DIY Urea + Ammonia Mix Dosing Chart

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

It takes over 8 ppm total ammonia for several days to kill fish. You aren’t dosing near that amount, and your tank is currently depleting the ammonia at a faster rate than it can keep up.

I don’t see a risk by increasing the dose.

I’m glad I don’t drink anymore. This is where applying an extra zero could prove problematic… I’m adjusting to 200 mill a day.

 

[Troylee]

I’m glad I don’t drink anymore. This is where applying an extra zero could prove problematic… I’m adjusting to 200 mill a day.

Man that seems like a crazy amount to me.. are you carbon dosing or anything? I know your system is double the gallons of mine. I was running 60ml of ammonia alone but with the addition of urea I was able to cut that in half and currently dose 30ml daily of the urea mix and my nitrates hold at 20… my tank is jam packed with large colonies of sps also.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

No carbon dosing. I now feed 14 times a day (6 times frozen /1 cube each, af4) and my plank does 90 seconds every 90 minutes for 8 feedings.

7 - 8 months ago I was at 35-40 no3. I have steadily come down to where I am. I’m at 200 mill of ammonia / urea.

This was a week or two ago:

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

Weekly test from yesterday (PO4 was .13):

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

@Miami Reef
I know you said “as long as there is no signs like algae”. I added a brand new 110g LowBoy 2 weeks ago which replaced a standard lowboy. I had to put 3 racks of frags and 3 small. Fish right back in the lowboy. I had originally wanted to let the new lowboy run for a month with no lights and just a couple rocks for some localized biome. Something happened and I had to scratch that plan. So. 2 XR30s and a 400W Radium later and my 3 juvenile tangs are not grazing on the algae at all. I’m have hair algae grow on some things. Zero algae in my big display, those fish in that system don’t tolerate a messy house. I’ve shifted to a very wet skim + finer roller fleece. I could shut the halide off, but then I think I’m going to stun the frags. As when the look down system is finally safe and ready, these frags are all going in there and that system has halides too.

 

[Reginald Reefer III]

The one thing I noticed that suddenly changed was my filter sock plugging extremely quickly all of a sudden. I don't use the felt type, just the mesh ones to catch any large debris. I typically don't clean the mesh sock unless I have done some manual hair algae scrubbing or something like that, but I have needed to rinse it several times a week since starting the urea. It isn't really visible gunk, more of a film. I wonder if it could be bacteria related?

I'm now getting a white bacteria film on the surface. Interesting correlation that I haven't seen in this tank since it was new, going through the up and down cycles.

 

[MeganV]

Help! I need some input!

Over the last ~2 weeks since the addition of urea to my stock solution, my nitrate measurements have gone from around 2.5ppm to around 20ppm. I have been backing down on the dosage rate every couple of days as I get continued test results.

I did a nitrate test this morning, using Salifert kit, and got around 20ppm. I work from home, so I just left my stuff out on the counter and went to work in my home office. Now, at lunch time around 5 hours later, I returned to clean up my mess. The nitrate test cuvette still had the test solution, but the color had actually lightened significantly to a measurement more consistent with 2.5ppm. I have not been using the Salifert nitrate kit for very long. In my experience with nitrate kits, it seems like there is typically a minimum time before reading it, but they don't change much in color after that, certainly not within a couple of hours.

Thoughts? I am utterly perplexed.

As far as how the tank looks, I am continuing to clean my mesh filter socks a couple of times a week. I know this might be odd, but they smell....amazing? I grew up on the coast of Maine and I am now displaced in the midwest. The smell of these socks is the closest thing to a fresh ocean breeze I have ever smelled. Normally filter socks are yucky. I could bottle this up and sell it it smells so nice.

Corals all look fine, with the exception of a sarcophyton frag, but you know how they can be when they are sloughing. The dino/cyano crud seems to be slightly less problematic.

 

[Miami Reef]

The nitrate test cuvette still had the test solution, but the color had actually lightened significantly to a measurement more consistent with 2.5ppm.

Ignore it. Whatever happens to the color afterwards is not a reflection of the actual test values. If it turned red after the 2 min shaking + 7 min wait, then I’d trust those results.

I’d stop dosing the mix until the nitrate trends down. Then start at 25–50% of the volume you were previously dosing.

 

[MeganV]

Ignore it. Whatever happens to the color afterwards is not a reflection of the actual test values. If it turned red after the 2 min shaking + 7 min wait, then I’d trust those results.

I’d stop dosing the mix until the nitrate trends down. Then start at 25–50% of the volume you were previously dosing.

Thank you for your input! I'll keep everyone posted.

 

[MeganV]

Unfortunately Miami Reef won't be here for my most recent observations regarding urea/ammonia () but the project continues:

I temporarily stopped dosing any nitrogen containing solution per Miami's recommendations as my nitrates were reading between 15-20. Over the course of around a week, things started looking pretty poopy. My toadstool and grubes gorg were extremely ticked. I noticed many corals expelling zooxanthellae at peak light level/mid day, as well. Nitrates began to trend down after stopping all dosing. Because things were looking so unhappy, I decided to put some ammonium bicarbonate back on, sans urea, at a much lower rate than I originally was using (6mL per day, I was up to 27/day previously.).

Things are coming around...the grubes and toadstool are coming back out, but nitrates are continuing to trend down (currently at 5ppm.) I'm going to try an ammonium and urea combo again, but at a lower urea level. I'm actually thinking as low as 1g/L urea to start.

One other observation to add: I mentioned previously that I had severe blinding over of my filter socks (mesh, not felt) when I started the ammonia dosing. This has continued to be the case - it ceased when I temporarily stopped, and recurred after starting the ammonia.

 

[Reginald Reefer III]

I'm now full time dosing this solution, but have noticed that I'm having to dose WAY more than what was prescribed, and my phosphates are sitting at 0.02, even while dosing quite a bit of NeoPhos Pro. Tank looks phenomenal though!

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

Wish you were here my friend.

- Finally got my nitrate to move up. Thanks for the help :(

Weekly test from yesterday (PO4 was .13):

 

[Reginald Reefer III]

I’ve been dosing it for about 2 months.. my colors are a little richer and deeper looking.. not a lot but it’s noticeable.. biggest change is tons of green and brown dust on the glass daily I’m having to clean vs once every 4 days or so.. it’s annoying but the corals looks great so it’s worth it.

1-2 weeks into the new mixture and I'm noticing the same. A LOT more of the dusty green algae on the glass and I'm getting some different kinds of algae on spots without coraline that wasn't there before.

I also noticed that my phosphates teeter on the edge of easily under dosed where I struggle to keep it off zero, or way over dosed where all of a sudden I'm registering 0.1ppm. Normal readings for PO4 go from 0.02ppm to 0.1-0.08ppm daily. Same thing with nitrates jumping between 5ppm to 1.5ppm daily. Yes, there is some variability in testing, but my hannas are kinda lining up to it also.

On the bright side, the tank is VERY happy. Acros are at full PE all day and colors look great!

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

1-2 weeks into the new mixture and I'm noticing the same. A LOT more of the dusty green algae on the glass and I'm getting some different kinds of algae on spots without coraline that wasn't there before.

I also noticed that my phosphates teeter on the edge of easily under dosed where I struggle to keep it off zero, or way over dosed where all of a sudden I'm registering 0.1ppm. Normal readings for PO4 go from 0.02ppm to 0.1-0.08ppm daily. Same thing with nitrates jumping between 5ppm to 1.5ppm daily. Yes, there is some variability in testing, but my hannas are kinda lining up to it also.

On the bright side, the tank is VERY happy. Acros are at full PE all day and colors look great!

For a handful of reasons I turned my UV system on this weekend. To put it in perspective, it’s 80w, 8 foot of contact time and plumbed into one of my closed loops. In the last 12 months, it’s been on 3 hours. I’ll know tomorrow if it has helped with the glass algae. I’m curious how my main display will react to the UV and then my big low boy, which doesn’t have UV plumbed into it but is plumbed into the same sump. This time tomorrow I should see a decent haze and then Tuesday night it should be need a scrape.

 

[Reginald Reefer III]

I think I found the sweet spot with my dosing to keep things fairly steady. 50mL of the Urea + Ammonium mixture and 4mL of NeoPhos Pro. Total tank volume is a bit over 100g. I am using Ammonium Chloride though which may be contributing to the need to dose more compared to the Bicarbonate. I also run a fuge with chaeto which is growing VERY fast.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

As I posted just now to another thread...

I'm not convinced the urea is a good plan. It may be fine, or may be even better, but from folks results I'm not convinced that it is as available to corals as ammonium. The fact that folks see nitrate rise significantly from urea dosing compared to ammonia dosing suggests to me that bacteria are converting it to nitrate and then organisms as a whole are not using it as readily as the ammonia.

 

[rishma]

As I posted just now to another thread...

I'm not convinced the urea is a good plan. It may be fine, or may be even better, but from folks results I'm not convinced that it is as available to corals as ammonium. The fact that folks see nitrate rise significantly from urea dosing compared to ammonia dosing suggests to me that bacteria are converting it to nitrate and then organisms as a whole are not using it as readily as the ammonia.

My observations align with this, that it’s probably not as available as ammonia. However, it might still be a good plan. The issue I have with ammonium bicarbonate is the amount I have to dose to get measurable nitrate. If I am using nitrate as the indicator, my corals darken by the time I see nitrate steady in the water. My choice is to dose less ammonium bicarbonate and accept zero nitrate or add something to keep nitrate above zero.

By mixing in urea, I can achieve a low level of nitrate with a lower dose of ammonia.

I could accomplish this another way, by just dosing a little sodium nitrate with my ammonium bicarbonate, but so far urea doesn’t have any observed downside in my tank.

 

[RoanokeReef]

My observations align with this, that it’s probably not as available as ammonia. However, it might still be a good plan. The issue I have with ammonium bicarbonate is the amount I have to dose to get measurable nitrate. If I am using nitrate as the indicator, my corals darken by the time I see nitrate steady in the water. My choice is to dose less ammonium bicarbonate and accept zero nitrate or add something to keep nitrate above zero.

By mixing in urea, I can achieve a low level of nitrate with a lower dose of ammonia.

I could accomplish this another way, by just dosing a little sodium nitrate with my ammonium bicarbonate, but so far urea doesn’t have any observed downside in my tank.

My observations are almost the same as yours. Just Ammonium took a ton to have a reading in my tank and my SPS darkened. I tried adding urea which registered Nitrate at a lower dose and didn't darken SPS, however it made some brown hair algae explode until I stopped and now it's gone.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

My observations align with this, that it’s probably not as available as ammonia. However, it might still be a good plan. The issue I have with ammonium bicarbonate is the amount I have to dose to get measurable nitrate. If I am using nitrate as the indicator, my corals darken by the time I see nitrate steady in the water. My choice is to dose less ammonium bicarbonate and accept zero nitrate or add something to keep nitrate above zero.

By mixing in urea, I can achieve a low level of nitrate with a lower dose of ammonia.

I could accomplish this another way, by just dosing a little sodium nitrate with my ammonium bicarbonate, but so far urea doesn’t have any observed downside in my tank.

OK, I can see the benefit of having nitrate, but it may well be the urea is doing nothing directly for the corals in your tank.

Correct my summary if its wrong, but less ammonium alone, or less ammonium plus urea both seem to have similar desirable effects, except the nitrate values.

 

[rishma]

OK, I can see the benefit of having nitrate, but it may well be the urea is doing nothing directly for the corals in your tank.

Correct my summary if it’s wrong, but less ammonium alone, or less ammonium plus urea both seem to have similar desirable effects, except the nitrate values.

Your summary is correct.