Spectracide Nitrate Dosing: Warning of Potential Danger

[rockskimmerflow]

So I'm currently experiencing what looks to be copper toxicity in my sps collection. It's appearance coincides with my initiation of nitrate dosing about 3 weeks ago. No other husbandry changes have been made in that time.

The parameters I measure are rock solid and have not changed drastically at all in that time frame.

1.026 sg
0.01 phos (hanna)
410 Ca
7.8 dKH
1320 mg
1-2ppm nitrate (probably lower now since I stopped with spectracide 2 days ago)

The lead up to this incident occurred about 3 weeks ago when I decided to try the Spectracide based addition of Potassium Nitrate to reduce how much I need to feed the tank and avoid burning through so much phosphate media. My acros are always hungry and nitrates never got above zero prior to Spectracide. The stuff works, no question about that. I was able to dose a 2 ppm effective increase of nitrate to the system daily and maintain the measurable level at about 0-2 ppm (dropped to 0 about 8-12 hrs after dosing). The corals responded very well and I actually had to increase my feeding of fish food to prevent severe phosphate limitation.

Everything was working as expected until about 4 days ago when all my Stylophora took a turn. I assumed phosphate limitation was irritating them and increased feeding. 2 days ago my Acropora began to show stress. Tissue looked brittle, with a hint of browing in parts and lightening in others. Polyps still opened normally. Yesterday some showed bleached branch tips and yet still polyps intact with a small ring of tissue surrounding each.

50 percent water change was done, things seem stable but no improvement yet. Will be doing another 50 percent change again tomorrow.

Full disclosure, I maintain reef aquariums for a living and was unwise enough to test the Stump remover on about 40 varieties of Acropora in my main propagation system. There are only acros and stylos in this prop tank. I have most backed up in other tanks but I hope I can save my main colonies otherwise I just flushed a couple years worth of growth trying to save money on GFO!

Just a warning to anyone out there trying it, I suspect there may be copper impurities in the Spectracide. The nitrate component worked quite well but after 3 weeks accumulation I think copper may have built up. I expect those of you with higher input of organics into their tanks or lower doses of Potassium nitrate may not see issues as soon, or ever.

Be careful with the stuff guys! I'm not saying to avoid the Spectracide, as it's obviously worked for many others. But all I know is if I ever do it again I'll likely use a certified purity potassium nitrate source.


If anyone has any other experiences or feedback to report, please chime in!

 

[Kurkis493]

Thanks for this post. I was debating on trying this in my system because everyone was reporting such wonderful results. Not gonna chance it, rather buy more coral foods.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

So I'm currently experiencing what looks to be copper toxicity in my sps collection. It's appearance coincides with my initiation of nitrate dosing about 3 weeks ago. No other husbandry changes have been made in that time.

The parameters I measure are rock solid and have not changed drastically at all in that time frame.

1.026 sg
0.01 phos (hanna)
410 Ca
7.8 dKH
1320 mg
1-2ppm nitrate (probably lower now since I stopped with spectracide 2 days ago)

The lead up to this incident occurred about 3 weeks ago when I decided to try the Spectracide based addition of Potassium Nitrate to reduce how much I need to feed the tank and avoid burning through so much phosphate media. My acros are always hungry and nitrates never got above zero prior to Spectracide. The stuff works, no question about that. I was able to dose a 2 ppm effective increase of nitrate to the system daily and maintain the measurable level at about 0-2 ppm (dropped to 0 about 8-12 hrs after dosing). The corals responded very well and I actually had to increase my feeding of fish food to prevent severe phosphate limitation.

Everything was working as expected until about 4 days ago when all my Stylophora took a turn. I assumed phosphate limitation was irritating them and increased feeding. 2 days ago my Acropora began to show stress. Tissue looked brittle, with a hint of browing in parts and lightening in others. Polyps still opened normally. Yesterday some showed bleached branch tips and yet still polyps intact with a small ring of tissue surrounding each.

50 percent water change was done, things seem stable but no improvement yet. Will be doing another 50 percent change again tomorrow.

Full disclosure, I maintain reef aquariums for a living and was unwise enough to test the Stump remover on about 40 varieties of Acropora in my main propagation system. There are only acros and stylos in this prop tank. I have most backed up in other tanks but I hope I can save my main colonies otherwise I just flushed a couple years worth of growth trying to save money on GFO!

Just a warning to anyone out there trying it, I suspect there may be copper impurities in the Spectracide. The nitrate component worked quite well but after 3 weeks accumulation I think copper may have built up. I expect those of you with higher input of organics into their tanks or lower doses of Potassium nitrate may not see issues as soon, or ever.

Be careful with the stuff guys! I'm not saying to avoid the Spectracide, as it's obviously worked for many others. But all I know is if I ever do it again I'll likely use a certified purity potassium nitrate source.


If anyone has any other experiences or feedback to report, please chime in!

Thanks for the cautionary note and sorry to hear of the problems.

A couple of questions...

How is the phosphate getting into the system and how was it being exported? Do you supply fish foods at all?

Does it clearly look a lot different to you than "burnt tips"?

Have you ever measured copper or potassium?

I'm wondering if, instead of an excess of some impurity, perhaps the effect is due to a lack of certain elements since you seem to have gotten a different result than most others, and you may be driving growth without adding as much fish food, which normally supplies other elements (say, iron, copper, vanadium, etc.) in proportion to the N and P added.

 

[rockskimmerflow]

Burnt tips was my first concern, but I've seen signs of it before when my alkalinity has crept near 8.5 or higher. This looks much different to my eye. I look at a lot of corals every day and am usually pretty good at identifying stress. This one caught me off guard because I wasn't looking for copper poisoning.

Thank you for the concerns and ideas. I wish it was as simple as feeding more. I add about a 1/2" x 1/2" square of PE Mysis , a 2"x 2" square of nori, and about 25- 1mm spectrum pellets daily. Water volume is only about 60 gallons but spread over a very shallow 6.5'' water depth prop tank.

I use GFO for export. I keep the phosphates riding 0.01-0.04 on the Hanna. Growth rates are normally excellent. I get about 2.5 dkh worth of uptake per day consistently. I only began adding the potassium nitrate to try and cut back feeding/gfo use a bit and to see if the colors improved at all (they were already very good). I did notice a slightly brighter fluorescent green component in some of my corals after dosing and maybe a small boost in overall fluorescence in others. Garf bonsai got a richer purple with less of a glow and more of an opaque look. I liked the results for the first couple weeks.

I measured potassium once about a year ago. And it was 380 if I recall. I had never dosed any so I figured my food input was keeping up. I decided not to worry about it and stick to the basics like I normally do.

I have a copper test, not sure if I trust the hobby grade kits for getting accurate results at the levels that might bleach acropora. I'll bust it out and give it a look today. The only reason I guess copper poisoning is because the coral tissue looks like I have seen in tanks before that had copper leaching from sand/rock from past treatments before corals were added.

 

[zemuss]

Following.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I have a copper test, not sure if I trust the hobby grade kits for getting accurate results at the levels that might bleach acropora. I'll bust it out and give it a look today. The only reason I guess copper poisoning is because the coral tissue looks like I have seen in tanks before that had copper leaching from sand/rock from past treatments before corals were added.

I don't think a hobby copper test would be useful (although if you detected any, that would be serious). I was thinking more along the lines of Triton.

 

[Cory]

Burnt tips was my first concern, but I've seen signs of it before when my alkalinity has crept near 8.5 or higher. This looks much different to my eye. I look at a lot of corals every day and am usually pretty good at identifying stress. This one caught me off guard because I wasn't looking for copper poisoning.

Thank you for the concerns and ideas. I wish it was as simple as feeding more. I add about a 1/2" x 1/2" square of PE Mysis , a 2"x 2" square of nori, and about 25- 1mm spectrum pellets daily. Water volume is only about 60 gallons but spread over a very shallow 6.5'' water depth prop tank.

I use GFO for export. I keep the phosphates riding 0.01-0.04 on the Hanna. Growth rates are normally excellent. I get about 2.5 dkh worth of uptake per day consistently. I only began adding the potassium nitrate to try and cut back feeding/gfo use a bit and to see if the colors improved at all (they were already very good). I did notice a slightly brighter fluorescent green component in some of my corals after dosing and maybe a small boost in overall fluorescence in others. Garf bonsai got a richer purple with less of a glow and more of an opaque look. I liked the results for the first couple weeks.

I measured potassium once about a year ago. And it was 380 if I recall. I had never dosed any so I figured my food input was keeping up. I decided not to worry about it and stick to the basics like I normally do.

I have a copper test, not sure if I trust the hobby grade kits for getting accurate results at the levels that might bleach acropora. I'll bust it out and give it a look today. The only reason I guess copper poisoning is because the coral tissue looks like I have seen in tanks before that had copper leaching from sand/rock from past treatments before corals were added.

Im willing to bet your potassium is 300ppm or less. Mine drops 40ppm per month due to my ats. But it also could be very high.

 

[rockskimmerflow]

Yes, I would definitely like to get a Triton test done at some point. In this situation though I'm going to resolve the problem with another two 50 percent changes 2 days in a row. If it is copper as I suspect I should see some positive changes quite soon. I wish I could wait for the turn around time on triton, but I think I'm better off not chancing any more sps recession.

Thanks for the input Randy, it is much appreciated. I will update if the water changes solve the issue. If it does I think it will confirm my toxin suspicions, not necessarily copper, but a poisonous compound of some sort.

Im willing to bet your potassium is 300ppm or less. Mine drops 40ppm per month due to my ats. But it also could be very high.

What makes you suspect my potassium is super low, or conversely very high? The tank gets a decent amount of food daily and monthly 50 percent water changes. It has run that way without issue for 2+ years now. If potassium nitrate dosing somehow spikes the uptake of potassium maybe that could be the case then. I know it does not add appreciable potassium but do not know much about how increased nitrogen uptake by organisms might affect potassium levels. I do not run any algae filters. The tank is quite simple -GFO, Carbon, large air driven sponge filter for bio, and that's it for filtration.

 

[Battlecorals]

Kind of been saying this for a long time now myself. I mean if you feel you need to add a nitrate source, you can get lab grade ACS sodium nitrate quite easily. I never understood why people would use stump remover, and think nothing could possibly go wrong. Not knocking you at all I swear. Just wish people knew there were better options out there.

Not sure if this is cool to post a link here, but if you want to dose nitrate at least try this. http://www.amazon.com/Sodium-Nitrat...id=1446929318&sr=8-10&keywords=sodium+nitrate

 

[BryanS4]

Glad I followed Adam's advice a few weeks back.

I made one dose and thought, there has to be a better way than dumping stump remover into a tank.

 

[rockskimmerflow]

Thanks for the input Adam, and no offense taken of course. As someone who maintains other people's reef tanks on a daily basis I always try things on my own tanks for a while before ever implementing it in a client's system. This time I was just dumb enough to do it on my acropora prop system rather than my coral quarantine tank. I agree with your sentiment wholeheartedly.

Good stuff Bryan - wish I had listened to my second thoughts like you did...

I've actually used pure Potassium Nitrate in the past, never tried the Sodium nitrate but I imagine the effect is quite similar. I hadn't played with nitrate dosing in a couple years and kept hearing that the Spectracide was '100 percent' pure. Decided to try it again but couldn't find my old jar of the good stuff so I figured I'd check out the new hype with the stump remover from the hardware store. It never ceases to amaze me how often I need to remind myself that if anything is left to chance in a reef system it's probably going to burn you in the end. Lesson learned... again. Lol

Corals are already looking happier after the 2nd 50 percent change. I'm hoping I'll pull through this relatively unscathed.

 

[Kurkis493]

How long does that 8oz bottle last? $20.00 shipped could add-up pretty fast.

What is the general dosing guideline for that?

My tank is Zeovit (system build here) and if you look, I am sort-of on the cusp here of where I think I want to be. The tank has been running this way for almost 2 years and I am pretty diligent in keeping a steady dosing schedule. I recently set my reactor to 3 on / 3 off and cutback on the Zeostart component so the water could get a little dirtier with my ultimate goal of perhaps even shutting down Zeovit all together. Making that kind of step makes me real, real nervous since things are pretty much gone as planned and I am overall happy with where things have been and are going... I wasn't really fond of the idea of putting stump remover in the tank and I am glad I didn't. However if Sodium Nitrate would allow me to dial in and ultimately run optimal NO3 levels 24/7 that would be awesome!

It seems with people like myself eyeing the use of stump remover, this could be a better option... Is there information anywhere on a good base point to start the dosing of Sodium Nitrate at? My tank is 120 gallons.

 

[cee]

It seems with people like myself eyeing the use of stump remover, this could be a better option... Is there information anywhere on a good base point to start the dosing of Sodium Nitrite at? My tank is 120 gallons.

Potassium / calcium are all pretty close together on the periodic table so the dosing levels should all be similar. I found this to be true for Ca(NO3) but not sure about sodium although one could calculate it with a small amount of chemistry training.

 

[Cory]

Yes, I would definitely like to get a Triton test done at some point. In this situation though I'm going to resolve the problem with another two 50 percent changes 2 days in a row. If it is copper as I suspect I should see some positive changes quite soon. I wish I could wait for the turn around time on triton, but I think I'm better off not chancing any more sps recession.

Thanks for the input Randy, it is much appreciated. I will update if the water changes solve the issue. If it does I think it will confirm my toxin suspicions, not necessarily copper, but a poisonous compound of some sort.



What makes you suspect my potassium is super low, or conversely very high? The tank gets a decent amount of food daily and monthly 50 percent water changes. It has run that way without issue for 2+ years now. If potassium nitrate dosing somehow spikes the uptake of potassium maybe that could be the case then. I know it does not add appreciable potassium but do not know much about how increased nitrogen uptake by organisms might affect potassium levels. I do not run any algae filters. The tank is quite simple -GFO, Carbon, large air driven sponge filter for bio, and that's it for filtration.

Potassium depleted from bacteria and corals iirc. Do you do water changes to counteract it?

 

[Battlecorals]

How long does that 8oz bottle last? $20.00 shipped could add-up pretty fast.

What is the general dosing guideline for that?

My tank is Zeovit (system build here) and if you look, I am sort-of on the cusp here of where I think I want to be. The tank has been running this way for almost 2 years and I am pretty diligent in keeping a steady dosing schedule. I recently set my reactor to 3 on / 3 off and cutback on the Zeostart component so the water could get a little dirtier with my ultimate goal of perhaps even shutting down Zeovit all together. Making that kind of step makes me real, real nervous since things are pretty much gone as planned and I am overall happy with where things have been and are going... I wasn't really fond of the idea of putting stump remover in the tank and I am glad I didn't. However if Sodium Nitrate would allow me to dial in and ultimately run optimal NO3 levels 24/7 that would be awesome!

It seems with people like myself eyeing the use of stump remover, this could be a better option... Is there information anywhere on a good base point to start the dosing of Sodium Nitrate at? My tank is 120 gallons.

A little goes along way. I use less than tsp every few days to a week in my 800+ gallon system so start really light, and test a lot if you are going to try it.

 

[BryanS4]

How long does that 8oz bottle last? $20.00 shipped could add-up pretty fast.

What is the general dosing guideline for that?

My tank is Zeovit (system build here) and if you look, I am sort-of on the cusp here of where I think I want to be. The tank has been running this way for almost 2 years and I am pretty diligent in keeping a steady dosing schedule. I recently set my reactor to 3 on / 3 off and cutback on the Zeostart component so the water could get a little dirtier with my ultimate goal of perhaps even shutting down Zeovit all together. Making that kind of step makes me real, real nervous since things are pretty much gone as planned and I am overall happy with where things have been and are going... I wasn't really fond of the idea of putting stump remover in the tank and I am glad I didn't. However if Sodium Nitrite would allow me to dial in and ultimately run optimal NO3 levels 24/7 that would be awesome!

It seems with people like myself eyeing the use of stump remover, this could be a better option... Is there information anywhere on a good base point to start the dosing of Sodium Nitrite at? My tank is 120 gallons.

After asking around this is the calculation that I came up with. Most people told me that 137g in 1 liter of rodi dosing 1 ml per 25g would raise no3 by 1ppm.

I personally cut it in 3rd. This is what I did for my 125, which I say 140 or so total water.

46g of sodium nitrite in 1 liter of rodi. 3ml per 25g would mean ballpark 15ml to raise 1ppm.

Ive done a lot of testing the past few days and this is really close to spot on.

 

[Kurkis493]

That is awesome, I have to try this out....

There is literally no known issues to dosing this aside from problems that can occur from "user error"?

Sorry for noobing out here - You can premix this in large volumes and it can sit in room temp without ill effects? Or does it work better if you mix it fresh as needed?

Could set this up on a Litermeter III and let it ride!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

How long does that 8oz bottle last? $20.00 shipped could add-up pretty fast.

What is the general dosing guideline for that?

My tank is Zeovit (system build here) and if you look, I am sort-of on the cusp here of where I think I want to be. The tank has been running this way for almost 2 years and I am pretty diligent in keeping a steady dosing schedule. I recently set my reactor to 3 on / 3 off and cutback on the Zeostart component so the water could get a little dirtier with my ultimate goal of perhaps even shutting down Zeovit all together. Making that kind of step makes me real, real nervous since things are pretty much gone as planned and I am overall happy with where things have been and are going... I wasn't really fond of the idea of putting stump remover in the tank and I am glad I didn't. However if Sodium Nitrate would allow me to dial in and ultimately run optimal NO3 levels 24/7 that would be awesome!

It seems with people like myself eyeing the use of stump remover, this could be a better option... Is there information anywhere on a good base point to start the dosing of Sodium Nitrate at? My tank is 120 gallons.

In 120 gallons of water, 1 ppm nitrate corresponds to 0.45 grams of nitrate or about 0.6 grams of sodium nitrate.

8 oz is 227 grams, or about a years worth of daily 1 ppm doses (less if you dose more than 1 ppm each day).

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

That is awesome, I have to try this out....

There is literally no known issues to dosing this aside from problems that can occur from "user error"?

Sorry for noobing out here - You can premix this in large volumes and it can sit in room temp without ill effects? Or does it work better if you mix it fresh as needed?

Could set this up on a Litermeter III and let it ride!

It is stable in concentrated solution for as long as you'll have a reef.

FWIW, it may not be any more pure than the Spectracide Stump Remover (although it is a different cation). When I tested Bulk Dowflake (calcium chloride) it was equally pure to much more expensive materials. Sometimes more expensive grades just means it was tested and found to meet the specs, not that untested material does not.

 

[rockskimmerflow]

Potassium depleted from bacteria and corals iirc. Do you do water changes to counteract it?

Yes, it was near the bottom of my post, the system gets 50 percent water changes monthly. That plus feeding I would imagine handles the potassium uptake by bacteria/corals. There isn't a speck of green algae in the system, just coralline. And I don't add any extra carbon sources to grow bacteria either. I'd never had a chemistry issue with this system prior to beginning the nitrate dosing.

Nitrates had never read above 0 and my phos always held at 0.03 or lower. That's why I figured some extra nitrogen wouldn't hurt since I was clearly in a state of nitrate limitation. I think I'll just play it safe from now on and feed as heavy as I need to get a low nitrate reading and use a bit more GFO to maintain my phosphates at proper levels. That's how I handle every other reef system I run. I don't know why I tried to get fancy on the system with my favorite Acropora in propagation.