DIY Ammonia dosing for low nitrate systems

[bcarrasqui]

The pH could drop low enough to product CO2 gas
Bubbles, yes.

Can dosing Dr. Tim's Ammonia harm peppermint shrimp? My 38 gallon mixed reef is too low for my liking with nitrates. Is it safe if I'm spreading out the doses? I dosed 4 drops and was thinking of doing another 4 two more times spread out over a few hours

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Can dosing Dr. Tim's Ammonia harm peppermint shrimp? My 38 gallon mixed reef is too low for my liking with nitrates. Is it safe if I'm spreading out the doses? I dosed 4 drops and was thinking of doing another 4 two more times spread out over a few hours

If you dose 0.1 ppm at a time, I think that is unlikely to be harmful to anything in a reef tank.

 

[Rshahnyc]

I just started dosing ammonium bicarbonate

Did 9mL on day 1
Did 9mL in AM and 9mL in PM on day 2
Did 9mL in AM and 9mL in PM on day 3
Today I did 9mL in AM, 9mL in the afternoon and 9mL in the evening

Nitrate still slightly lower but within error margin so around 6.5 —> 6.3 over the past 4 days.

My understanding is increasing dose should be done after a week but I think I was reading/seeing people in my tank size get upwards of 60-90mL/day of the solution.

I’m gonna leave it as bid or TID depending on my availability for now. May throw it on a doser as well down the line.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I just started dosing ammonium bicarbonate

Did 9mL on day 1
Did 9mL in AM and 9mL in PM on day 2
Did 9mL in AM and 9mL in PM on day 3
Today I did 9mL in AM, 9mL in the afternoon and 9mL in the evening

Nitrate still slightly lower but within error margin so around 6.5 —> 6.3 over the past 4 days.

My understanding is increasing dose should be done after a week but I think I was reading/seeing people in my tank size get upwards of 60-90mL/day of the solution.

I’m gonna leave it as bid or TID depending on my availability for now. May throw it on a doser as well down the line.

That all sounds fine to me.

 

[Rshahnyc]

Sounds good, honestly my corals already look like they’re responding positively.

In particular my sps and plates.

 

[ElectricEel]

Alright fellow reefers i finally took the dive when i started using all for reef and my nitrate and phos bottomed out. I lost an acan and Cano started going crazy. But i still need help! Its still showing 0 nitrate on my salifert and fritz test

Right now i have a Neptune DOS to control. I am dosing 15ml of the recipe over 10 hours.

I have a 55gal mixed reef. I believe if i read correctly i can greatly increase my dosing as long as i dont surpass 5ml per dosing cycle?

My question how long after each dose can i dose the next 5ml? 1 hour? 2 hrs?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

When I have been in this scenario, I boosted nitrate by 5 or 10 ppm, and then took over ammonia dosing.

But I think it is certainly safe to dose 0.1 ppm total ammonia 3 times a day with a few h in between to start.

 

[ElectricEel]

When I have been in this scenario, I boosted nitrate by 5 or 10 ppm, and then took over ammonia dosing.

But I think it is certainly safe to dose 0.1 ppm total ammonia 3 times a day with a few h in between to start.

Okay thats what I’m thinking. I need to get some kind of nitrate supplement to get the level up.

Im dosing 20ml over 12hrs so 1.6ml per hour. Its not even registering nitrate .

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Okay thats what I’m thinking. I need to get some kind of nitrate supplement to get the level up.

Im dosing 20ml over 12hrs so 1.6ml per hour. Its not even registering nitrate .

It may take a while to saturate some pent up demand for N. :)

 

[ElectricEel]

It may take a while to saturate some pent up demand for N. :)

Yeaaaa im realizing that. Haha. The dinos have completely stopped so its a good start. Thanks for the help randy! You are a legend!

 

[rishma]

Doesn’t really belong in this thread but since I started here, a brief summary and conclusion…

• I mixed urea with my ammonium bicarbonate.
• I let my nitrate drop to below 3ppm (I had done this before without urea)
• After a month I had cyano and it persisted for another month, slowly increasing.
• I stopped ammonia + urea dosing. Nitrate dropped to near zero (I had done this before, too).
• Cyano got worse quickly.
• I spiked nitrate with sodium nitrate and recommenced daily ammonium bicarbonate (no urea)
• I dosed sodium nitrate daily to maintain 6-8ppm.
• After 1 week the cyano started getting patchy and not expanding.
• I siphoned out the remaining cyano.
• After 5 days it has not returned. The tiny patches I did not siphon out seem unchanged. Maybe shrinking, I’m not sure.

The only thing I can conclude is I likely won’t dose urea again and I’ll maintain nitrate above 5 ppm. A small daily dose of nitrate and ammonia is working well for me. I am about to leave for a month, I hope to return to a cyano free tank.

final update from me. I returned home after a month and my tank is cyano free. Dosing ammonia and nitrate daily, no longer using urea, and the last few patches disappeared on their own. Nitrate stayed about 5ppm while I was away.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

final update from me. I returned home after a month and my tank is cyano free. Dosing ammonia and nitrate daily, no longer using urea, and the last few patches disappeared on their own. Nitrate stayed about 5ppm while I was away.

Wish I could stop dosing urea to make cyano disappear, but since I never dosed any, that’s not a strategy. lol

 

[Danjoethepirate]

Would it be an issue using carbonate instead of bicarbonate ammonium for this method? Just curious, as a chef I have one laying around and not the other.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Would it be an issue using carbonate instead of bicarbonate ammonium for this method? Just curious, as a chef I have one laying around and not the other.

It's no problem. As I mentioned above, these names are sometimes used interchangeably by food companies even when the chemicals are literally different.

Ammonium bicarbonate and carbonate are just ammonia plus CO2. Less CO2 means carboante. More CO2 means bicarbonate. Many companies making them may not even know which they are making and just slap a name on it. Many products may actually be a mix of them.

More CO2 (ammonium bicarbonate) will be less inclined to evaporate as ammonia and CO2 than the carbonate, due to the lower pH after dissolution, but both work.

If you think you might have carbonate, use 0.6 times the recipe amount in post #1, but in any case, you will adjust as needed to get to your target nitrate or tan appearance, so the form doesn't matter once in tank.

 

[Danjoethepirate]

Would it be an issue using carbonate instead of bicarbonate ammonium for this method? Just curious, as a chef I have one laying around and not the other.

It's no problem. As I mentioned above, these names are sometimes used interchangeably by food companies even when the chemicals are literally different.

Ammonium bicarbonate and carbonate are just ammonia plus CO2. Less CO2 means carboante. More CO2 means bicarbonate. Many companies making them may not even know which they are making and just slap a name on it. Many products may actually be a mix of them.

More CO2 (ammonium bicarbonate) will be less inclined to evaporate as ammonia and CO2 than the carbonate, due to the lower pH after dissolution, but both work.

If you think you might have carbonate, use 0.6 times the recipe amount in post #1, but in any case, you will adjust as needed to get to your target nitrate or tan appearance, so the form doesn't matter once in tank.

Thank you sir!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thank you sir!

You're welcome.

Happy Reefing. :)

 

[sayurasem]

Alright here goes nothing. I will be re-using an old 1L redsea dosing bottle.

 

[drawman]

@Randy Holmes-Farley I'm curious on what you think would be a safe ppm "overdose". I want to try to calculate how much volume I should have in a dosing container that if fully dosed from a stuck on pump would not kill my fish. I was trying to look at your other thread on ammonia toxicity but I'm not sure I got a good number for this type of situation.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

@Randy Holmes-Farley I'm curious on what you think would be a safe ppm "overdose". I want to try to calculate how much volume I should have in a dosing container that if fully dosed from a stuck on pump would not kill my fish. I was trying to look at your other thread on ammonia toxicity but I'm not sure I got a good number for this type of situation.

Well, I'd prefer to not dose more than 0.5 ppm at a time. That won't give much storage. lol

I don't have mine set with a small reservoir, but I do have the reservoir below the outlet of the dosing line (which is also above the water level) so there is no chance of siphoning into the tank.

The real answer depends a bit on how fast it is added (slower is better to allow more mixing and some consumption), but I'm not sure what level would really be a problem level that is short of lethal to fish.

I would not use a controller as I have seen too many issues, whether user programming or a glitch of some sort. I use a dumb pump (BRS doser) on a simple plug in timer.

 

[drawman]

Well, I'd prefer to not dose more than 0.5 ppm at a time. That won't give much storage. lol

I don't have mine set with a small reservoir, but I do have the reservoir below the outlet of the dosing line (which is also above the water level) so there is no chance of siphoning into the tank.

The real answer depends a bit on how fast it is added (slower is better to allow more mixing and some consumption), but I'm not sure what level would really be a problem level that is short of lethal to fish.

I would not use a controller as I have seen too many issues, whether user programming or a glitch of some sort. I use a dumb pump (BRS doser) on a simple plug in timer.

Sounds like I would get about 5 days then if I'm currently dosing 2mL (or 0.1mg/L) of your recipe per day. Not ideal but may get me through a vacation.

I think you discussed diluting the ammonia in a dosing container. Do you think diluted ammonia bicarbonate would grow bacteria in the container making it less useful (ie converting it to nitrite then nitrate)? Should these containers and dosing lines be disinfected with bleach, etc over time?