A little help with sources of Nitrate Addition....YES ADDITION.

[DeathWish302]

Just wondering of those that have experimented with Nitrate additions, what have you tried:

Potassium Nitrate
Magnesium Nitrate
Calcium Nitrate
Sodium Nitrate

Any others? I'm looking for multiple alternatives as to not rely on only one supplement and blow K, Mg, Ca or Na past reasonable NSW levels. I'm not adding a huge amount of Ca and Mg compared to others'. The unknown qty of NO3 required could throw a wrench in the experiment if an imbalance in K, Mg, Ca or Na required dosing to cease.

I know some are asking why not feed heavier.... I've quadripled my feeding qty with no color enhancement from the current state. I will be starting Iron Gluconate (CVS generic Iron supplement) dosing this evening. Later this week/month I will start dosing some Kent Iron & Manganese supplement & finally introduce Nitrate into the mix. The various forms of Nitrate will hopefully avoid the burnt tips others' have experienced from supposedly elevated K levels.

The saga continues...

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

All of those will work equaly well. The amount of the cation added is minor since you are not adding much and all are present in high concentrations in seawater.

There are threads here about dosing if you search them out.

[AaronReeph]

Just chiming in...I certainly don't have the chemistry knowledge to contribute much, but I will be following along to increase my understanding.
I'm very interested in this as well, and I'll also be starting iron dosing via Randy's Fergon method this evening.

[kaskiles]

Wouldn't doses of dilute Nitric acid raise Nitrate levels in sea water, without adding in a cation (at the expense of some alkalinity)?

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Yes, if that is handy for you.

[DeathWish302]

Originally Posted by Randy Holmes-Farley

All of those will work equaly well. The amount of the cation added is minor since you are not adding much and all are present in high concentrations in seawater.

There are threads here about dosing if you search them out.

I thought they all would work fine, as such small quantities are added to bump NO3 up to 2-3ppm from <1ppm.

I've looked at the threads I could find, but all ceased dosing due to burnt tips and little additional info on other materials trialed.

I guess this thread is really pinpointing additives for a poor man's Zeovit system w/o the mystery snake oil overtone.

[DeathWish302]

Wouldn't you have to be concerned with shelf life of nitric acid versus the much longer shelf life of crystals/pellets/powders? The corrosive nature of Nitric Acid would just concern me too much. Not that the previously mentioned solids are any safer, I just feel safer containing solids versus liquids.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Nitric acids lasts OK in glass bottles, but it isn't something that most people can easily locate to buy.

[kaskiles]

I wonder if this dilute Nitric acid would kill the tubing in our dosing pumps:
http://www.coleparmer.com/catalog/pr...u=8697393&pfx=

Oh, another one you can try that wouldn't lead to the other cations building up is Ammonium Nitrate?

[redfishsc]

I purchased a 5# bag of Calcium nitrate from Ebay, for hydroponics. Used it for a while with no negative effects at all.



I would personally recommend you dose no more than 0.3-0.5ppm per day to start with. The Salifert nitrate kit can measure this fairly easily.

In fact, I'd add the 0.5ppm, test one hour later (allow it to circulate well), and then test the next day to see if it's gone. Your system may surprise you, I found that it took longer to reduce the nitrate than I expected.

[DeathWish302]

Originally Posted by redfishsc

I purchased a 5# bag of Calcium nitrate from Ebay, for hydroponics. Used it for a while with no negative effects at all.



I would personally recommend you dose no more than 0.3-0.5ppm per day to start with. The Salifert nitrate kit can measure this fairly easily.

In fact, I'd add the 0.5ppm, test one hour later (allow it to circulate well), and then test the next day to see if it's gone. Your system may surprise you, I found that it took longer to reduce the nitrate than I expected.

Ebay would be my choice currently. I did see some KNO3 at Lowe's tonight, but no ingredients list. So for the security, I'll order from a known Ebay chemical dist.

I have the ELOS, Salifert & API kits as I couldn't believe a few months ago that my cyano was wiping out the Nitrate. I was wrong! I'm not going overboard even if the system processes it quickly. I have been adding upwards of a qty of food equivalent to 1.5 Ocean Nutrition cubes in a 50 tatl gallon system with 2 clowns. Nitrate tests are barely showing any color resulting in <1ppm. I even pushed the limit this weekend and dropped in enough pllets to fill one of the Ocean Nutrition cubes. Cyano starting showing up on the overflow Sunday and is officially gone today. The turf screen needed cleaned after only a Saturday cleaning tonight from that. Slow and steady is the only solution to find a happy medium to regain the color.

I started dosing the Iron tonight with a 2mL dose, as I diluted the pill with 300mL of water versus Randy's 100mL. No polyps retracted so all is ok 1+ hrs later.

Up next is the KNO3 & CaNO3 order...

[redfishsc]

Originally Posted by DeathWish302

Ebay would be my choice currently. I did see some KNO3 at Lowe's tonight, but no ingredients list. So for the security, I'll order from a known Ebay chemical dist.

I have the ELOS, Salifert & API kits as I couldn't believe a few months ago that my cyano was wiping out the Nitrate. I was wrong! I'm not going overboard even if the system processes it quickly. I have been adding upwards of a qty of food equivalent to 1.5 Ocean Nutrition cubes in a 50 tatl gallon system with 2 clowns. Nitrate tests are barely showing any color resulting in <1ppm. I even pushed the limit this weekend and dropped in enough pllets to fill one of the Ocean Nutrition cubes. Cyano starting showing up on the overflow Sunday and is officially gone today. The turf screen needed cleaned after only a Saturday cleaning tonight from that. Slow and steady is the only solution to find a happy medium to regain the color.

I started dosing the Iron tonight with a 2mL dose, as I diluted the pill with 300mL of water versus Randy's 100mL. No polyps retracted so all is ok 1+ hrs later.

Up next is the KNO3 & CaNO3 order...

I dose about the same amount of iron you just dosed... except in a 45g system it's really safe. I get good macro growth as well.

FWIW, you mentioned your levels are under 1ppm. I don't personally recommend you raise it any higher than 1ppm for at least a few weeks (risking algae growth). I think you will achieve your goal at, or under, 1ppm. If you already have between 0.3 and 1.0ppm, I wouldn't dose any nitrate, you probably have all you need.

If the KNO3 you saw was "Green Light stump remover" you should be fine. It's been used on reefs before (search RC for that phrase) and been used on FW planted tanks for many, many years.


You can also go to a pharmacist and order some saltpeter. It's either sodium or potassium nitrate, I can't recall. I tried that once, and the pharmacist turned out to be a "former" reefer. The dude got such a huge cocky attitude with me and basically told me I was an idiot for wanting to dose nitrate into a reef.

The guy went on and on for why I didn't need to do it, b/c coral get ALL they need from photosynthesis (he should know better, photosynthesis can't happen without nitrogen and phosphorus). He was dead certain that he was much more intelligent than this goat-tee hillbilly, and he might be. Good for him


Well anyhow, I left there, never to return, but found an article online describe precisely what I was doing (maintaining a 0.3ppm nitrate level) that accelerated coral growth for a certain SPS specie. I can't recall the article, it was nearly a year ago, but I emailed it to him.... never got a response.

[DeathWish302]

Originally Posted by redfishsc

FWIW, you mentioned your levels are under 1ppm. I don't personally recommend you raise it any higher than 1ppm for at least a few weeks (risking algae growth). I think you will achieve your goal at, or under, 1ppm. If you already have between 0.3 and 1.0ppm, I wouldn't dose any nitrate, you probably have all you need.

I think I'm going to wait for any reaction from the Iron addition for a couple/few weeks before adding anything else. When I make the upcoming bulb replacement, start dosing Iron & add KNO3 I will not know what to stop if something goes South. I also won't know what spurred a good reaction either. I've waited many months to get to the point of no cyano so a few more months of waiting is no biggie.

Originally Posted by redfishsc

If the KNO3 you saw was "Green Light stump remover" you should be fine. It's been used on reefs before (search RC for that phrase) and been used on FW planted tanks for many, many years.

Nope, it was Spectracide. From a search of the MSDS and here on RC, it appears it is 100% KNO3 and others' have used it with no problems. It would beat the additional $2 for shipping from Ebay if I can just pick it up tomorrow.

Originally Posted by redfishsc

You can also go to a pharmacist and order some saltpeter. It's either sodium or potassium nitrate, I can't recall. I tried that once, and the pharmacist turned out to be a "former" reefer. The dude got such a huge cocky attitude with me and basically told me I was an idiot for wanting to dose nitrate into a reef.

The guy went on and on for why I didn't need to do it, b/c coral get ALL they need from photosynthesis (he should know better, photosynthesis can't happen without nitrogen and phosphorus). He was dead certain that he was much more intelligent than this goat-tee hillbilly, and he might be. Good for him


Well anyhow, I left there, never to return, but found an article online describe precisely what I was doing (maintaining a 0.3ppm nitrate level) that accelerated coral growth for a certain SPS specie. I can't recall the article, it was nearly a year ago, but I emailed it to him.... never got a response.

I'll see if the local guy that is a butcher and makes sausage has any Sodium Nitrate. I bet he buys it by the 50lb bag for cheap and it would obviously be required to meet the codex for human consumption. That's even a better idea than Spectracide.

[mick243]

you want a nitrate source with no other ions to upset the balance. . . . . look no farther than "ammonium nitrate". . . . . your biofilter bacteria turn the ammonium component into nitrate. fairly certain that lots of clam farmers use this to feed thier baby clams with.

[redfishsc]

Originally Posted by DeathWish302

I think I'm going to wait for any reaction from the Iron addition for a couple/few weeks before adding anything else. When I make the upcoming bulb replacement, start dosing Iron & add KNO3 I will not know what to stop if something goes South. I also won't know what spurred a good reaction either. I've waited many months to get to the point of no cyano so a few more months of waiting is no biggie.

Sounds like a very good plan! Much more patient than I am, lol.

Originally Posted by mick243

you want a nitrate source with no other ions to upset the balance. . . . . look no farther than "ammonium nitrate". . . . . your biofilter bacteria turn the ammonium component into nitrate. fairly certain that lots of clam farmers use this to feed thier baby clams with.

I'm not sure how easy that would be to buy, I personally haven't seen it anywhere locally. Ever since McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma buildings with it, it's kinda hard to find (for good reason).

You would want to be extraordinarily careful on the amount you dose for a while to see how quickly your biofilter can cycled it into nitrate.


I used to take household ammonia and cycle it in a bucket into nitrate (used a sponge filter and a powerhead for the source of surface area/water flow). Was painfully slow for a while but eventually became quite effective.

[Plantbrain]

From Lowes/Home depot: Spectricide/Grants' stump removers = KNO3.

www.aquariumfertilizers.com sells the KNO3, KH2PO4, also good for making reference solutions BTW to see if what you are testing is actually correct or is a test kit error due to uncalibrated kits.

I tend to simply feed more to increase N and P, some macros do poorly when the NO3 drops too low and I'll dose KNO3 to about 5-10ppm range. PO4 is general pulsed 2-3x a week at .1ppm or so to reduce the strong limitation. Different systems have different loading rates and light, you might not have a lot of macros etc, or none. Not likely you need the KNO3 in that case.

Urea is also an option if you want to add ammonia, but it's several orders of magnitude more toxic than NO3 which is fairly non toxic comparatively.

Regards,
Tom

[DeathWish302]

Originally Posted by Plantbrain

...KNO3, KH2PO4, also good for making reference solutions BTW to see if what you are testing is actually correct or is a test kit error due to uncalibrated kits.

I'll have to do a search on this, as this would be great to run a comparative test of the NO3 kits I have.

Originally Posted by Plantbrain

I tend to simply feed more to increase N and P, some macros do poorly when the NO3 drops too low and I'll dose KNO3 to about 5-10ppm range. PO4 is general pulsed 2-3x a week at .1ppm or so to reduce the strong limitation. Different systems have different loading rates and light, you might not have a lot of macros etc, or none. Not likely you need the KNO3 in that case..

I couldn't get macros to grow for over a year after the cyano wiped out the NO3 and PO4. The turf scrubber slowly drove out the cyano and has been amazingly processing EVERYTHING I have thrown at the tank in regards to food. I'm too the point that I feel I'm feeding too heavily at an amount that is on the fence of not safe for a closed system (due to the immense stress on the biological filter from the ammonia and nitrite processing). I have undetectable measurements for both currently, but don't want to push my luck. I was dosing MB7 for awhile but have stopped. I started adding MB7 to my blackworm breeding setup with BioBalls as a cleaner medium to paper towels a few weeks ago and it still has not finished cycling. I'm not willing to count on MB7 or my current biological filter to perfom miracles for raising NO3.

Thanks Tom

Originally Posted by redfishsc

I used to take household ammonia and cycle it in a bucket into nitrate (used a sponge filter and a powerhead for the source of surface area/water flow). Was painfully slow for a while but eventually became quite effective.

That's a great idea! Did you use FW or SW? I have a bottle of Ammonia at home and a few 5gal buckets to spare and a fairly empty fish room closet..... With some cured concrete rock, a powerhead and that bucket I'm sure I could create a great nitrate factory. Use a portion of the nitrate factory water with a daily WC and you have a great controllled delivery method that is entirely natural.

What was the wait time intial for a pure nitrate source w/o any trace of ammonia or nitrite?

Thanks Guys!

[redfishsc]

First, make sure your ammonia has NO sufractants in it. Shake the bottle hard. Does it behave like clean water, or does it sud up? If any suds (you'll know for sure) then don't use it. Some ammonia I have seen has sufractants but doesn't explicitly sayso on the bottle.



All you need to do is put a biofilter of some sort in the bucket, with the biggest powerhead you have laying around to drive it. I used a Maxijet 1200 and a sponge filter, but you would be better off using a 6" PVC pipe, 10-12" long, capped on one end (bottom), and filled with something like bioballs or any cheap high-surface area material. Don't use rock rubble, it degrades and will clog the pump strainer.

You'll want the powerhead pulling from the bottom, so just bore a hole on the side of the PVC near the bottom, and stick the powerhead intake and strainer through there.

Sounds complicated but can be made for $5-10 (except pump) in about 30 minutes. If you have a spare sump laying around, or even a fluidized bed filter, so much the better, just use them.




I cycled this using RO/DI water, no salt. You can "jump start" this factory by finding someone with a healthy FW tank and ask for some filter floss from a filter.

I took about a month to start working, and eventually it got to where I could cycle several tablespoons of ammonia in a day or two. I got the nitrate in the 200-300 ppm range very quickly. That's enough to dose many tanks for a long time, lol, and it's pretty safe.



(all said and done, it's soooooo much easier to spend the money on a dried powder source for nitrate but where's the fun in that?)

[Reefer08]

How about dosing a little bit more amino acids? Its a food source for corals and uneaten AA will turn into nitrates. You'll notice a brown film on sand or glass with an overdose.

[DeathWish302]

Well I went to Lowe's at my lunch break and picked up the Spectracide KNO3. It wasn't an hour after I returned to work I was talking about a problem we are having with our product (that's all I can say per the lawyers)..... The materials engr was talking about the above unmentioned problem and sure enough a certain chemical came into conversation.

It appears the materials lab uses Nitric acid for surface conditioning of carbon steels post welding to remove SiO2 deposits. We have GALLONS of Research Lab grade at work.....

I got a 32oz brown lag jar full for FREE! Took the Spectracide back and will see how this works in a few weeks after watching for changes from the Iron addition.

Originally Posted by Reefer08

How about dosing a little bit more amino acids? Its a food source for corals and uneaten AA will turn into nitrates. You'll notice a brown film on sand or glass with an overdose.

Yes, AA will eventually decompose to nitrate and cost a ton of $$$ compared to other methods. I have yet to see scientific documentation that all corals 'require' AA. It has been stated that they eat these substances because thy are present, but an exact required amount is unknown in a majority of species The below has some info that will be surprising to most that AA are not a major portion of the Stylophora pistillata corals diet.

http://www.coralscience.org/home/con.../lang,english/

Sorry,just not a fan of paying alot for a 'proprietary blend' of monkey pee as far as I know....

[DeathWish302]

This is not what I had envisioned when starting this journey...... The more I read, the more it appears increased zooplankton feedings and AA additions are also a key to my increased coloration desire. Too many variables to digest at once: Iron (for red coloration from Dana Riddle's article), zooplankton (what type get the most bang for the buck and is frozen versus freeze dried versus liquid matter) & finally is the addition of AA warranted to create a saturated state or can proper feedings of zooplankton be sufficient?

I've not been impressed with the 'Proprietary Blend' reasoning why Zeovit and Brightwell doesn't reveal there ingredients. If I were to dose these, I'd drop the 90 Euro ($135) and have a ltr of this stuff shipped from Germany: Mrutzek hausmarke amino+.

http://www.shop-meeresaquaristik.de/...--1000-mL.html

This is becoming quite the complex experiment that may take some time to determine a suitable schedule of additions and proportions required. I will not be defeated by the boring drag coral gnome.....!!!!

[redfishsc]

You're discovering the SPS challenge: get good growth and color, all without dumping huge amounts of money into proprietary products (and entire systems).


Personally, I prefer a tank full of motion, so I tend toward LPS and soft corals (all of which seem to color up best in tanks with some nutrients) and I do have around a dozen SPS species which I love, but don't dominate my tank. It's just too expensive and even more tricky in my small system. With me, the time and investment needed for uber-SPS tanks does not give me a good return; a point of diminishing return.


Keep up your search, and keep in mind that what will work in your system may not work at all for another.

[DeathWish302]

Well in my search, I have found an interesting site with bulk Amino Acids including Aspartic Acid. Anyone think there would be a problem with DIY Amino Acid compounds that would cost far less and you KNOW what your getting?

http://nutrabio.com/Products/sub.ami...FQ_xDAodZ3tapQ

Below states some ingredients from some AA ingredient listings.
http://grumpyreefer.net/2009/04/14/a...eef-aquariums/

[bertoni]

Those amino acid products look okay to me. They're food-grade (allegedly, at least) and contain no fillers, so they'd be ideal in those respects.

[redfishsc]

Taatu warned me in a thread here a while back that certain amino acids, in certain concentrations, were selectively toxic to certain corals.

For that reason I am extremely hesitant to consider a DIY amino acid complex.


I am generally quite cautious about what I put in my tank, but if you do try them, please do share the results with us!