DIY Ammonia Dosing Chart

Da8 · Apr 22, 2026

HI!! One question, would be more advisable to dose 24h amonia or just in the daytime?

I just want corals to max out amonia dosing, and not other oportunist species, and maybe, due to the oxigen and dioxigen cycles, maybe it is also not advisable to dose at night for the fish health.

Don't know.

Thank you!

Randy Holmes-Farley · Apr 22, 2026

The data is somewhat thin and depends a bit on the circumstances, but corals may take up more during the day. I dose during the day.

This shows an experiment:

https://www.centrescientifique.mc/uploads/documents/fr_4.pdf

Da8 · Apr 27, 2026

Thanks for your answer.

I do it too in the daylight, but didn't have that data .very interesiting.

I dose it automatically, and I like to and phosfates too. 100ml amonia +5ml po4. Do you have better ratio based on your experience? Would you add anything more to the DIY recipee?

Thank you very much.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Apr 27, 2026

Da8 said:
Thanks for your answer.

I do it too in the daylight, but didn't have that data .very interesiting.

I dose it automatically, and I like to and phosfates too. 100ml amonia +5ml po4. Do you have better ratio based on your experience? Would you add anything more to the DIY recipee?

Thank you very much.

A good ratio will depend on each tanks needs. My tank needs no additional P. :)

trinimaddness · Jun 23, 2026

can a one time dose of ammonia bicarbonate? increase nitrates at once?
To mix a 500ml solution can I just add 10grams or do i have to do the 1L to 20 grams?

EnterName · Jun 23, 2026

trinimaddness said:
can a one time dose of ammonia bicarbonate? increase nitrates at once?
To mix a 500ml solution can I just add 10grams or do i have to do the 1L to 20 grams?

10g in 500mL or 20g in 1000mL doesn't really matter. However, you probably don't want to add too much of such a solution into your tank at once:

While ammonia is not as dangerous as many people might think, it still can cause harm. Randy suggests to add 0.1ppm ammonia (equivalent of 0.36ppm nitrate) at once and rather dose multiple times throughout the day instead of dumping a lot of ammonia into the tank all at once.

0.2ppm and 0.3ppm ammonia should also be fine, but this will still increase nitrate by less than 1.1ppm. I would recommend a dosing pump and add small volumes frequently throughout the day.

CoralNewb · Jun 23, 2026

trinimaddness said:
can a one time dose of ammonia bicarbonate? increase nitrates at once?
To mix a 500ml solution can I just add 10grams or do i have to do the 1L to 20 grams?

You can mix a 500ml solution, no need to mix 1 liter if you don't need that much.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "one time dose". The point of this guideline is to obtain a stable dosing regimen for Ammonia Bicarbonate that will allow your tank to maintain a certain desired range of measurable nitrate. Since ammonia is quite toxic for fish and other invertebrates, you cannot do a single large dose. The rough ratio of nitrogen equivalency between ammonia to nitrate is 3:1.

If, for example, you are currently at 0ppm nitrate, and you wanted to get to a measured value of approx. 10ppm nitrate, that would require you to dose the equivalent of 3.3ppm ammonia in your tank, which would kill all your fish...

You need to slowly ramp up your dosing such that you find a constant uptake rate for your ammonia consumers (corals and nitrifying bacteria etc). In my case, I have a tank that has a total of 15 gallons of water volume. I started with a daily dose of 1ml of the solution. After 2 weeks of this, I measured my nitrate levels, and it was still at 0ppm, indicating my nitrogen consumption in the tank is outstripping supply. So I increased my dosage to 1.5ppm daily. My nitrate rose to 5ppm a week later and then 10ppm a week after that and has hovered around 10ppm +/-2ppm for the subsequent weeks. This tells me that my 1.5ppm dose is supplying enough nitrate for my organisms.

trinimaddness · Jun 23, 2026

EnterName said:
10g in 500mL or 20g in 1000mL doesn't really matter. However, you probably don't want to add too much of such a solution into your tank at once:

While ammonia is not as dangerous as many people might think, it still can cause harm. Randy suggests to add 0.1ppm ammonia (equivalent of 0.36ppm nitrate) at once and rather dose multiple times throughout the day instead of dumping a lot of ammonia into the tank all at once.

0.2ppm and 0.3ppm ammonia should also be fine, but this will still increase nitrate by less than 1.1ppm. I would recommend a dosing pump and add small volumes frequently throughout the day.

much appreciated. I'll add smaller doses with a dosing pump

trinimaddness · Jun 23, 2026

CoralNewb said:
You can mix a 500ml solution, no need to mix 1 liter if you don't need that much.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "one time dose". The point of this guideline is to obtain a stable dosing regimen for Ammonia Bicarbonate that will allow your tank to maintain a certain desired range of measurable nitrate. Since ammonia is quite toxic for fish and other invertebrates, you cannot do a single large dose. The rough ratio of nitrogen equivalency between ammonia to nitrate is 3:1.

If, for example, you are currently at 0ppm nitrate, and you wanted to get to a measured value of approx. 10ppm nitrate, that would require you to dose the equivalent of 3.3ppm ammonia in your tank, which would kill all your fish...

You need to slowly ramp up your dosing such that you find a constant uptake rate for your ammonia consumers (corals and nitrifying bacteria etc). In my case, I have a tank that has a total of 15 gallons of water volume. I started with a daily dose of 1ml of the solution. After 2 weeks of this, I measured my nitrate levels, and it was still at 0ppm, indicating my nitrogen consumption in the tank is outstripping supply. So I increased my dosage to 1.5ppm daily. My nitrate rose to 5ppm a week later and then 10ppm a week after that and has hovered around 10ppm +/-2ppm for the subsequent weeks. This tells me that my 1.5ppm dose is supplying enough nitrate for my organisms.

oh ohk that makes sense. im currently at 2 in a 240 gal system and im trying to get to 10. ill follow the chart and dose accordingly. thank you

BriDroid · Jun 23, 2026

I had no issues dosing over a 24 hour period. I've since moved back to a sodium nitrate/sodium phosphate solution that I dose over a 24 hour period with no issues. My feeling is that the more stable the dose the better.

Muraad · Jul 2, 2026

My nitrates are reading near zero right now. I've got two euphyllias in my tank, should I be a bit more aggressive with my dosing?

Right now I have it set up to dose 2.1 ml (24 gallon tank, week 1) over 24 hours. For my Kamoer, that's about 0.2 ml every 2 hours. I'm just worried my corals will starve before the nitrates hits 5 ppm.

EnterName · Jul 2, 2026

Muraad said:
My nitrates are reading near zero right now. I've got two euphyllias in my tank, should I be a bit more aggressive with my dosing?

Right now I have it set up to dose 2.1 ml (24 gallon tank, week 1) over 24 hours. For my Kamoer, that's about 0.2 ml every 2 hours. I'm just worried my corals will starve before the nitrates hits 5 ppm.

You can dose more or even better more frequently if you are worried, but undetectable nitrate levels don't automatically imply starving corals.

I had below 0.0ppm nitrate for years without issues and currently keep nitrate at levels most people would consider too low (0.25 - 0.50ppm). In natural coral reefs nitrate levels are usually below 0.03ppm, which most test kits can't detect reliably. What we consider "low" would be insanely high in nature.

That doesn't mean it's the best way to keep a tank, but it shows that nitrate in itself isn't needed in large quantities as long as there is a steady ammonia supply and other nitrogen sources such as particulate food, amino acids, or urea available.

Following Randy's advice (5 - 50ppm nitrate) is generally a good idea, because he knows what he is talking about, but if you observe too much algae growth at 5ppm, I'm sure you will be able to run a healthy tank at 2ppm as well

Randy Holmes-Farley · Jul 2, 2026

I agree that I would do it. As noted, corals may be fine, but having some nitrate ensures it.

skey44 · Jul 3, 2026

I grabbed some new to me dosing pumps and reservoirs yesterday! Looking to get into Ammonium Bicarbonate dosing. Is there a reliable amazon product people are having good results with?

BriDroid · Jul 3, 2026

skey44 said:
I grabbed some new to me dosing pumps and reservoirs yesterday! Looking to get into Ammonium Bicarbonate dosing. Is there a reliable amazon product people are having good results with?

This is what I used when I was dosing it. It’s from Amazon too.