Nitrate Dosing

[furam28]

Great thread, curious @furam28 has any updates?

Heres some update:

I was able to stop the burnt tips from progressing.Here's how:

1) stopped dosing no pox.
2) dosed phosphate. I dosed 0.4ppm phosphate every day for 3 days. After every dose the phosphate would be completely gone within 8 hours (tested with hanna). I ran out of hanna reagent so stopped dosing phosphate because i didnt want to overdose. I got the red sea pro test yesterday and tested. Phosphate is still undetectable. So I'll start dosing phosphate again maybe for a few more days until i start seeing persistent detectable phosphate.
3) increased feeding and added 2 more fishes.

Here's some treatment shots of the 3 sps that were most affected by the burnt tips. As you will notice: there is no additional burnt tips, and there is better polyp extension. the old burnt tips are now covered with algae so i don't expect them to heal. Once fully healed and the colors are back I will be cutting off the old dead skeleton:

1. ORA pearlberry.

O4/06/16:

04/17/16:

2. Maricultured strawberry shortcake:

04/06/16:

04/17/16:

3. Maricultured acro:

04/06/16:

04/17/16:

 

[JPK]

Thank you Randy, that is very helpful! Is there a similar formula for trisodium phosphate, in case I am able to get my nitrates up, and my phosphates are sill at zero.

Or would it be a bad idea to dose both in order to have nitrates and phosphates at detectable levels.

Thanks again

 

[furam28]

For comparison. Here are the 2 sps befor e the issue:

And this RR Nauti spiral:

Now looks like this [emoji35]

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Thank you Randy, that is very helpful! Is there a similar formula for trisodium phosphate, in case I am able to get my nitrates up, and my phosphates are sill at zero.

Or would it be a bad idea to dose both in order to have nitrates and phosphates at detectable levels.

Thanks again

It is fine to dose both.

As I mentioned, be sure it is actually trisodium phosphate if the use the recipe below.

Dissolve 1 gram trisodium phosphate in 1 liter of fresh water. That 1 grams contains 0.58 grams (580 mg) of phosphate, so that solution is 580 mg/L nitrate.

If you add 1 ml of the solution per 2 gallons of tank water volume, that will boost phosphate by 0.077 ppm phosphate.

 

[furam28]

So I've been wondering where all the phosphate I've been dosing, goes. Looking at my refugium today, my chaeto is denser and greener than ever before. So I'm guessing that's where a lot of my phosphate has been sinking. Not a bad thing. If everything works out and I don't have any algae outbreak I'll cut off the NoPox dosing and stick to chaeto as my primary nutrient export.

 

[JPK]

Thank you for the info Randy. I plan on using the trisodium phosphate you recommended.

http://www.amazon.com/TriSodium-Pho...&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00

 

[furam28]

An update: I have been dosing 0.08 to 0.12ppm phosphate almost daily to maintain my phosphate at 0.16ppm (Red Sea test kit). My nitrate has been staying around 4 - 10ppm. It only goes down after water change. I am testing phosphate and nitrate daily. I have been slowly bringing my NoPox dosing back up. Its at 1.6mL per day now. Hopefully if I maintain my phosphate, the NoPox will be able to bring Nitrate and phosphate down together proportionately so I am back to ULN state again and my acros can color back up. So far all my acros and montis are doing okay. Some of them will show early stages of burnt tips every once in a while, which I am guessing is due to phosphate going back down to 0 in between dosing.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Wow, it's taking a surprisingly high amount of phosphate. Thanks for the update.

 

[Myka]

An update: I have been dosing 0.08 to 0.12ppm phosphate almost daily to maintain my phosphate at 0.16ppm (Red Sea test kit). My nitrate has been staying around 4 - 10ppm. It only goes down after water change. I am testing phosphate and nitrate daily. I have been slowly bringing my NoPox dosing back up. Its at 1.6mL per day now. Hopefully if I maintain my phosphate, the NoPox will be able to bring Nitrate and phosphate down together proportionately so I am back to ULN state again and my acros can color back up. So far all my acros and montis are doing okay. Some of them will show early stages of burnt tips every once in a while, which I am guessing is due to phosphate going back down to 0 in between dosing.

Have you tested PO4 just before you dose? Is it actually "undetectable"? I'm not surprised that it's taking that much PO4 since you've just started, and you have Chaeto taking up the PO4 too. Maintaining 0.16 ppm seems awfully high to me though. If it was me, I'd be aiming for about half that. If PO4 is going to "undetectable" between doses, then maybe you need to dose 2 or 3 times a day instead of once. Do you have a spare dosing head right now? Honestly, I am starting to think that yo-yo PO4 is almost as bad as yo-yo alkalinity.

 

[Slm222]

How are the colors after getting the levels up?

 

[furam28]

So after about 3 weeks of dosing 0.08-0.12ppm phosphate it finally seems to be holding. I didnt dose last 2 days and phosphate is staying around 0.16ppm. Colors are still brown for some of the acros and monti. They may take a few months to color back up.

 

[Slm222]

So after about 3 weeks of dosing 0.08-0.12ppm phosphate it finally seems to be holding. I didnt dose last 2 days and phosphate is staying around 0.16ppm. Colors are still brown for some of the acros and monti. They may take a few months to color back up.

Are you dosing nitrates as well?

 

[furam28]

Are you dosing nitrates as well?

No. I have been feeding heavy and have more fish then before. Nitrate has been staying above 4ppm without dosing. Trying to get it down to 1.

 

[zachxlutz]

No. I have been feeding heavy and have more fish then before. Nitrate has been staying above 4ppm without dosing. Trying to get it down to 1.

@furam28 Long term results of your little experiment here?

 

[drawman]

So I'm kind of curious on ideal phosphate levels for different scenarios. I have two tanks which possibly could encounter different issues. Would it make sense to maintain .03ppm (or slightly less) PO4 in all cases?

In my 60 gallon tank I'm carbon dosing Aquaforest -NP Pro and have been having 50ppm Nitrate for at least a year. I'm really good about doing relatively large weekly water changes and removing all sources of detritus but haven't been able to get the number to fall. Also, bioload is not that high, I run barebottom, and I have a decent amount of seachem matrix and sera siporax. I'm wondering if I am potentially phosphate limited. Last time I checked (which was some time ago) I was at around .03ppm PO4. I forgot my Hanna checker at another location so sadly I cannot test to be sure. Assuming I am not carbon limited, would it make sense to raise PO4 some (if that .03ppm is correct) to try to get NO3 to fall? Is there a factor I should be considering (ie I remember anecdotally one person dividing NO3 by 150 to get ideal PO4 and others talk about the redfield ratio but not sure how much clout this will have)?

In my 30 gallon tank I am dosing NaNO3 with pretty good success but I also need to recheck PO4 as some acros look great while others seem to be on a slow decline. I feel in this tank it makes more sense to keep it at .03ppm or slightly less.

@Randy Holmes-Farley @Myka and others I'm curious to hear your thoughts.

 

[JPK]

Hi,
Not sure if this is relevant in your situation, but I had a similar issue. I solved it by siphoning out my overflow. My NO3 has been sitting at 2-4 ish for months now since doing it with heavy feeding. I was in the 50+ range before.

I run a bare bottom system with siporax and matrix in the sump.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/elevated-no3-issued-solved.282280/

Jason

 

[drawman]

Hi,
Not sure if this is relevant in your situation, but I had a similar issue. I solved it by siphoning out my overflow. My NO3 has been sitting at 2-4 ish for months now since doing it with heavy feeding. I was in the 50+ range before.

I run a bare bottom system with siporax and matrix in the sump.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/elevated-no3-issued-solved.282280/

Jason

I wish this were the case but I clear out the overflow and remove detritus with every water change . It can build up quite a bit so it's definitely a good call though!

 

[Myka]

Nm

 

[drawman]

Nm

Thoughts on Nitrate to phosphate ratio as I previously had posted?

 

[Redbarnreefer]

Thoughts on Nitrate to phosphate ratio as I previously had posted?

Try looking up the Redfield ratio, there are some pretty good write ups about it out there. In short around 16:1 but with everything, there are lots of variables.