Potassium & Nitrate Deficiency

[Fishman5]

Hi All,

I've silently followed along with many threads here for years, but have hardly ever posted, so bare with me if I get a little wordy here & thank you ahead of time...

I have a 72g bow front with a 30g breeder tank for a sump that holds about 20g, which I modified with custom acrylic ballasts - so there's around 90g total water volume.

The tank has been set up for almost 4 years now as an SPS-dominant mixed reef. Everything was going great until May of this year when I had sudden STN & even RTN in some of my more delicate tenuis & mille colonies along with a healthy-sized colony of Seriatopora Hystix browning out...

Performed an ICP test from ATI for the first time since I've had the tank and found an inordinate amount of Tin (181.4 µg/l). After going down a rabbit hole, I found the rod in the wetside of my MP40 was rusted and I subsequently replaced it. Sending out another ICP test Monday to confirm the Tin is gone, but everything that survived seems to have rebounded and is still alive at the very least (yet faded in color).

One thing from the ICP test I noticed was how low both my Potassium & Nitrates were (360ppm for Potassium & untraceable for the Nitrates).

Keeping up with those two has never been a worry of mine as I do a 10% water change every week religiously and I feed heavily, but with the advent of my debacle with Tin, I've wanted to elevate both Potassium & Nitrates in my system to help improve coral health & coloration - particularly with my SPS colonies.

With that said, I've tested Potassium with a Red Sea titration test kit over the past 2 months or so and have found that my range from Sunday to Sunday is 400ppm to 390/385ppm. Additionally, my Nitrate (hand tested with a Salifert test kit) has not been traceable...

So, I know 10-15ppm of consumption in Potassium isn't much in a week, and I definitely do not want to overdose Potassium, but I've been dosing about 7ml of Continuum once per week to keep up with that consumption and that seems to be fine so far.

My question is, does anyone have any suggestions for a potential dosing regimen that will cover my 10-15ppm weekly Potassium deficit while also maintaining traceable Nitrates? Or would I need to dose for these two things with separate solutions?

I'd also like to note that I have a 12-15g refugium in the aforementioned DIY breeder sump that's packed to the brim with Chaeto (I trim it back substantially 3-4 times per year) and I have noticed a pick-up in diatoms within the display as I upped my daily automated dosing of AcroPower (12ml/day). So, I do not want to overdo it with this Nitrate dosing and I am not entirely sure that I should even dose them...

*Disclaimer: I am looking to maintain Nitrates on the lower end (2-5 and no higher than 10) as I'm still in the old-school camp of low nutrients and I've never dosed Nitrates specifically, but I feel like my zero Nitrates isn't helping with the rebound in color of my SPS colonies.

Parameters:
Ph: 8.0 to 8.2
Alk: 8.3dkh to 8.5dkh
Calc: 450ppm to 460ppm
Mag: 1400ppm to 1450ppm
PO4: 0.01ppm
Iodine: 0.06ppm
Fe: 0.15ppm

Dosing:
Red Sea Foundation A: 23ml/day
Red Sea Foundation B: 10ml/day
Red Sea Foundation C: 12ml/day
AcroPower: 12ml/day
Continuum Reef Basis Potassium: 7ml/week

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi All,

I've silently followed along with many threads here for years, but have hardly ever posted, so bare with me if I get a little wordy here & thank you ahead of time...

I have a 72g bow front with a 30g breeder tank for a sump that holds about 20g, which I modified with custom acrylic ballasts - so there's around 90g total water volume.

The tank has been set up for almost 4 years now as an SPS-dominant mixed reef. Everything was going great until May of this year when I had sudden STN & even RTN in some of my more delicate tenuis & mille colonies along with a healthy-sized colony of Seriatopora Hystix browning out...

Performed an ICP test from ATI for the first time since I've had the tank and found an inordinate amount of Tin (181.4 µg/l). After going down a rabbit hole, I found the rod in the wetside of my MP40 was rusted and I subsequently replaced it. Sending out another ICP test Monday to confirm the Tin is gone, but everything that survived seems to have rebounded and is still alive at the very least (yet faded in color).

One thing from the ICP test I noticed was how low both my Potassium & Nitrates were (360ppm for Potassium & untraceable for the Nitrates).

Keeping up with those two has never been a worry of mine as I do a 10% water change every week religiously and I feed heavily, but with the advent of my debacle with Tin, I've wanted to elevate both Potassium & Nitrates in my system to help improve coral health & coloration - particularly with my SPS colonies.

With that said, I've tested Potassium with a Red Sea titration test kit over the past 2 months or so and have found that my range from Sunday to Sunday is 400ppm to 390/385ppm. Additionally, my Nitrate (hand tested with a Salifert test kit) has not been traceable...

So, I know 10-15ppm of consumption in Potassium isn't much in a week, and I definitely do not want to overdose Potassium, but I've been dosing about 7ml of Continuum once per week to keep up with that consumption and that seems to be fine so far.

My question is, does anyone have any suggestions for a potential dosing regimen that will cover my 10-15ppm weekly Potassium deficit while also maintaining traceable Nitrates? Or would I need to dose for these two things with separate solutions?

I'd also like to note that I have a 12-15g refugium in the aforementioned DIY breeder sump that's packed to the brim with Chaeto (I trim it back substantially 3-4 times per year) and I have noticed a pick-up in diatoms within the display as I upped my daily automated dosing of AcroPower (12ml/day). So, I do not want to overdo it with this Nitrate dosing and I am not entirely sure that I should even dose them...

*Disclaimer: I am looking to maintain Nitrates on the lower end (2-5 and no higher than 10) as I'm still in the old-school camp of low nutrients and I've never dosed Nitrates specifically, but I feel like my zero Nitrates isn't helping with the rebound in color of my SPS colonies.

Parameters:
Ph: 8.0 to 8.2
Alk: 8.3dkh to 8.5dkh
Calc: 450ppm to 460ppm
Mag: 1400ppm to 1450ppm
PO4: 0.01ppm
Iodine: 0.06ppm
Fe: 0.15ppm

Dosing:
Red Sea Foundation A: 23ml/day
Red Sea Foundation B: 10ml/day
Red Sea Foundation C: 12ml/day
AcroPower: 12ml/day
Continuum Reef Basis Potassium: 7ml/week

for nitrate, changing water a few days less than you do and feeding more will elevate it as will - if you run a skimmer, run it part time instead of full time.
Pottasium, Brightwell pottasium or Pohl's korallen Zucht K-blend

 

[Fishman5]

for nitrate, changing water a few days less than you do and feeding more will elevate it as will - if you run a skimmer, run it part time instead of full time.
Pottasium, Brightwell pottasium or Pohl's korallen Zucht K-blend

Not running the skimmer full-time will take every fiber in me to do lol!

Thank you for the quick and informative reply!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

That’s a large drop in potassium, but if real can be easily dosed.
Potassium is quick and cheap to replace, when needed with now foods/I herb potassium chloride. That choice may better, imo, than a more expensive hobby product lacking purity guarantees.

Nitrate is also easy to dose, or you can feed more or dose ammonia or amino acids.

 

[ScottB]

Many ways to run a reef, but running ultra low nutrient can be a real tightrope to walk. Not a big difference between .01 of phosphate and .00.

Add to that, as you are nitrate limited, when you add some nitrate, your PO4 will go down hard and fast. I would dose up PO4 before adding nitrate.