Potassium nitrate (Spectracide stump remover) dosing steps
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+1
That's the theory, but I don't think we really understand what's going on.
If the tank was carbon limited, that should mean that we're correcting a condition and making things better and less stressful for our corals by adding vinegar or whatever.
Instead we are jacking with their environment and stressing them out. Corals in a carbon dosed tank seem unable to tolerate even moderate elevations of alkalinity, for example. That's not a sign of a healthier or less-stressed coral.
If you have a nitrate problem, I think you should be doing/changing things other than carbon dosing. Especially if you keep corals.
Worth repeating again and again that corals can consume loads of nitrate if they are fast growing...they even prefer it to many other things. But they can't be getting a lot of particulate foods or they will stop using dissolved nitrogen sources.
2¢
If you haven't already checked out the articles posted here and in the "diy amino acids" thread that's been popping up lately, please do so!One is on "nitrogen cycling in the coral holobiont".....both are excellent.
Following and will try to read through those as quickly as possible. Seems like great threads.
mcarroll
10K Club member
...he says less than a week before noticing that his PO4 has run down to zero.
Oops!Now I've got zero NO3 and zero PO4.....this is not the direction I was hoping to go....but now there's only one way to go – up!
Like everyone else, I'll try to feed more, but as I've noted (maybe in other threads) there are definite limits for that with only three barnacle blennies to feed. I might be able to feed twice a day and I might include a dose of flake food in the mix a few times a week.
In spite of the zero's on the test kits, I'm probably not going to change the 10mL/day of potassium nitrate and 20 drips per day of DIY amino acid liquid for now.
Important Note
I did notice a distinct change in my #goldenalgae or #chrysophytes or #dinoflagellates or #goldendiatoms or whatever you want to call them. (Still working on a positive ID....no microscope as of now.)
They are now MUCH darker brown in most places of the tank.
We'll see if that means anything over then next week or few....
mcarroll
10K Club member
I forgot to mention that I suspect this was at least in part due to changing the GFO/carbon again. I will be leaving out the GFO and maybe the carbon as well, next time I clean out the mesh bag on my skimmer.
mcarroll
10K Club member
A couple of threads of interest:
mcarroll
10K Club member
I was in the tank with a toothbrush again today and I noticed that there are pockets of red cyano-like stuff here and there as well as a couple of small patches of green algae!! Yay! (This is normal.)
The golden-whatever stuff that I noted as being darker lately came off a bit more completely from the Hydnophora skeleton than it usually does. Could be a good sign.
Still not changing any dosing rates for KNO3 or aminos yet. Just going to keep doing what I'm doing and see what happens for now.
Yay! (This is normal.)The golden-whatever stuff that I noted as being darker lately came off a bit more completely from the Hydnophora skeleton than it usually does. Could be a good sign.
Still not changing any dosing rates for KNO3 or aminos yet. Just going to keep doing what I'm doing and see what happens for now.
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I'll give a video update tomorrow but my situation is clearing up, i think... After running GFO for 38 hours, the snotty strands became longer and weaker. After that 38 hours I removed the GFO and added filter floss for cleaning. Took a tooth brush and went to town. Cleared out as much as possible. After the water cleared, i put the GFO back online only for 8 hours.I was in the tank with a toothbrush again today and I noticed that there are pockets of red cyano-like stuff here and there as well as a couple of small patches of green algae!!
The golden-whatever stuff that I noted as being darker lately came off a bit more completely from the Hydnophora skeleton than it usually does. Could be a good sign.
Still not changing any dosing rates for KNO3 or aminos yet. Just going to keep doing what I'm doing and see what happens for now.
The next day, all the snails went to work on the rock. Its now about 80% clear than before.
Couple of reason, in theory, as to why i did GFO temporarily; One, silicates were my issue, not po4. Two, i need po4 for micro fauna. Three, i was guily of rushing cyano out and I think that was a bad approach.
After researching GFO and its hourly elimination of silicates, i guessed i would remove a sufficient amount in my 38 hour period. However, cleaning the "chrysophytes" could have released more silicates back into the water column. Again, I'll post an updated video and my theory behind all of this.
FWIW I might be crazy, but i think im seeing purple coralline now.
authentic
Valuable Member
i started nopox 1 mo ago,dosing 5ml per day now ,nitrates are at .25 ,just checked my phosphates on hanna ultra low and they were 0. should i cut back on the nopox? 150 gal sysyem/lots of sps/lots of fish,,ive been feeding more and dosing aminos as well as reef energy daily
I wanted to suggest here that to raise phosphate you could also put some phyto-feast. This is what I'm doing at the suggestion of a local reefer. The clams/featherdusters etc get feed and the phosphate increases, win/win. I have found from my limited experience that phyto-feast and oyster-feast from reef nutricion are well received by my corals and filter feeders.
Rick.45cal
2500 Club Member
Your tank is actually nitrogen limited at .5ppm nitrate and .2-.3ppm phosphate. My RTN STN event was caused by increased lighting in a very similar environment. My tank was stabile at .5ppm Nitrate, and .02ppm phosphate and experienced a nutrient crash after changing the activated carbon, my hypothesis is that the increased clarity in the water coupled with a significant lighting change a couple weeks earlier increased the nutrient demand above what the corals could provide their symbiotic algae, so within several hours of the carbon change a RTN STN/bleaching event occured. All the affected corals were moved immediately to the sand on the tank floor and the activated carbon was removed. Over the next couple days the RTN STN event continued. It was only after dosing KNO3 that the event halted. Immediate recovery and healing started. Honestly amazing. Everything survived and is fully recovered and showing improved and rapid growth now.
My tank is a full zeovit tank with a daily dosed carbon source. I merely used the KNO3 and also have used PO4 source to rebalance my tank, and tune my daily carbon doses so that my tank is carbon limited, and not nitrate or phosphate limited. I don't have to dose nitrate or phosphate anymore. Only in an instance where there is an emergency or my parameters nitrate to phosphate ratio gets too far off of what I want it to be. My tank has been stable since the event at 2.5 ppm NO3 and .02 ppm PO4
I'm adding two more tangs as soon as they are done in QT. Should help increase my nitrogen. I've never really had this problem before. Guess the planning and equipment are doing their job well. I've started feeding more but if that doesn't do it I will consider using KNO3.
Rick.45cal
2500 Club Member
Make sure you dial back your carbon dosing. It's a process that you have to do using gradual changes and allow the bacteria population to process your additions. You want to make sure that your population of bacteria is limited by their carbon source and not limited by NO3 or PO4. So cut your carbon source back until you see your NO3 and PO4 rise on it's own, then you know your bacteria is limited by it's carbon source. You can then start to raise the amount of carbon source to where the sytem either consumes slowly, or it balances in a stable state.
Be careful to only make gradual changes, you don't want to suddenly stop dosing a carbon source, and have your bacteria colony crash when the carbon surplus is consumed in the system. Equally as bad would be to continue to overdose a carbon source and feed the system NO3 and PO4 which will actually drive your probiotic system into overdrive, which will cause the tank to bottom out even harder when those two sources are unavailable.
Just my $.02
mcarroll
10K Club member
I don't understand carbon dosing to reduce nitrates that you've added yourself....haven't you gotten yourself into an unneeded loop there? Seems like if you stopped carbon dosing, you might be able to stop or slow down the nitrate dosing.....a win.
It definitely makes no sense on the surface, but I'm curious what you think? A lot of folks seem to be on that carbon dosing conveyor for unspecified reasons...
Rick.45cal
2500 Club Member
You aren't dosing a carbon source to get rid of NO3 you are adding to the tank! You are dosing NO3 to get yourself out of a carbon surplus in the system! If you are running near zeros in NO3 or PO4 and you are dosing a carbon source you are creating a surplus of available carbon for your bacteria. Which will outconsume your corals for nitrogen. The KNO3 is merely a tool to get yourself out of a nitrogen deficiency in a tank that has a carbon surplus due to consistent overdosing.
Now there are some people that have a huge imbalance between their NO3 and PO4. In carbon dosing, if you have a surplus of PO4 and nearly 0 Nitrate then you have to add NO3 in the system for the bacteria to effectively process PO4. So adding NO3 in small incremental amounts allows the aquarist to bring the PO4 levels down, at which point the system can be balanced by the carbon additions and brought back into a natural stability.
These are not exactly easy concepts to wrap ones head around, probiotic reefing is a powerful tool, one that is very easily overdone. KNO3 is an important tool that if you carbon dose it shoud be in your toolbox.
mcarroll
10K Club member
I mean the other way....the carbon dosing is what seems superfluous.
Carbon dosing is apparently a stress to corals somewhat (see "burnt tips"), so why do it unless it's completely necessary?*
In general, carbon dosing seems like a self-fulfilling circle of need that starts with a desire to dose carbon. When the NO3 runs low, why isn't the carbon dosing curtailed and ceased? It's as if someone found an inherent benefit to carbon dosing rather than merely a solution to high nitrates and a new problem called "burnt tips". But they didn't....it was just the latter two.
Most organisms can, at minimum, fix CO2 as a carbon source via carbonic anhydrase...so it seems there's should be no implicit need for this tweak to the system except as a tool for NO3 control. (Someone will also have to explain to me someday why CO2 isn't working in the first place for this.)
Out of control-NO3 is not a lifestyle, it's a solvable problem...or at least it should be. Eh?
2¢
* It's way-cool that we can effect NO3 reduction in the short term with carbon dosing. But based on the "burnt tips" effect and findings like these, I take a different view than most. I characterize vinegar as "the least harmful" carbon source, rather than something with inherent benefits to the system. It's a treatment, if you will.
Vinegar dosing for nitrate control isn't the kind of thing studied directly as far as I can tell (outside of our hobby, anyway) but this is my favorite article on the subject of organic carbon dosing I've found regarding corals so far:
They dose other forms of carbon (sugars) with pretty consistent (bad) results.
Carbon dosing is apparently a stress to corals somewhat (see "burnt tips"), so why do it unless it's completely necessary?*
In general, carbon dosing seems like a self-fulfilling circle of need that starts with a desire to dose carbon. When the NO3 runs low, why isn't the carbon dosing curtailed and ceased? It's as if someone found an inherent benefit to carbon dosing rather than merely a solution to high nitrates and a new problem called "burnt tips". But they didn't....it was just the latter two.
Most organisms can, at minimum, fix CO2 as a carbon source via carbonic anhydrase...so it seems there's should be no implicit need for this tweak to the system except as a tool for NO3 control. (Someone will also have to explain to me someday why CO2 isn't working in the first place for this.)
Out of control-NO3 is not a lifestyle, it's a solvable problem...or at least it should be. Eh?
2¢
* It's way-cool that we can effect NO3 reduction in the short term with carbon dosing. But based on the "burnt tips" effect and findings like these, I take a different view than most. I characterize vinegar as "the least harmful" carbon source, rather than something with inherent benefits to the system. It's a treatment, if you will.
Vinegar dosing for nitrate control isn't the kind of thing studied directly as far as I can tell (outside of our hobby, anyway) but this is my favorite article on the subject of organic carbon dosing I've found regarding corals so far:
"Role of elevated organic carbon levels and microbial activity in coral mortality"
http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v314/p119-125/
http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v314/p119-125/
They dose other forms of carbon (sugars) with pretty consistent (bad) results.
Rick.45cal
2500 Club Member
I mean the other way....the carbon dosing is what seems superfluous.
Carbon dosing is apparently a stress to corals somewhat (see "burnt tips"), so why do it unless it's completely necessary?*
In general, carbon dosing seems like a self-fulfilling circle of need that starts with a desire to dose carbon. When the NO3 runs low, why isn't the carbon dosing curtailed and ceased? It's as if someone found an inherent benefit to carbon dosing rather than merely a solution to high nitrates and a new problem called "burnt tips". But they didn't....it was just the latter two.
Most organisms can, at minimum, fix CO2 as a carbon source via carbonic anhydrase...so it seems there's should be no implicit need for this tweak to the system except as a tool for NO3 control. (Someone will also have to explain to me someday why CO2 isn't working in the first place for this.)
Out of control-NO3 is not a lifestyle, it's a solvable problem...or at least it should be. Eh?
2¢
* It's way-cool that we can effect NO3 reduction in the short term with carbon dosing. But based on the "burnt tips" effect and findings like these, I take a different view than most. I characterize vinegar as "the least harmful" carbon source, rather than something with inherent benefits to the system. It's a treatment, if you will.
Vinegar dosing for nitrate control isn't the kind of thing studied directly as far as I can tell (outside of our hobby, anyway) but this is my favorite article on the subject of organic carbon dosing I've found regarding corals so far:
"Role of elevated organic carbon levels and microbial activity in coral mortality"
http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v314/p119-125/
They dose other forms of carbon (sugars) with pretty consistent (bad) results.
I understand what you are saying. I think ultimately you can't consider "carbon dosing" as an example of a single type of husbandry. There are people that use it in very different ways. Some people use it as a problem solver when their nitrate levels become out of control. Other systems (such as zeovit) you are using tiny amounts of carbon all the time to maintain a stable consistency in parameters. Adding only enough to consume what is being created on a daily basis.
There are trade offs to just stopping and starting, it isn't like a mechanical filter you can just "turn off" or "turn on" when you want to, it is a population of living organisms.
At this point it's also important to note that you can strip your water clean of nutrients using lots of other methods besides carbon dosing. It may just be a little easier to do it with adding a carbon source.
Your link is an interesting study, it's not hard to affect mortality in corals using DOC, no one is arguing that fact here, that is in fact what this discussion is about. They intentionally overdosed DOC, the same effect has been shown by many aquarist overdosing their carbon source (which is exactly what we are talking about).
CO2 is an inorganic form of carbon, organic carbons are hydrocarbon chains. That's why CO2 isn't available as an organic carbon source to bacteria.
I have yet to see a perfect methodology for nutrient control in a closed marine aquatic environment, I highly doubt there is one. Each one has it's caveats and pitfalls, what I choose to do, you may find ridiculous and unneccisary. Such is life. I choose to share my experience so that maybe someone who is in a similar boat that I was in several weeks ago, may be able to prevent a disaster.
There's a real simple solution to nitrogen starvation in ANY system, don't run 0 NO3! I don't now! Lesson learned!
I chose many ways to control nitrogen, big skimmer, good live rock, Marinepure, Cheato, Refugium, NOPOX (2ml/300g/daily), filter sock, ROX carbon, GFO. All these employed has made a very clean, too clean (for now), system starved for nitrogen. I would rather feed more and dose a little KNO3 than eliminate one of my filter systems. These work together and if I can maintain .50 nitrates with out dosing I feel that is a good thing. My corals don't seem to be suffering at all, IMHO they are doing very well. However I am interested in what some nitrates can do for me. The more I read the more I feel I want to try it.
Rick.45cal
2500 Club Member
I wouldn't be afraid of it, just don't overdo it. I'm not a NOPOX user so I can't comment on your dosage. Ideally with it's addition you want the tank to remain where you want it, neither creeping up or down in nitrates or phosphates. When I dosed KNO3 I figured out what I need to bring my tank to 2 ppm NO3 and then added it to the sump. I then tested 24 hours later. I pretty much tested every 24 hours both NO3 and PO4 until I got everything balanced and stable. (I'm a compulsive tester now lol). Basically watching your levels will tell you exactly how to tweak your carbon additions until it's balanced. I hope this helps some.
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