DIY Ammonia dosing for low nitrate systems

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Would there be any problem with mixing ammonium bicarbonate and sodium bicarbonate together and dosing one solution?

That is probably OK, but may make the ammonia more likely to evaporate off into the air so keep it closed up.

 

[Faria]

Has anyone experienced RTN / STN that coincided with ammonia dosing? I ask because there is a small contingent of us that anecdotally get RTN / STN when nitrate dosing.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/should-we-banish-nitrate-dosing.869517/https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/addition-of-nitrate-and-stn.961462/
I dosed 0.1 ppm ammonia for two days, and noticed a small amount of RTN / STN on a Leptoseris, that has been chuggin along for months. Correlation is not causation and I cannot say for certain it was the ammonia dosing that caused this. I probably just spooked myself, but I'm curious if others have experienced STN/RTN when ammonia dosing.

This paper seems to corroborate that elevated N03 can increased bleaching... Conversley, it states increased NH4 seems to help prevent bleaching! "In particular, nitrate (NO3−) enrichment reduces thermal tolerance while ammonium (NH4+) enrichment tends to benefit coral health." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7371892/

I used to get RTN when dosing nitrate. I tried switching from Sodium to Potassium Nitrate (USP) and then to AF N Boost with no success.

So far ammonia dosing has helped tremendously. I did loose a red dragon but it was due to a dino outbreak. I've been dosing 0.2ppm, which is enough to keep my nitrates at 2.5-5ppm and my PO4 at 0.03.

 

[PharmrJohn]

Got a question for ya Randy. To preface, I'm 40 years past my last inorganic chemistry class, so please forgive. When NH4Cl is added it dissociates to NH3 and HCl. The HCl in a tank... Yes to the change in ALK when the ionic bond is severed. But what happens to Cl? I'm presuming that the concentration with proper dosing with have negligible effects on livestock?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Got a question for ya Randy. To preface, I'm 40 years past my last inorganic chemistry class, so please forgive. When NH4Cl is added it dissociates to NH3 and HCl. The HCl in a tank... Yes to the change in ALK when the ionic bond is severed. But what happens to Cl? I'm presuming that the concentration with proper dosing with have negligible effects on livestock?

Right. Chloride in seawater is about 19,000 ppm, so no reasonable amount of chloride from ammonium chloride will make any detectable or problematic difference. :)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I used to get RTN when dosing nitrate. I tried switching from Sodium to Potassium Nitrate (USP) and then to AF N Boost with no success.

So far ammonia dosing has helped tremendously. I did loose a red dragon but it was due to a dino outbreak. I've been dosing 0.2ppm, which is enough to keep my nitrates at 2.5-5ppm and my PO4 at 0.03.

Thanks for the info. :)

 

[Semper.Reefing]

Happy I came across this. The owner of my LFS mentioned dosing ammonia to me last week. I have a 245g total volume system and have been thinking about the cost of dosing nitrate. Which I've been dosing a lot. Im going to give the ammonium bicarbonate a shot at 20ml/day. If it works out I think im going to try using my bubble magus TS1 to dose since it automatically spreads the dosing throughout the day.

Thanks Randy!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Happy I came across this. The owner of my LFS mentioned dosing ammonia to me last week. I have a 245g total volume system and have been thinking about the cost of dosing nitrate. Which I've been dosing a lot. Im going to give the ammonium bicarbonate a shot at 20ml/day. If it works out I think im going to try using my bubble magus TS1 to dose since it automatically spreads the dosing throughout the day.

Thanks Randy!

You’re welcome.

Let us know how it works out!

 

[ReeferZ1227]

I'm still all over the place with my nutes. I'm struggling to keep them up. I've been dosing 10mL 4x per day for about a week, and a week of manual doses 2-3x per day prior to that.

I bumped that up to 5 doses of 12mL today into a 125. Nitrates are running around 2. Phosphates are lower than I'd like. Tank looks good is all I can report.

I'm also trying "the concotion" perhaps it's too much bacteria or maybe just the right amount of heavy in/heavy out.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I'm still all over the place with my nutes. I'm struggling to keep them up. I've been dosing 10mL 4x per day for about a week, and a week of manual doses 2-3x per day prior to that.

I bumped that up to 5 doses of 12mL today into a 125. Nitrates are running around 2. Phosphates are lower than I'd like. Tank looks good is all I can report.

I'm also trying "the concotion" perhaps it's too much bacteria or maybe just the right amount of heavy in/heavy out.

2 ppm may be plenty, especially if there’s a strong flux of ammonia.

 

[agol77]

You’re welcome.

Let us know how it works out!

Hi Randy. Do you know if it’s safe to mix ammonium bicarbonate with potassium phosphate in my RO water? My tank is fallow at the moment, so I’m having to dose both. Many thanks

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Hi Randy. Do you know if it’s safe to mix ammonium bicarbonate with potassium phosphate in my RO water? My tank is fallow at the moment, so I’m having to dose both. Many thanks

That should be ok. Just keep it closed to reduce the tendency for ammonia to evaporate from it.

 

[SaranWrap]

Hi @Randy Holmes-Farley Do you think Ammonium Carbonate would work too ? Thanks !

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

If it is food grade or other high grade, it would be fine. More likely to evaporate ammonia than the options used in this thread, so keep it closed.

 

[SaranWrap]

If it is food grade or other high grade, it would be fine. More likely to evaporate ammonia than the options used in this thread, so keep it closed.

Awesome, thanks ! Can't seems to find ammonium bicarbonate on Amazon for some reason...

 

[East1]

2 ppm may be plenty, especially if there’s a strong flux of ammonia.

When dosing just NO3, I found levels around 15-20 gave reasonable coral health, since dosing ammonium I find that a NO3 level around 2-5 is definitely adequate, it's interesting to note the difference.

that said I did find some corals improved colouration (especially montipora) when I added a small amount kno3 to the mix, at 1:7 ratio of ammonium chloride by weight.

 

[luanluan]

20 grams of ammonium bicarbonate in 1 L RO/DI water, would 2.3 mL of either stock solution to a 100 L aquarium. Is it safety measurement?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

20 grams of ammonium bicarbonate in 1 L RO/DI water, would 2.3 mL of either stock solution to a 100 L aquarium. Is it safety measurement?

Are you asking is it safe? Yes, that’s the individual dose I recommend.

 

[luanluan]

Are you asking is it safe? Yes, that’s the individual dose I recommend.

thanks !

 

[rtparty]

A little over 3 months in and this is an absolute game changer. I dose anywhere from 10-20ml, 4-5 times a week when I remember. I haven’t checked N and P recently but when I first started I kept track. My PO4 dropped from .4ppm to .2ppm in the first couple weeks. My NO3 went from 0 to 10ppm and held flat. I need to test again and see where everything is but my corals have shown marked color and growth improvement across the board.

I can tell I’ve forgotten to dose for a few days when a light dusting of brown starts to creep up on the sand. Dose ammonia for a few days and it all goes away. My theory when this happens is that nitrogen is becoming super limited and it’s likely a strain of dinos trying to pop up. Get some nitrogen back in the tank and the dinos can’t out compete other organisms.

 

[East1]

A little over 3 months in and this is an absolute game changer. I dose anywhere from 10-20ml, 4-5 times a week when I remember. I haven’t checked N and P recently but when I first started I kept track. My PO4 dropped from .4ppm to .2ppm in the first couple weeks. My NO3 went from 0 to 10ppm and held flat. I need to test again and see where everything is but my corals have shown marked color and growth improvement across the board.

I can tell I’ve forgotten to dose for a few days when a light dusting of brown starts to creep up on the sand. Dose ammonia for a few days and it all goes away. My theory when this happens is that nitrogen is becoming super limited and it’s likely a strain of dinos trying to pop up. Get some nitrogen back in the tank and the dinos can’t out compete other organisms.

I would agree with this, if you just dose ammonium it heavily suppresses algae in my experience switching from KNO3 to ammonium all the algaes in my tank got wiped out, I use a mix to keep some present for the grazers now.

did you notice any difference in polyp extension, coral health or growth?