pull the chem media out. It's stripping the nutints out and now it seems you want to put them back in with dosing.

I have been wondering that same thing, hence why I included it into the questions in the last paragraph.
I might try that first and see where I'm at after a week. Before I had the Purigen and Chemipure I was seeing my nitrates start climbing higher than I wanted, but I was feeding a fish also.
I'll just toss out the little bit of Chemipure in the basket, but I've read that Purigen never goes bad(some kind of restoration process with bleach and Prime), but you have to keep it wet. So, Ziploc bag with tank water?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Eh. It's cheap. I don't know how to refresh it honestly.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Eh. It's cheap. I don't know how to refresh it honestly.

True, I think I paid less than $10 for that bag.

 

[mystersyster]

I just started dosing. Mix 1 part ro/di (1 us cup) with 1 part stump remover (1 tbsp). In my 66 gallon that probably has 75 gallons of total water volume, 10ml of that solution raises my nitrate to 1ppm. Go slow.

Side note. Stump remover by spectracide is what you should be using. There are other stump remover products but they don't use potassium nitrate. Spectracide stump remover is 100% potassium nitrate.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Yea, I was thinking either spectracide or just getting KNO3 powder online.

I think I'm going to remove the Purigen and leave the Chemipure. I probably had way too much filtration on that little tankwith tree little bioload, and now that there is none I've comely striped what nutrition that was available. I'll see what the cheaper/easier method will be, spectracide or saltpeter(food grade KNO3). I'll probably just get the spectracide. It's a powder, correct?

 

[mystersyster]

Yea, I was thinking either spectracide or just getting KNO3 powder online.

I think I'm going to remove the Purigen and leave the Chemipure. I probably had way too much filtration on that little tankwith tree little bioload, and now that there is none I've comely striped what nutrition that was available. I'll see what the cheaper/easier method will be, spectracide or saltpeter(food grade KNO3). I'll probably just get the spectracide. It's a powder, correct?

Yeah either one will work. Kno3, however I just got stump remover because it was 6 bucks at lowes. I would remove any media other than activated carbon for now. The stump remover says "granules" on the bottle, but it's powerdery enough, and mixed extremely fast.

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Ok that's what I was wondering. I saw granules and thought great I have to grind it into a powder to dissolve it in RODI. I'll remove all my chemical filtration in the morning(a few hours) when I get off work.

 

[mystersyster]

Just because I don't like doing things fast, or having too many variables in case something goes wrong, I'd let your media exhaust itself instead of removing all at once. The nitrates won't be taken out by them anyway. My fear is that your tank may have a negative reaction to the removal all at once, and you wont know if its the media or stump remover or something else. Best to go slow

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Removed my chemical filtration this morning. Dosed 2ml red sea energy A&B. Fed the duncan some crushed and soaked pellet before I left for work this afternoon with a pipette. All corals still seem happy. I'll run like this for a week and test my NO3 and PO4 and see where I'm at.

 

[AcroJack]

Just my 2 cents, but it's more balanced if you slowly increase your feeding to raise the nh4 input to the system. Just adding no3 at the back of the nutrient cycle can lead to an imbalance down the road. I learned the hard way on our 90 gallon coral qt and after 18 months of stable, started developing fun things like cyano and Dino's. Hard to officially peg it on the kno3, but have since removed that and went to apex feeder to get a consistent amount of food added daily to see if slowly things go back in balance. Knock on wood they are starting to get better 3 months later but time will tell. Just when you think you are doing well in this hobby... I tell ya

 

[SashimiTurtle]

Feeding more would defiantly help in my case, but there no fish to consume the food. I still have 5 1/2 weeks of fallow for velvet.

With no chemical filtration(no macro algae or skimmer either) the red sea energy should, theoretically, stay in the water column until the corals filter it out. We'll find out very soon. Everything happens so quickly with this little water volume. I have to stay on top of things but I am thoroughly enjoying it.

After the fallow period I am planning on adding a sapphire damsel, rainford goby and a sexy shrimp. That hopefully should give me the bioload to produce some nitrates and phosphates but not overload the tank.

 

[GoVols]

True, I think I paid less than $10 for that bag.

I used to re-charge Purigen. You use some bleach to RODI water and then you soak it in "Prime" when the re-charge is complte but when you re-charge the Purigen it's not like a new fresh 100ml bag. I quit re-charging and just replace it with brand new Purigen.

For myself it's just not worth the work to re-charge and it and it does not last as long every time you re-charnge it and I don't have to worry if the "Prime" has removed all the bleach out from re-charged Purigen.