Advanced methods of maintaining nitrates and phosphates.

[coralcruze]

looking to automate nutrient control in a reef.

My reef is 22 years old and is pretty much automated. Just pucked up a reefbot which has allowed me to view realtime fluctuations.

aside from thebobviouse methods of nutrient control... I am looking for ways to automate phosphate and nitrate in a reef. I already automate feeding and water changes ect. but find that we have some missing gaps with po4 and no3.

specifically po4 we can use GFO to lower phosphate but not much to raise it. also GFO is not a very scientific method of lowever it. so i dont liek using it myself. lastly No3 can be raised by the use of stump remover or other liquid dosing regiments ect. other than carbon dosing (personally use vodka) are there more accurate scientific ways to raise and lower po4 and no3? preferably using an accurate dosing pump...?

 

[sixty_reefer]

Interesting thread mate, there is more methods but not used as it’s kinda complicated I guessed.

Using carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus sources, I believe we can balance any tank.

for example if you had a tank with a high po4 you could bring it down by using a nitrogen and carbon.

 

[tweeter]

looking to automate nutrient control in a reef.

My reef is 22 years old and is pretty much automated. Just pucked up a reefbot which has allowed me to view realtime fluctuations.

aside from thebobviouse methods of nutrient control... I am looking for ways to automate phosphate and nitrate in a reef. I already automate feeding and water changes ect. but find that we have some missing gaps with po4 and no3.

specifically po4 we can use GFO to lower phosphate but not much to raise it. also GFO is not a very scientific method of lowever it. so i dont liek using it myself. lastly No3 can be raised by the use of stump remover or other liquid dosing regiments ect. other than carbon dosing (personally use vodka) are there more accurate scientific ways to raise and lower po4 and no3? preferably using an accurate dosing pump...?

This is off the subject, but since you said that your reef is 22 years old, I am curious about something. Do you have a deep sand bed, or a sand bed at all? There is a big debate about sand beds, so many different views. My reef is 7 years old, and I have a deep sand bed, so according to some , my tank will crash around the ten year mark....So was curiuos about wether you have a sand bed, and have kept it for all these years.

 

[Larry L]

I think there are two big issues that make it hard to automate phosphate and nitrate control in a reef tank:

1) Nobody yet (that I know of) makes anything that can continuously monitor those and then feed the results to a controller to make decisions about whether they need to be raised or lowered. (The Reefbot can measure them, but AFAIK the realtime results can't e.g. be fed into an Apex. I might be wrong.)

2) There are a lot of variables that affect phosphate and nitrate levels above and beyond whatever you might be using to try to control them, including amount of feeding, whether or not you are already carbon dosing, whether or not you are running a refugium with macroalgae (and if so, how much algae and how long of a lighting cycle), etc. There is also a lot of interaction between the two (e.g. if your system is limited by lack of one, adding that can result in a sudden decrease in the other.)

But even if you can't totally control them, you can definitely automate dosing to either raise or lower them, by making periodic measurements and tweaking your dosing schedule accordingly. There are a lot of products out there that can automatically dosed to raise either nitrates or phosphates in a relatively predictable way. You can drop nitrates via carbon dosing, but I haven't found it to be super predictable as far as e.g. how much more the nitrates will drop for a given increase in the amount dosed. Any of the lanthanum chloride based phosphate removers tend to reduce phosphates in a predictable way, much more so than GFO, and I have heard of people who put it on a slow drip for steady reduction of phosphates (I just manually dose about 5ml or so of Phosphate Rx per week, as needed).

 

[Greg Gdowski]

But even if you can't totally control them, you can definitely automate dosing to either raise or lower them, by making periodic measurements and tweaking your dosing schedule accordingly. There are a lot of products out there that can automatically dosed to raise either nitrates or phosphates in a relatively predictable way. You can drop nitrates via carbon dosing, but I haven't found it to be super predictable as far as e.g. how much more the nitrates will drop for a given increase in the amount dosed. Any of the lanthanum chloride based phosphate removers tend to reduce phosphates in a predictable way, much more so than GFO, and I have heard of people who put it on a slow drip for steady reduction of phosphates (I just manually dose about 5ml or so of Phosphate Rx per week, as needed).

Hey old roommate. Happy thanksgiving!

A few folks have been dosing lanthanum chloride in Rochester for many years very successfully. I have a refugium and it drops the nitrates and phosphates almost to low. I run GFO -- but also struggle because it is always a bit unclear how I would regulate it beyond guesswork and turning on and off the powerhead to the unit. Have you successfully dosed nitrates and phosphates? I always saw that as feeding my refugium.

 

[Larry L]

Hey old roommate. Happy thanksgiving!

Hey, same to you!

Have you successfully dosed nitrates and phosphates? I always saw that as feeding my refugium.

I never dose them, mine always run too high. On the rare occasion that they start getting low, I either cut back on my vinegar dosing, or shorten the light cycle on my refugium. I don't really get it when I read about people who are both carbon dosing and/or running a refugium and/or running GFO to reduce nutrients, and at the same time dosing them back in...

 

[Greg Gdowski]

shorten the light cycle on my refugium

Funny things on this. I've read a number of scientific articles on macro algae. Many of them produce the chemical to consume nitrates during their light cycle. Actual consumption seems to occur more during the dark cycle. I have often thought that reversing a refugium light cycle to maintain ph was not a great idea from the perspective of how and when algae consumes nitrates. I've thought about aligning the light cycles and trying to regulate flow to the refugium --- to leave nitrates in the tank when corals need it and when it is produced by feeding fish (during daylight hours, ie no refugium flow) and then to remove it during the evening by turning flow on to the refugium during the dark hours (for the tank and refugium). Seems more natural to me (ie aligned light cycles). The challenge is plumbing such a system and maintaining concentration of other ions and temperature. Hope that made sense.

 

[coralcruze]

This is off the subject, but since you said that your reef is 22 years old, I am curious about something. Do you have a deep sand bed, or a sand bed at all? There is a big debate about sand beds, so many different views. My reef is 7 years old, and I have a deep sand bed, so according to some , my tank will crash around the ten year mark....So was curiuos about wether you have a sand bed, and have kept it for all these years.

I am not so sure how off topic your question really is because i look at the sand bed as a stabilizer or a sink of nutrient buildup to some extent.

I do have a shallow sand bed... and I do go in and siphon detritus as best I can once a year or so... it does crash at about 9 years and I have pumped it out and replaced it. I also went bare bottom for a short time but for me it disnt work. detritus was just too much to keep up with and nutrients were hard to come by. So sand went back in every time.

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

looking to automate nutrient control in a reef.

My reef is 22 years old and is pretty much automated. Just pucked up a reefbot which has allowed me to view realtime fluctuations.

aside from thebobviouse methods of nutrient control... I am looking for ways to automate phosphate and nitrate in a reef. I already automate feeding and water changes ect. but find that we have some missing gaps with po4 and no3.

specifically po4 we can use GFO to lower phosphate but not much to raise it. also GFO is not a very scientific method of lowever it. so i dont liek using it myself. lastly No3 can be raised by the use of stump remover or other liquid dosing regiments ect. other than carbon dosing (personally use vodka) are there more accurate scientific ways to raise and lower po4 and no3? preferably using an accurate dosing pump...?

Just feed corals, broadcast feeding. Not only will corals grow, you will determine how much to feed as you increase food amounts and schedule times. Then use a feeder and automate

 

[coralcruze]

I think there are two big issues that make it hard to automate phosphate and nitrate control in a reef tank:

1) Nobody yet (that I know of) makes anything that can continuously monitor those and then feed the results to a controller to make decisions about whether they need to be raised or lowered. (The Reefbot can measure them, but AFAIK the realtime results can't e.g. be fed into an Apex. I might be wrong.)

2) There are a lot of variables that affect phosphate and nitrate levels above and beyond whatever you might be using to try to control them, including amount of feeding, whether or not you are already carbon dosing, whether or not you are running a refugium with macroalgae (and if so, how much algae and how long of a lighting cycle), etc. There is also a lot of interaction between the two (e.g. if your system is limited by lack of one, adding that can result in a sudden decrease in the other.)

But even if you can't totally control them, you can definitely automate dosing to either raise or lower them, by making periodic measurements and tweaking your dosing schedule accordingly. There are a lot of products out there that can automatically dosed to raise either nitrates or phosphates in a relatively predictable way. You can drop nitrates via carbon dosing, but I haven't found it to be super predictable as far as e.g. how much more the nitrates will drop for a given increase in the amount dosed. Any of the lanthanum chloride based phosphate removers tend to reduce phosphates in a predictable way, much more so than GFO, and I have heard of people who put it on a slow drip for steady reduction of phosphates (I just manually dose about 5ml or so of Phosphate Rx per week, as needed).

reefbot is supposed to be coming out with thier own proprietary stepper doser by the end of the year that will communicate with the reefbot testing robot. your points are well made but the way I look at it is we all have a magic number for our reef where feeding a certain amout takes care of yhe animals in our tank. that number weather 10ml or 10.5ml does not really change until you either add another animal to the reef or that animal grows more polyp colonies that require more food. so I never thought that addition of adding more food to raise nutrients was ever a good idea although necessary sometimes. its just not a good way to control levels because it takes some time for that food to start the decaying process and raise nutrient levels. With the ability to test more often I am starting to notice this but its not difinitive because I do dose vodka. problem with vodka or any carbon dosing method I think is that its difficult to know whats going on at a given moment. redfield ratio states 106:16:1 carbon:nitrateshosphorus. i use it as a guide but again the difficulty is

A. we dont have difinitive ways to test Carbon energy
B. we dont have scientifically difinitive ways to control No3 and Po4.

 

[coralcruze]

Just feed corals, broadcast feeding. Not only will corals grow, you will determine how much to feed as you increase food amounts and schedule times. Then use a feeder and automate

yes... i do this already in an automated fasion. I rarely target feed and have food delivered scientifically and at a set amount. I have seen the benefits of feeding this way but the thread is more about controlling the outcome or byproduct (nutrient buildup) of No3 and Po4 as a result of feeding and biological activities of the living animals.

 

[Stoney]

GFO is not a very scientific method of lowever it. so i dont liek using it myself

I rarely target feed and have food delivered scientifically and at a set amount.

What exactly do you mean by scientific? Isn't it all scientific as long as you're testing? But I agree with posts above about feeding more. I know you mentioned that your inhabitants only require a certain amount of food, but I think your micro fauna populations will increase to account for the extra feeding. I've always used feeding to set a baseline for phosphates and then dose NaNO3 for nitrate. I rarely have to adjust the dose and I test every week to make sure things are stable.

 

[coralcruze]

i used to test weekly until I got the reefbot which does three tests a week and can see fluctuations based on action taken now. by scientific I mean measured amount of bioload vs measured amount of reducing compounds...

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It is certainly easy and appropriate to automate the dosing of sodium nitrate and sodium phosphate, recognizing that the testing will need to be done by you and not a machine. Automating export is a little harder, but could be done. I would not recommend doing both on the same system.

 

[coralcruze]

thanks for your info. Randy. may I ask..

1. why would testing need to be done by me? wouldnt home test kits for po4 amd no3 work for this?

2. can you suggest any online sources that I could aquire sodium nitrate and sodium phosphate? I assume these will increase nitrate and phosphate in a reef.

3. any known chemicals to reduce po4 and no3?

thanks so much Randy!

 

[Dan_P]

looking to automate nutrient control in a reef.

My reef is 22 years old and is pretty much automated. Just pucked up a reefbot which has allowed me to view realtime fluctuations.

aside from thebobviouse methods of nutrient control... I am looking for ways to automate phosphate and nitrate in a reef. I already automate feeding and water changes ect. but find that we have some missing gaps with po4 and no3.

specifically po4 we can use GFO to lower phosphate but not much to raise it. also GFO is not a very scientific method of lowever it. so i dont liek using it myself. lastly No3 can be raised by the use of stump remover or other liquid dosing regiments ect. other than carbon dosing (personally use vodka) are there more accurate scientific ways to raise and lower po4 and no3? preferably using an accurate dosing pump...?

If you could automate phosphate testing and if lanthanum chloride dosing is feasible, you might be able to control phosphate. You could use GFO instead of lanthanum chloride if you could control how much aquarium water flows through the GFO reactor per hour in response to phosphate level. Probably doable, but mote complicated than dosing lanthanum chloride.

If you could automate nitrate testing, you might be able to get some semblance of control by carbon dosing to lower NO3 and sodium nitrate to raise it, but the large time lag for lowering nitrate and the unknown amount of carbon needed to reduce nitrate could result in an undulating nitrate level. There isn’t a simple method to remove NO3 quickly nitrate yet.

An algae reactor might be a solution by keeping it active with nitrate dosing directly to the reactor when the aquarium water nitrate is low but decreasing nitrate dosing as the aquarium water nitrate rises. The system water nitrate level might still undulate unless the algae reactor is large.

 

[sixty_reefer]

3. any known chemicals to reduce po4 and no3?
[/QUOTE]

You looking at having to dose carbon and nitrogen source together

 

[sixty_reefer]

You could also read upon the ATI nutrition to get more comfortable with the method

 

[vahegan]

My tank is currently running low on both nitrates and phosphates (too little fish at the moment) so I am dosing Potassium dihydrogen phosphate (you can get it on Amazon sold as Monopotassium Phosphate Fertilizer - but get the smallest package possible, you will need minute doses of this). For nitrate I use a mixture of calcium nitrate and urea.

Actually, calcium (or potassium, sodium) nitrate alone will do if you just need to raise the nitrates. But I like the way my corals reacted to dosing urea so I have added it to the mix.

Before I started adding urea, there was some phosphate in the water, something like 0.03-0.06ppm (based on Hanna HI713 readings) but that has dropped to zero after I added urea to the mix. Urea is carbamide, and in addition to nitrogen in amide form (which is more accessible to corals than nitrates - I think that's why they like it), contains some carbon and I think this acted in the same way as adding vodka-vinegar mix and zeroed my phosphate. I have to dose some phosphate daily since.

I am checking my nitrate/phosphate weekly and adjust the daily dose based on the changes in their uptake by the tank. I don't think there is need to check more frequently than that.

 

[coralcruze]

I just watched this... So I hope to never have to use Lanthenum Chloride. It just does not seem like something worth risking fish and/or coral over. I use natural methods like chaeto in a sump and rarely even have to use GFO. This seems a bit over the top for me. Any thoughts?