DIY Ammonia dosing for low nitrate systems

[Garf]

No saltwater at all, this is strait after making the stock solution.

The neat stuff may be playing havoc with the test kit.

 

[VDC]

I think I’m one of few using ammonium chloride. It works perfect for my needs. It has zero odor and maintains nitrate just fine. I had no other reason for starting with ac than it was the first listed in the recipe and I’m lazy. When I run out, I’ll probably switch just for the alkalinity effect. Although, I believe it to be minute/negligible in my tank.

lol, that’s the same reason I started with the chloride also. I vote to delete it,

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Diluted ?

Diluted with the amount of water for the stock solution that you mentioned, No saltwater at all.

The way to test is take some tank water, boost it to, say, 2 ppm, and measure that,

 

[VDC]

I was testing the concentration of the stock solution which showed bicarbonate is stronger and will show on a test kit instantly.

I do this with all my solutions.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I was testing the concentration of the stock solution which showed bicarbonate is stronger and will show on a test kit instantly.

I do this with all my solutions.

But that is not what it shows. Unless your source ammonium compound was not the correct chemical, the concentrations are identical.

 

[VDC]

But that is not what it shows. Unless your source ammonium compound was not the correct chemical, the concentrations are identical.

identical in concentrations but the results were different on a ammonia test.

The results showed an instant result using bicarbonate.

I used these two sources using the suggested stock solution measurements.

I am just telling the forum what I noticed when testing for reference.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

identical in concentrations but the results were different on a ammonia test.

The results showed an instant result using bicarbonate.

I used these two sources using the suggested stock solution measurements.

I am just telling the forum what I noticed when testing for reference.

That's great to tell them what you observed, but I'm telling you that the way you tested is not appropriate to evaluate concentration, and so you cannot conclude anything about the relative ammonia concentrations.

Why are you resistant to test it in the appropriate manner, which is the way it is used and the way the kit was designed?

It may well be that the product you bought for ammonia chloride was mislabeled or something else went wrong aside from inappropriate testing, but ammonium chloride is perfectly suitable for dosing ammonia.

 

[Tangdora]

Hi new to the world of ammonia dosing as I have been struggling with dynos and cyano in an ULNS system. Dosing the .1 ppm split among two dosage at 12 hour intervals. Already seeing improvement in the tank though much more time is needed to say for sure

My question is what are the signs we should be looking for to indicate say that we either need to increase the dose amount and or frequencies of the does. Is the goal of this type of dosing to say maintain a constant ppm between .05 and .1 at all time or just give your tank a single max dose of .1ppm spread throughout the day and if the tank happens to consumed it all in a single day, great simple replenish the next day with the full .1 dose. Or is it just not letting ammonia go to 0 but keeping under .1ppm toxicity the end goal.

Thanks.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Hi new to the world of ammonia dosing as I have been struggling with dynos and cyano in an ULNS system. Dosing the .1 ppm split among two dosage at 12 hour intervals. Already seeing improvement in the tank though much more time is needed to say for sure

My question is what are the signs we should be looking for to indicate say that we either need to increase the dose amount and or frequencies of the does. Is the goal of this type of dosing to say maintain a constant ppm between .05 and .1 at all time or just give your tank a single max dose of .1ppm spread throughout the day and if the tank happens to consumed it all in a single day, great simple replenish the next day with the full .1 dose. Or is it just not letting ammonia go to 0 but keeping under .1ppm toxicity the end goal.

Thanks.

I don't pretend to know what is best here.

My general advice is to dose until nitrate begins to come up to a few ppm, ensuring you are dosing at least enough to satisfy total N needs.

But if the goal is a ULNS system, some lower target level of nitrate is seemingly appropriate.

I'm not sure I'd target ammonia maintenance levels since that may drive nitrate up a lot in many cases.

Trial and error with different dosing schemes and monitoring the appearance of the creatures in the tank might be the best way to go.

 

[Troylee]

Hi new to the world of ammonia dosing as I have been struggling with dynos and cyano in an ULNS system. Dosing the .1 ppm split among two dosage at 12 hour intervals. Already seeing improvement in the tank though much more time is needed to say for sure

My question is what are the signs we should be looking for to indicate say that we either need to increase the dose amount and or frequencies of the does. Is the goal of this type of dosing to say maintain a constant ppm between .05 and .1 at all time or just give your tank a single max dose of .1ppm spread throughout the day and if the tank happens to consumed it all in a single day, great simple replenish the next day with the full .1 dose. Or is it just not letting ammonia go to 0 but keeping under .1ppm toxicity the end goal.

Thanks.

It’s better to spread it out over the day! A single shot causes nitrifying bacteria to multiply like crazy and drove my nitrates down even more! A slow steady dose got my n03 to rise but then my p04 tanked! I’m now dosing ammonia and p04 and got my numbers way up and my sps have never looked better! My tank typically runs 3-5 on nitrates and 0-.01 on phosphates.. currently sitting here and loving what I see on my sps!

 

[rishma]

@Randy Holmes-Farley, if one were to be dosing both ammonium bicarbonate and trisodium phosphate, could you mix them together in the same ratio?

sorry I and always asking to mix things…I am out of spare dosing heads.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

@Randy Holmes-Farley, if one were to be dosing both ammonium bicarbonate and trisodium phosphate, could you mix them together in the same ratio?

sorry I and always asking to mix things…I am out of spare dosing heads.

I've been thinking on that as I may try it. The drawback is that the trisodium phosphate will raise pH a little and make the ammonia more likely to gas out. Mono sodium phosphate will be less effect, and disodium in the middle. All may be OK. I'm just not sure.

 

[rishma]

It’s better to spread it out over the day! A single shot causes nitrifying bacteria to multiply like crazy and drove my nitrates down even more! A slow steady dose got my n03 to rise but then my p04 tanked! I’m now dosing ammonia and p04 and got my numbers way up and my sps have never looked better! My tank typically runs 3-5 on nitrates and 0-.01 on phosphates.. currently sitting here and loving what I see on my sps!

That is interesting. I am convinced that ammonia dosing drives my phosphate down. I have been trending lower nitrate too since I started dosing and was wondering how that could be happening. The more I increased the dose, the more my nitrate and phosphate went down. I had to dose phosphate last night and I’ll reduce my dose of ammonia today. Wonder if your theory about it nitrate going down explains the trend. Fascinating.

 

[Troylee]

That is interesting. I am convinced that ammonia dosing drives my phosphate down. I have been trending lower nitrate too since I started dosing and was wondering how that could be happening. The more I increased the dose, the more my nitrate and phosphate went down. I had to dose phosphate last night and I’ll reduce my dose of ammonia today. Wonder if your theory about it nitrate going down explains the trend. Fascinating.

Refer to post #922 taricha speaks on dans findings.

Page 47

 

[rishma]

Refer to post #922 taricha speaks on dans findings.

Page 47

Got it, thank you. I don’t think I’m dosing enough to have my nitrifiers scale up as described. There must be another explanation for my falling nitrate. My
Combination of bacto balance and ammonium dosing makes for a fascinatingly complex little system.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Got it, thank you. I don’t think I’m dosing enough to have my nitrifiers scale up as described. There must be another explanation for my falling nitrate. My
Combination of bacto balance and ammonium dosing makes for a fascinatingly complex little system.

I would guess that one or more organisms is taking up more N and P when it is spending less energy reducing the nitrate to ammonia for use.

 

[Troylee]

Got it, thank you. I don’t think I’m dosing enough to have my nitrifiers scale up as described. There must be another explanation for my falling nitrate. My
Combination of bacto balance and ammonium dosing makes for a fascinatingly complex little system.

Well here’s how my tank played out… I was doing a shot of 20ml of ammonia at noon and at 5pm “40ml total” my nitrates dropped from 7 to 3! I was like what the heck? lol. Then I set it up on a doser to dose 60ml over 24 hours and my nitrates started rising finally and I sit just a tad over 20. My p04 tanked more with the 2 big shots than with the slower stream of ammonia all day. Hope that helps.

To add to that I dose 6ml of bactobalance a day myself. If my numbers continue to rise I might up the dose of bacto or slow down the p04 and ammonia dosing since it seems counter intrusive.

 

[rishma]

I would guess that one or more organisms is taking up more N and P when it is spending less energy reducing the nitrate to ammonia for use.

Makes sense. I see the influence at an extremely low dose once per day. I didn’t really believe it, but having tested a lot on days with a dose and then days without, then days with dosing again, I’m pretty sure 0.05mg/L has an impact. It’s pretty amazing. The corals seem to visibly react positively to a larger dose, but my nutrients are influenced by a smaller dose.

 

[rishma]

Well here’s how my tank played out… I was doing a shot of 20ml of ammonia at noon and at 5pm “40ml total” my nitrates dropped from 7 to 3! I was like what the heck? lol. Then I set it up on a doser to dose 60ml over 24 hours and my nitrates started rising finally and I sit just a tad over 20. My p04 tanked more with the 2 big shots than with the slower stream of ammonia all day. Hope that helps.

To add to that I dose 6ml of bactobalance a day myself. If my numbers continue to rise I might up the dose of bacto or slow down the p04 and ammonia dosing since it seems counter intrusive.

I actually have kept my bacto balance steady and have been able to watch the phosphate and nitrate respond to changes in ammonia dose. When I get it stable, I think it will be even easier to tune my nutrients by tweaking ammonia because the impact is quick and relatively small compared to changes in bacto balance dose.

 

[BR260354]

My NO3 hovers around 20 with PO4 struggling to get to 0.05. Doing 21ml of AmBicarb spread out in 3 doses from 10a to 2p. I'm manually dosing (around 6ml) of NeophosE. My Loud Wolf Trisodium Phosphate came in today, so I will be switching to that soon. I'll need to figure out what to dose. Would it be 1:1 AmBicarb to my Trisodium Phos?

I was doing bacto balance but stopped cause, as @Troylee put it, seems counter to what I'm dosing. Should I restart it?