Best way to raise Nitrates

[Lasse]

Not sure what Nori is

Nori - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Sincerely Lasse

 

[saturn13]

0.04 PO4 and 2ppm NO3 is great IMO. as long as they don't get to zero.
How do your corals look?
you can make a potassium nitrate and potassium phosphate solution to dose when you need to. Cheapest and easiest way to do it since you can make the solutions such that 1mL=0.1ppm in your tank or whatever you want.

well my corals were doing fine until ny parameters until things kept going up,tried a few thihgs, larger water changes, additional filtration but they would creep up again, especially phosphate .27 , stuff was browning, staying closed. Went to alage scrubber and you all know what happened, it ripped it all out possibly to 0 adjusted the running time and things have been hovering where they're at for a month and a half.
What didn't help is back in early August a tropical storm messed up my ato pump and thise I had cheching my tank caught it, buy each time there were 6 days of evaporation in between. Now I'm just trying to get to steady numbers and color back into corals still alive.

 

[ReefLab]

well my corals were doing fine until ny parameters until things kept going up,tried a few thihgs, larger water changes, additional filtration but they would creep up again, especially phosphate .27 , stuff was browning, staying closed. Went to alage scrubber and you all know what happened, it ripped it all out possibly to 0 adjusted the running time and things have been hovering where they're at for a month and a half.
What didn't help is back in early August a tropical storm messed up my ato pump and thise I had cheching my tank caught it, buy each time there were 6 days of evaporation in between. Now I'm just trying to get to steady numbers and color back into corals still alive.

My advice would be just to try and keep it stable. Make sure that NO3 and PO4 don’t get zero (better too high than too low) and try not to change anything while your tank is recovering

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I use Spectracide stump remover for dosing nitrate. It’s like $10 and easy to dose using a kn03 dosing calculator.

But why pick a potentially impure industrial product when food grade sodium or potassium nitrate are inexpensive and readily available?

 

[ThePurple12]

But why pick a potentially impure industrial product when food grade sodium or potassium nitrate are inexpensive and readily available?

Good point. The stump remover is cheaper, and lots of people use it with no problems. But to each his own. I guess you could get unlucky with it.

 

[JCTReefer]

I make my own stock solution for nitrate using Sodium Nitrate. I usually make 500ml at a time.
It’s really easy to do and cheap. And using this calculator it’s really simple.
Then multiply the result by 0.84 to convert it from Potassium Nitrate to Sodium Nitrate. Per Randy Holmes Farley

James' Planted Tank - Dosing Calculator

 

[saturn13]

I make my own stock solution for nitrate using Sodium Nitrate. I usually make 500ml at a time.
It’s really easy to do and cheap. And using this calculator it’s really simple.
Then multiply the result by 0.84 to convert it from Potassium Nitrate to Sodium Nitrate. Per Randy Holmes Farley

James' Planted Tank - Dosing Calculator

so an update: I went with Brightwell aquatics because i've had a good experience with their items and I had really good luck with Neophos bringing up phos at a manageble/ constant level. Here's my experience with NeoNitro- intended to raise nitrates, and while it seems to do so,they do come back down, i follwed the dosing and got 3ppm, but then dropped back to 1ppm. The bad is this product seems to be extremly effective in phosphate removal, at least I can't detect in a test. So I stopped using, everything looks fine, but I think I'm going to look at just getting some sodium nitrate.

 

[Miguel Negron]

Don’t be afraid to feed

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

so an update: I went with Brightwell aquatics because i've had a good experience with their items

I guess you've been lucky. Some of their products cannot do what they claim and show a clear lack of understanding of their own attributes. Sad, really, that hobbyists are subjected to such insulting claims.

 

[t5Nitro]

Bumping this thread to see if anybody has tips for raising nutrients in a gha loaded tank. The simple answer in my mind is no hair algae since I'm sure the algae is housing all of the nutrients im adding, but we know thats not possible. Should I give big doses of phos and nitrate to get some measurable reads?

My phos stays around 0.03 to 0.04. Nitrates always undetectable. I used to feed one frozen cube of mysis daily and half sheet of nori. Now I'm dosing 2 to 3 cubes along with some pellets and/or pe mysis flakes daily in addition to the frozen. Im also dosing phos and nitrate from trisodium phos and sodium nitrate as well as acropower. Still seems to be a low nutrient system. The algae obviously outcompetes the sps for food im sure and would die after the sps if I starved the tank. Hard to get ahead of the ability of algae to dominate the parameters.

Should I stop skimming completely? I have it off 7 hours a day now. Im using a fruity pebbles monti as a canary i think because it looks pretty pale and sad despite all the feeding.

 

[Lasse]

Do you have any problems with dinoflagellates/cyanobacteria? Do you dose iron? Do you do regular WC? Do you have algae eating fish or invertebrates? Like tangs, hermits and urchins?

Sincerely Lasse

 

[ThePurple12]

Just dose more n and p, right?

 

[t5Nitro]

2 tangs, 2 tuxedo urchins. 1 gallon awc daily. Maintaining big 3 with all for reef by tropic marin. Have tried adding big lots of snails in the past but unsuccessful. They don't seem to last long. 75 gallon display.

 

[t5Nitro]

Would like to add a foxface but ill wait until I get a bigger tank. The two tangs are crowded already. They're 4 to 5 inch yellow and purple.

 

[Lasse]

I´m normal very afraid when the NO3 and PO4 will be zeroed but in this case with a GHA problem and maybe not enough of grazers - adding NO3 can give them a higher grow rate. In this case - with no cyanobacteria/dinoflagellates I would wait with adding NO3. In the meantime maybe add some long spin urchins (my favorites) In some aquariums have it been reported that adding 1 ml 3% hydrogen peroxid will help taking away GHA. I´m rather sure that these low concentrations will not kill GHA but could be effective in depleting iron from the system, hence create a iron defiency among the GHA. If you chose this pathway - I would recommend not to do WC for a while. One problem is "all for reef by Tropic Marine" if it contain extra iron. I do not know that - it is not listed in the content list. To limit the iron can be an effective tool against GHA but if you try that way - be sure that you do not add any extra iron. I do not know if this will work in your aquarium but you may need to take an other pathway - the old does not work as it looks. Check with Tropic Marine if it contain extra iron.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[t5Nitro]

Thats a good thought, Lasse. The long spine is generally a bigger urchin and more efficient with algae clearance? I'll have to see if my one LFS can get them otherwise maybe I can have one shipped from somewhere when its warmer out.

 

[ScottB]

Thats a good thought, Lasse. The long spine is generally a bigger urchin and more efficient with algae clearance? I'll have to see if my one LFS can get them otherwise maybe I can have one shipped from somewhere when its warmer out.

Here has what has worked for a couple tanks I have worked to help correct.

I will start with a caveat: using Vibrant can cause real problems. Be very careful and keep an eye on corals and nutrients.

Think of using Vibrant merely to weaken GHA, not to kill or remove GHA. I found that Vibrant makes the GHA very easy to pull out. Many herbivores won't touch mature/tough GHA. It is your job (made easier with Vibrant) to pull the tough stuff out and expose the tender algae below. Hopefully, the herbivores will find it attractive.

As to nutrient, low/no nitrate is far less dangerous for corals (IMO) than no PO4. Corals can compete for nitrate far better than PO4.

 

[t5Nitro]

In theory we dont know the true tank numbers of hidden nutrients stored within the algae mass. Ideally if removing as much as possible and keeping it out somehow will put more nutrition into the column for corals right?

Do you think its worth restarting the algae scrubber to try and strip put whats free in the water now even though its a "low nutrient system"? Reality is that it isn't a low nutrient system but the gha has it all taken up.

I'm really afraid to restart the algae turf scrubber though as it very easily flooded my floor with the pipe clogging within a week of running. Im wondering though if I do biweekly pipe cleaning and continue to dose phos to measurable 0.05 to 0.06 numbers and keep the scrubber going will it do anything? I'm thinking having any measurable nutrients in the column will result in massive algae growth in the tank better than the turf scrubber with better lights.

 

[ScottB]

Sorry if this was covered earlier, but how old is your system?

Anything prone to flooding should be scrapped or re-engineered. Floods can do a lot of damage inside and outside the tank.

 

[t5Nitro]

13 months.

I agree. In a short time my pipe where the screen is clogged and sprays water out like a nice little jet with high velocity into the stand and out onto the floor. Had water soaking through to the basement and the trusty ATO had the tank at 1.022 to 1.023. That was a fun morning.

On the wait list for a turbo aquatics scrubber but that may be a while.

I'm also tempted to throw a sheet of eggcrate in the back of the tank to grow algae for something easy to remove and clean off.