DIY Ammonia dosing for low nitrate systems

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

dosing until I start to see a significant Nitrate rise, then will back off a bit and see how it settles out.
Still looking for input on thoughts of possible max dosing per day on 1000 gallons of a pretty heavily stocked SPS/LPS mixed reef.

Thanks for the info!

I don’t know what sort of upper limit there may be. If asked a different way, I still would not know: what is the max N consumption per day one can have in a tank. I’ve never seen anyone try to address that using some sort of N balance study.

 

[Shirak]

I am at 16ml/day into my 45g system. Calculator says .4ppm total. Dosing from 9am-6pm. Lights start to wind down shortly after but stay on for another couple hours or so.

Did some testing yesterday around the middle of the afternoon. PO4 .08ppm (feeding a little reef roids each day), NO3 22ppm. Still adding a little sodium nitrate periodically, Ammonia measured .16ppm so actual reading on the Hanna! Snails seem fine. Corals look good. I had just been pulling a bunch of hair algae from the walls and refugium. Still battling it but it's diminishing slowly. Coraline algae is starting to pop up big time.

I guess the question is what nitrate level is needed if there is ammonia going in? I have been keeping it around 15-20ppm NO3 for my goni garden but if they are using the ammonia then the nitrate shouldn't really be necessary? For now I will keep targeting PO4 .05-.1ppm, NO3 15-20ppm, Alk 8.0-8.5dkh using AFR primarily, and 16ml of ammonia dosing/day.

I bought some more reagent for the Hanna ammonia tester and would like to see how things go and see what I get for ammonia readings.

Also dosing few times a week:
drop or two of KZ iodine
drop or two of KZ iron
.5ml-1ml of Aquaforest Mn
2 or 3 drops KZ amino
drop or two Aquaforest AFVitality (vitamins)
AFR currently 2.5ml/day

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I guess the question is what nitrate level is needed if there is ammonia going in? I have been keeping it around 15-20ppm NO3 for my goni garden but if they are using the ammonia then the nitrate shouldn't really be necessary?

That is likely correct, and nitrate may just be an insurance policy, but I think one can only determine such a low limit value for nitrate for a given system and corals. I'd try stopping the nitrate dosing for a while and see what happens.

The ammonia value reported is no concern, IMO, but may be a reminder that if one does suddenly removing any significant part of the ammonia uptake system (such as algae), whether dosing ammonia or getting it from fish, one might see ammonia rise.

 

[ncjeepguy75]

This is great thanks for sharing, do you think its more beneficial to dose at lights on only, or would say its really necessary to dose during photo period only ?

So I am currently only dosing ammonia with lights on...I am trying to allow the corals to use as much of the ammonia as possible...

 

[ncjeepguy75]

That is likely correct, and nitrate may just be an insurance policy, but I think one can only determine such a low limit value for nitrate for a given system and corals. I'd try stopping the nitrate dosing for a while and see what happens.

The ammonia value reported is no concern, IMO, but may be a reminder that if one does suddenly removing any significant part of the ammonia uptake system (such as algae), whether dosing ammonia or getting it from fish, one might see ammonia rise.

@Shirak I would agree with @Randy Holmes-Farley ...I have totally stopped any nitrate dosing since I have been ammonia dosing...I have finally started to see nitrates hold fairly steady while dosing so am figuring I am around the point that my corals are getting what they need and the excess is being converted to nitrates...

 

[Shirak]

@Shirak I would agree with @Randy Holmes-Farley ...I have totally stopped any nitrate dosing since I have been ammonia dosing...I have finally started to see nitrates hold fairly steady while dosing so am figuring I am around the point that my corals are getting what they need and the excess is being converted to nitrates...

I have been monitoring nitrate. Will test again tomorrow. I am hoping once I get the hair algae pockets cleaned up things will stabilize. Does not appear to be colonizing new frag plugs. Just being really stubborn where it's established and it grows fast!

What level are you finding your nitrates holding steady? I am thinking as long as there is something showing in the 5ppm range that would indicate there is enough ammonia for the corals and whatever else might use it during the daylight hours.

 

[ncjeepguy75]

I have been monitoring nitrate. Will test again tomorrow. I am hoping once I get the hair algae pockets cleaned up things will stabilize. Does not appear to be colonizing new frag plugs. Just being really stubborn where it's established and it grows fast!

What level are you finding your nitrates holding steady? I am thinking as long as there is something showing in the 5ppm range that would indicate there is enough ammonia for the corals and whatever else might use it during the daylight hours.

@Shirak Yes...I am trying to keep nitrates around 5ppm...so far they are leveling out around 2.4ppm which isn't horrible and like you said at least there is some there just in case and not to bottom anything out...I "try" to test nitrates and phosphates each day but is more realistic for every other day...

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

So I am currently only dosing ammonia with lights on...I am trying to allow the corals to use as much of the ammonia as possible...

Why do you think they only take up ammonia during the day?

 

[Sushitheshiba]

Why do you think they only take up ammonia during the day?

I also dose more ammonia during the day time. My personal reason for that is since the corals are photosynthetic, I am assuming that they need more “fuel” for growth. Of course I’m not a scientist or anything lol also idk how long corals take to process their food, like our bodies take 6-8 hours i think.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I also dose more ammonia during the day time. My personal reason for that is since the corals are photosynthetic, I am assuming that they need more “fuel” for growth. Of course I’m not a scientist or anything lol also idk how long corals take to process their food, like our bodies take 6-8 hours i think.

I've never looked into the time of day effect on ammonium uptake, and now that I do, there's not a lot of data and its somewhat variable in conclusion. It may be the case that there's more uptake during the day.

This paper sees higher nitrate uptake during the day, but less than a factor of 2 vs night, and they do not see a time of day effect for ammonia.

Nutrient uptake in the reef-building coral Acropora palmata at natural environmental concentrations

https://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/68/m068p065.pdf

Uptake rate could not be correlated with substrateammonium concentration (p > 0.8), and there appearedto be no diel or seasonal patterns in uptake rate.

There appeared to be a diurnal pattern in the rate ofnitrate uptake (Fig. 2), although this was not significantat p = 0.05 (l-way ANOVA, 0.10>p>0.05).
The uptake, retention, and release of ammonium by reef corals

https://aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.4319/lo.1978.23.4.0725

Of several genera tested, only those Pacific reef corals symbiotic with zooxanthellae takeup and retain ammonium. Uptake and retention are enhanced by light, and the normal daylight period is sufficient to sustain ammonium retention during the night.
This paper has mixed results
Uptake of ammonium by the scleractinian coral Stylophora pistillata: Effect of feeding,
light, and ammonium concentrations

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aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Results obtained in the second set of experiments (daily cycle of nitrogen uptake, Figs. 4 and 5) suggest that the dark uptake of nitrogen by corals seems to be dependent on the nutritional status of the animal. This cycle indeed shows that,in starved corals, uptake rates measured over 12 h (daylightperiod) were comparable to those measured over 24 h (dayand night incubation). This suggests that uptake by these animals and in our conditions was constant throughout the24 h.
However, in fed corals, uptake rates were four times lower when measured for 24 than12 h. Two hypotheses might explain such a difference: (1)zooxanthellae stopped taking up ammonium during the darkperiod, and/or (2) well-fed animals might have excreted nitrogen during the night. Both events might also have occurred simultaneously,

 

[xravin]

Started ammonia dosing a couple days ago to try to help with a 0 nitrate situation. Started with 5ml in a 120g tank, upping by 5ml each day. Dosing in the trough of my ph cycle over the course of about 8 hours. I know it's probably an overly cautious approach, but hard to get over the classic thinking that ammonia is the worst thing you can have in a tank. So far, no ill effects. Curious to see if it accelerates growth on some frags.

 

[Shirak]

Some results: ppm
2/1 NO3 23, PO4 .08, NH3 .16 (3pm)
2/3 NO3 24.7, PO4 .06, NH3 .09 (12pm)
2/5 NO3 25.5, PO4 .09, NH3 .06 (8pm)

Some of the Goni's are getting darker colors. I have the lights turned down a little as a few of them reacted badly to my par and they are nursing in the least par spot I have.. So I think it's primarily the extra nutrients. I still feed almost every day with a variety of goni dry foods.

Going to leave things where they are at for now. Amazeballs Goni is starting to extend a little so I take that to mean everything is improving!

 

[DenverSaltyFarm]

@Randy Holmes-Farley
I just started dosing ammonia and stopped dosing nitrates. My tank holds at around 2ppm nitrate and .06 phosphate. All sps in my tank

I will be dosing phosphate with this ammonia dosing plan to keep my phosphates from bottoming out, but just wondering if it would be a good idea to carbon dose a small amount to keep nitrates limited from unwanted algae’s popping up?

 

[Blitzrunner83]

Yes, but it has other effects that you might not want, such as increased phosphate, organics, yellowing of the water, detritus, and possibly organisms such as cyano that consume organics.

In general, though, if you need both Na nd P, feeding more is an easy thing to try.

Don’t corals absorb ammonia easier than Na also?

 

[ncjeepguy75]

Why do you think they only take up ammonia during the day?

@Randy Holmes-Farley I don't think they take up only during lights on but that is time they are photosynthesizing so just thought extra nitrogen during that period may help

 

[ncjeepguy75]

Started ammonia dosing a couple days ago to try to help with a 0 nitrate situation. Started with 5ml in a 120g tank, upping by 5ml each day. Dosing in the trough of my ph cycle over the course of about 8 hours. I know it's probably an overly cautious approach, but hard to get over the classic thinking that ammonia is the worst thing you can have in a tank. So far, no ill effects. Curious to see if it accelerates growth on some frags.

@xravin just keep a watch to see if nitrates appear on the test and adjust ammonia dose from there

 

[ncjeepguy75]

Some results: ppm
2/1 NO3 23, PO4 .08, NH3 .16 (3pm)
2/3 NO3 24.7, PO4 .06, NH3 .09 (12pm)
2/5 NO3 25.5, PO4 .09, NH3 .06 (8pm)

Some of the Goni's are getting darker colors. I have the lights turned down a little as a few of them reacted badly to my par and they are nursing in the least par spot I have.. So I think it's primarily the extra nutrients. I still feed almost every day with a variety of goni dry foods.

Going to leave things where they are at for now. Amazeballs Goni is starting to extend a little so I take that to mean everything is improving!

@Shirak yeah...just keep a watch on the nitrates...