DIY Urea + Ammonia Mix Dosing Chart

[rishma]

I bought loudwolf, dissolves easily

 

[RoanokeReef]

I bought loudwolf, dissolves easily

Same here, had no trouble.

 

[Miami Reef]

I bought this one and the granulars were pink and semi moist. I now notice other products are white/crystal from product pictures

Amazon.com: Urea Powder for Low Sodium – 100g Medical Food for Hyponatremia & SIADH | USP-Grade High-Purity Urea Powder – Supports Healthy Sodium Levels | Easy to Digest, Natural Refreshing Flavor : Health & Household

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a.co

Your product has “natural lemon flavoring.” It’s likely fine. The packaging notes that your product is quick dissolving.

Can you try dissolving the 5 g in a liter by itself?

 

[Troylee]

Mine dissolves instantly with out even stiring it lol.. I use this one.. watch your phosphates with dosing urea I’ve had discussions with a couple people that came to Me about dosing it and I turned them onto it after I’ve been successful and I’m seeing a trend… normally with ammonia only it drives p04 down for some odd reason.. with the urea in the mix I’ve seen a report and experienced it myself my phosphates have risen which is really weird.. also my experience with urea is that 5g added to 20mg of ammonia is twice as potent on the n03 side as ammonia alone.

 

[skey44]

Interesting. So this is if you want better color/growth/and or are zeroed out on nitrates? I have seen the ammonia dosing thread but have seen this here today and in FB regarding urea dosing too.
What benefits are people seeing besides just increasing nitrogen above zero?

 

[TangingOut]

Your product has “natural lemon flavoring.” It’s likely fine. The packaging notes that your product is quick dissolving.

Can you try dissolving the 5 g in a liter by itself?

I first tried dissolving in the ammonia solution, then tried with heated RODI only. Neither fully dissolved although the latter was a little better. Already ordered the Loud Wolf brand. Returning this one


NVM, not eligible for return. Might want to remove this one from recommended choices

 

[Miami Reef]

NVM, not eligible for return. Might want to remove this one from recommended choices

Done.

 

[rishma]

Mine dissolves instantly with out even stiring it lol.. I use this one.. watch your phosphates with dosing urea I’ve had discussions with a couple people that came to Me about dosing it and I turned them onto it after I’ve been successful and I’m seeing a trend… normally with ammonia only it drives p04 down for some odd reason.. with the urea in the mix I’ve seen a report and experienced it myself my phosphates have risen which is really weird.. also my experience with urea is that 5g added to 20mg of ammonia is twice as potent on the n03 side as ammonia alone.

That is odd about phosphate going up. I am pretty convinced it was going down with ammonia alone. When I start doing urea regularly I’ll look for this.

I cannot think of a reason why this would happen. I’d like to hear any thoughts @Randy Holmes-Farley or others.

 

[BriDroid]

Mine looks like white little crystals. It’s called prills on the label. They dissolve pretty fast.

 

[BriDroid]

That is odd about phosphate going up. I am pretty convinced it was going down with ammonia alone. When I start doing urea regularly I’ll look for this.

I cannot think of a reason why this would happen. I’d like to hear any thoughts @Randy Holmes-Farley or others.

I’ve stopped dosing any kind of PO4, and mine hold pretty steady at 0.15 to 0.20ish. So maybe there is something to the urea, I never even thought about it. When I was still dosing phosphates, it got up to 0.35ppm for a while . I stopped dosing and it’s settled down. My tank actually looks best, algae wise, with PO4 at 0.2ppm and NO3 at 6ppm.

 

[rishma]

That is odd about phosphate going up. I am pretty convinced it was going down with ammonia alone. When I start doing urea regularly I’ll look for this.

I cannot think of a reason why this would happen. I’d like to hear any thoughts @Randy Holmes-Farley or others.

I’ve stopped dosing any kind of PO4, and mine hold pretty steady at 0.15 to 0.20ish. So maybe there is something to the urea, I never even thought about it. When I was still dosing phosphates, it got up to 0.35ppm for a while . I stopped dosing and it’s settled down. My tank actually looks best, algae wise, with PO4 at 0.2ppm and NO3 at 6ppm.

The mystical ratio of 46!!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Interesting. So this is if you want better color/growth/and or are zeroed out on nitrates? I have seen the ammonia dosing thread but have seen this here today and in FB regarding urea dosing too.
What benefits are people seeing besides just increasing nitrogen above zero?

I think any benefits or detriments relative to ammonia dosing alone or even nitrate dosing alone are yet to be determined.

 

[Red_Beard]

I have not noticed any significant effect on po4 from ammonium bicarb moving to urea combo. I may also not be the most fastidious trend tracker either.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

It appears many users are noticing benefits by dosing Urea + Ammonia to their reef tanks. Both increase useable nitrogen and nitrate in reef tanks for corals to consume.

I believe this is the original article that informed users of the potential benefits of urea dosing. This chart emulates the same stock solution and recipe as it.

The DON/DIN Rabbit Hole - Urea Dosing And A New ...​

The recipe:

20g of ammonia bicarbonate + 5 g of urea mixed in one liter (L) of water.

You can purchase ammonium bicarbonate here:

Amazon.com

I will link a few sources of urea that one can purchase for reef tanks:

Amazon.com: Urea/Fine Prills / 3 Ounces / 99+% Pure : Beauty & Personal Care

Buy Urea/Fine Prills / 3 Ounces / 99+% Pure: Tanning Oils & Lotions - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

a.co

Amazon.com : Urea [CH4N2O] 99+% ACS Grade Prills 6 Oz in a Space-Saver Bottle : Beauty & Personal Care

Amazon.com : Urea [CH4N2O] 99+% ACS Grade Prills 6 Oz in a Space-Saver Bottle : Beauty & Personal Care

a.co

The chart shows the amount of urea and ammonia added in ppm per dose, along with the corresponding nitrate equivalents

Very cool, thank you @Miami Reef . I was coming here to ask you something on this topic.

About 2 months ago I started dosing ammonia. Then my No3 was > 20 and PO4 .10-.20. You had commented, at the time, I didn’t have a low No3 system. So I then slowly started increasing ammonia dosing. I’m now at 125 mil of ammonia spread over 12 of the 14.5 hour photo period into about 500g.

- I just purchased urea, haven’t mixed it up yet
- I am also switching from ammonia chloride to bicarb
- No3 is now 1.1 (just now) yes one point one
- PO4 was .12 this AM
- I am in the process of removing all the SpS frags and mini colonies from my 50g low boy that is tied to this system and relocate them to my other system. I am replacing this with a 110g low boy to rehome some LPS in my big display due to light and flow increased values and will be adding a poop ton of gonis


I don’t want to start dosing No3 to prevent a bottom out, can I crank up my ammonia to intensify No3? If so how far can I push it in one go? I’m on the door step of a No3 bottom out, which, I have never done, not sure if it is similar to the spawned demons that are unleashed when you bottom out PO4?

Thanks for all you do.

 

[Miami Reef]

I don’t want to start dosing No3 to prevent a bottom out, can I crank up my ammonia to intensify No3? If so how far can I push it in one go?

Bottomed out NO₃ isn’t as dangerous as undetectable PO₄. However, I’d start from week 3-4 if you wanted expedited results. You can increase or decrease the dose from there depending on the nitrate trends.

When dosing ammonia, the actual nitrate level isn’t as important because ammonia is more bioavailable. As long as nitrate isn’t completely bottomed-out, it likely means the organisms are getting their nitrogen needs met.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

Just checking back in. No3 is now at 3.5. I’m going to take my ammonia to 150 mil over 12 hours from 125 mil, but I just added the urea to it, so I’m a little concerned about a cyano bloom, but we will cross that bridge when we get there. I’m guessing I’m going to slowly push it up while my No3 is sub 5. PO4 will increase to .20, I turn my reactor on and drop some phosphateRX in and I’m back <.10, rinse and repeat. Color looks good so I am paying attention closely.

 

[RoanokeReef]

Just wanted to add some feedback from my 69g tank. I'm dosing 40ml and still register 0 N on both Hanna and Trident. The last week I've noticed some brown carpet type algae growing and some of my frags are darkening in color. I experienced this before when dosing just Ammonia before. My plan is to back off the dosing amount slowly and see how things progress.

 

[obanarama]

Feedback from my 75g tank: Tank was at 0.02 Phos and .8 Nitrate prior to dosing ammonium+urea using Miami Reef's awesome chart and amazon purchase links. (Thank you @Miami Reef and @Randy Holmes-Farley !) I dosed 3.7ml once per day over three days and Phos went to 0.09 and Nitrate to 6.8 (Hannah checkers) so I've stopped. I also dosed .5 ml of NeoPhos on the first day of ammonium+urea and then stopped that. Wow was that fast and if Alk and Cal consumption are indicators of how the corals liked it both have since increased by about 10%. Very cool stuff!

 

[Miami Reef]

Feedback from my 75g tank: Tank was at 0.02 Phos and .8 Nitrate prior to dosing ammonium+urea using Miami Reef's awesome chart and amazon purchase links. (Thank you @Miami Reef and @Randy Holmes-Farley !) I dosed 3.7ml once per day over three days and Phos went to 0.09 and Nitrate to 6.8 (Hannah checkers) so I've stopped. I also dosed .5 ml of NeoPhos on the first day of ammonium+urea and then stopped that. Wow was that fast and if Alk and Cal consumption are indicators of how the corals liked it both have since increased by about 10%. Very cool stuff!

Thanks for the update.

 

[MeganV]

@Miami Reef can I get a sanity check over here?

I am dosing ammonium bicarb, but no urea. I have struggled with low nitrates on this tank since the get-go. Total water volume is around 70 gallons. I started dosing by hand 3mL per day. Over the course of weeks I increased my additions to 3 x daily. My nitrates have never gone above 2.5ppm (3ppm on Nyos, got a new Salifert kit because I was starting to get suspicious...) I have since gone to using a doser, and I am dosing 3mL 6x a day This is a ~50% increase over my previous dose, and it;s only been a couple of days but my nitrates this morning were still only 2.5ppm.

Where do I go from here? I have high phosphate at 0.3ppm and I'm strugging with cyano and a few dinos that I believe are tied to the nutrient imbalance. Is there any harm in increasing the ammonium bicarb dose beyond where I am at? It just seems like a lot.

One other comment, while its possible my solution strength may have gone down, it does still have a very strong ammonia odor, so there's definitely something in there. Is it worth doing a quick NH3 test on the stock solution, or would that even be viable?