Nitrate dosing
 

I know, I know you read the title and thought WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT!?!?? ;)
Well I have 6 fish across 120 gal system.
Most po4 removal is linked to NO3 uptake as well. With so few fish I have a low nh3/4 production and my NO3 gets eaten up as PO4 is removed leaving none for the filter feeders that would consume it and sometime allowing my po4 to creep up... So for me nitrates are auctually a limiting nutrient. I decided to try dosing nitrates in my system using the product pictured (I got this on Amazon fyi) this is my first dose.. I did some fun dosing math ;) . I added 5mL of the CaNO3 soild to 8oz of water of the quality I'd used to top off the tank. I mixed this untill it was dissolved with very little stuck to the sides of the cup. I Tested before and after on two kits hach and red Sea.. both were true zeros before adding. I then added 5mL of my mix to my sump to mix in well. About a half hour later I tested throughout the tank on both kits and received a 7-9 ppm on NO3.. my total system volume is about 120gal.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...67c6d7a853.jpg

Sent from my E6810 using Tapatalk

I add potassium nitrate to my 300g system regularly.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sounds fine, test weekly and try to maintain something in the 2-5 ppm. Be sure to test NO3 24hrs after doesing because when truly nitrogen limited NO3 uptake can be high until you reach saturation.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You might want to think about getting food grade stuff at least. I found food grade sodium nitrate for cheap on Etsy of all places.

Really? Do you know the brand or have a link? This is safe for use on food (as in to grow stuff we eat) and listed as all the calcium, nitrate, and I believe ammonia nitrogen (sry if I'm a bit off here going from memory) adding up to 100%. It's the best I could find without ordering it through a lab and paying a good deal more. I figured it was "good enough quality" since I'd eat if I was using it to grow but if you know a better one I'm all for it. If you have info I'm open to PM's too.
Tia

Sent from my E6810 using Tapatalk

May I ask, why do you use potassium opposed to calcium? I would think it's easier to overdose the potassium than calcium personally so I find this very interesting.
Have you tried both and have results?
Lol sry I'm so inquisitive, I think of my tanks kind of like a living science experiment where getting the perfect pinches of everything yields an amazing little ecosystem and I just want to know the whole system inside and out.

Sent from my E6810 using Tapatalk

I know what you mean.

No, I am not worried about the potassium building up. The additional potassium is small compared to what is in NSW levels. Potassium is also consumed by corals and water changes help keep all in good order.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hmmm... I will keep this in mind, I keep track of my potassium but haven't had it go low enough to dose individually... Yet. I initially tried using the red sea abc+ skeltal growth mix but found the ca mg ratio a bit off my consumption. Nothing else ever got far enough off wack to notice tho so potassium does get used just in such a small amount I wouldn't have considered the application if you didn't make the suggestion. I've currently been monitoring everything I could think of and seeing if any particular blend of trace elements yields excessively great results ;)

Sent from my E6810 using Tapatalk

One noticeable change.... I have a "green" bta that has turned pink since I got it and generally got more bleached looking and would deflate for about an hour or two once a day... I figured for what ever reason it's taking a little extra long to light adjust.
As soon at the nitrate was added the nem got very puffy and full. There is another smaller rbt that's been with me a while and growing steadily that never deflated and always seemed happy, this also got extra puffy looked like it's bubble tips we're gonna pop lol.

Sent from my E6810 using Tapatalk

Yea I have had a lot of positive results from adding NO3. Only negative is that more "stuff" grows in the system too but that can also be a good thing as pods and fish will as tart to graze.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I've been dosing sodium nitrate for a while now. I got tech grade which is 99%+ in purity, 10 lbs bag very cheap. I mix 25 teaspoon in 1 gal ro-di water and dose 50ml daily which keeps nitrates in my 250 gal tank right at 2ppm.
Noticable changes: really good polyp extension on SPS and brighter color compared to when I kept nitrates and phos at absolute 0. Now I run nitrates at 2ppm and phos at 0.01

I dose potassium nitrate as well. Dosing nitrate is common for may SPS keepers, since we generally try to make our systems very nutrient efficient. More than often it leads to very low nitrate. I actually also occasionally need to dose dose phosphate.

I dose potassium nitrate because it is consumed a lot. Many bacteria consume large amounts of potassium and subsequely get removed by the skimmer, exporting potassium with them. Potassium is one of the rate limiting elements for bacterial growth.

Although I dont carbon dose, have about 50 ppm potassium consumption per week and need to dose potassium chloride.

I run into the same issue you described. 7 small fish in a 120 gallon. Once daily feedings as well.
PO4 creeping up slowly and nitrates haven't been detectable for a while. I have been adding alot more fish food and noticed my macroalgae were taking off, and the corals looked much happier kind of like your anemone. I still can't read nitrates because they get incorporated into biomass fairly quickly and it's a short term fix because po4 will likely keep creeping up. I figure I have three options to get nitrates and phosphates in balance; Add fish, add nitrate or add GFO. I decided to get more fish but did a fair bit of shopping around because I'm picky.
How does the calcium nitrate fit in with your alk/ca balance? Any adjustments to be made?

Good morning!
This mornings readings vs last night
Prior to dosing. After. Next morning
NO3--00 7-9 2
PO4-- 0.15 n/a 0.04

JZinCo,
I am also slowly cherry picking additional fish ;) I completely understand the carfully selecting them.
I keep mostly lps and some soft coral. I also have some Monti frags starting and a clam. I dose kalk and the BRS mangnese mix of magnesium chloride and sulfate (even though it's in tiny amounts compaird to most i started with a daily 10 mg/L calcium dose lol) automatically and just bumped up my dosing to meet demand with growth. I didnt notice any super fluctuations with adding the CaNO3 but since it's day one and I have bumped the ca & mg dosing within the last week I'd consider it too early to tell. My alakinity seems to naturally run in the 8-9 range with a constant pH of 8.3 I've never done anything to purposely adjust this with the whole if it's not broke don't fix it theory. If my calcium starts creeping up reguardless of the reason it would be easy enough to back of dosing kalk.

For most people this probally seems like over kill for this small system since I don't fluctuate enough to auctually move into an unacceptable range between water changes ;)
My goal is to have a thorough understanding of all the processes happening in this system and slowly add volume etc so I'm setting up this base work from the beginning.

Sent from my E6810 using Tapatalk

I dose sodium nitrate to keep my nitrates up around 2-4 so the vodka has enough nitrate to take care of all the phosphate leaching out of my rocks.

It works.

Nice!! I was considering either this or adding/building an ats to achieve this.

Sent from my E6810 using Tapatalk

Sodium nitrate should be fine, especially if food grade. Amazon stocked it a while ago, but I am not sure that they carry it now.