Does anyone dose ammonia and/or how would one try?

[Jon_W79]

I think that I may have figured out how to grow SPS corals without fish(using ammonium chloride, vitamins, etc). I still have to try to grow the corals, of course, but I think it is going to work. I have been growing red ogo very successfully, and there has been some type of algae starting to grow in the Rubbermaid stock tank. I think that if someone can grow algae well, without fish, I think it will be possible to grow SPS corals without fish. One of the main things that makes me think this is that I believe a very large majority of the fish mass from the fish that Adam from @Battlecorals has is from purely vegetarian fish(foxface and rabbitfish), and Adam is very successful at growing SPS corals. Since a very large majority of the fish are purely vegetarian, I think that a fishless sps tank can be successful(at least to some extent) by dosing certain vitamins, dosing ammonium chloride, probably dosing organic fulvic acid, having snails instead of fish, etc.

I am growing red ogo in a standard 20 gallon aquarium plumbed to the 100 gallon stock tank(the cheato was damaged during shipping). The 20 gallon aquarium is probably holding about 16 or 17 gallons, and has about 55 gph going into it, and I am using a dosing pump to dose an ammonium chloride solution into the aquarium. The red ogo growth happened over 16 days or less by the time it really started growing(I lost some of the pieces also).

 

[brandon429]

This thread is important as it provides at least some element of measure and rebound when it comes to ammonia troubleshooting other reef tanks who don't report levels using seneye.

the going standard in troubleshooting crashes is that it doesn't take much ammonia to be the causative in fish kills, but your thread shows reef tanks can tolerate quite a bit. A reef tank can process raw ammonia so fast, I now believe fish kills precede all ammonia events and not the other way around. so that means when I read a non-seneye ammonia alert post, my first thought is that ammonia was just fine the entire time and someone dosed Prime without telling us, which explains your non seneye false positive title of the thread or lack or TAN conversion for the reported levels. if this thread was api based vs seneye, madness.


the doses added to tanks here are well below toxicity and well below fish behavioral change/ pain levels

yet everyone in ammonia alert threads not ran on seneye instantly believes their tank surpassed the toxicity mark…see where I’m heading with this

what the public thinks about ammonia dynamics in a reef tank is far far off the mark.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I think that I may have figured out how to grow SPS corals without fish(using ammonium chloride, vitamins, etc). I still have to try to grow the corals, of course, but I think it is going to work. I have been growing red ogo very successfully, and there has been some type of algae starting to grow in the Rubbermaid stock tank. I think that if someone can grow algae well, without fish, I think it will be possible to grow SPS corals without fish. One of the main things that makes me think this is that I believe a very large majority of the fish mass from the fish that Adam from @Battlecorals has is from purely vegetarian fish(foxface and rabbitfish), and Adam is very successful at growing SPS corals. Since a very large majority of the fish are purely vegetarian, I think that a fishless sps tank can be successful(at least to some extent) by dosing certain vitamins, dosing ammonium chloride, probably dosing organic fulvic acid, having snails instead of fish, etc.

I am growing red ogo in a standard 20 gallon aquarium plumbed to the 100 gallon stock tank(the cheato was damaged during shipping). The 20 gallon aquarium is probably holding about 16 or 17 gallons, and has about 55 gph going into it, and I am using a dosing pump to dose an ammonium chloride solution into the aquarium. The red ogo growth happened over 16 days or less by the time it really started growing(I lost some of the pieces also).


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To be honest, I didn't know this was a goal or an uncertainty. Even folks with frag tanks often have algae eating fish in them.

Do you have reason to think corals benefit from and/or need vitamins and fulvic acid in the water?

 

[ClownSchool]

Yes the tank on the left is the refugium running lights 24/7. Macros are growing but just this week with the extra ammonium the DT glass algae has gone from diatoms to a green dust.

I was told running refugium lighting during your DT’s light cycle causes a Ph spikes? Did I get bad advice? The advice was alternating 12 hours in DT, then night time 12 in refugium.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I was told running refugium lighting during your DT’s light cycle causes a Ph spikes? Did I get bad advice? The advice was alternating 12 hours in DT, then night time 12 in refugium.

Matching light cycles is not optimal, IMO. Reverse cycles offset the low O2 and low pH at night of the main tank.

 

[Jon_W79]

To be honest, I didn't know this was a goal or an uncertainty. Even folks with frag tanks often have algae eating fish in them.

Do you have reason to think corals benefit from and/or need vitamins and fulvic acid in the water?

I mentioned purely vegetarian fish because I want to use snails instead of fish, and the snails are at least mostly vegetarian, and I think that it might mean that meat isn't necessary(maybe that should be obvious).
If I can grow algae for the snails to eat, and I dose ammonium chloride, and I can get nitrate and phosphate at good levels, I think there will be a good chance that I can grow SPS corals(I think I will be simulating the benefits of fish to corals at least to some degree). I think that the algae need certain vitamins(maybe corals need some of them too, such as thiamine). I'm not sure if fulvic acid is needed, I think that many species of bacteria like it.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I think that the algae need certain vitamins(maybe corals need some of them too, such as thiamine). I'm not sure if fulvic acid is needed, I think that many species of bacteria like it.

What is the evidence that corals and algae need vitamins in the water?

 

[Jon_W79]

What is the evidence that corals and algae need vitamins in the water?

I guess I don't have enough evidence right now.
This article says that all living organisms need thiamine, I wonder how corals in a reef tank normally get thiamine.

The Ocean’s Mysterious Vitamin Deficiency | Hakai Magazine

A puzzling lack of thiamine is disrupting some marine ecosystems.

www.hakaimagazine.com

The F/2 Fritz algae food for fresh and saltwater has vitamins B1, B12, and biotin in it, this may not be proof that dosing certain vitamins can benefit marine algae, but it seems like dosing certain vitamins could be needed and/or benefit marine algae in some instances.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I guess I don't have enough evidence right now.
This article says that all living organisms need thiamine, I wonder how corals in a reef tank normally get thiamine.

They may not need external sources, if bacteria inside them produce it:

Coral symbiotic complex: Hypothesis through vitamin B12 for a new evaluation

Coral symbiotic complex: Hypothesis through vitamin B12 for a new evaluation

Access full-text academic articles: J-STAGE is an online platform for Japanese academic journals.

www.jstage.jst.go.jp

High vitamin B12 concentrations (up to 700pmol l-1 compared with max. 20pmol l-1 in the surrounding water) and high bacteria abundances (100 times higher than surrounding water) were found in the coelenteron of live corals using a new sampling method. The results led to the hypothesis that prokaryotes are the drivers of internal processes, such as vitamin B12 production, occurring directly inside the coral, forming a semi-closed system. Furthermore, most maintenance of the symbiotic complex is due to internal processes rather than the supply from outside the coral.

 

[Jon_W79]

What is the evidence that corals and algae need vitamins in the water?

Corals may not need vitamins in the water, but at least some types of algae do.

 

[Righteous]

It is probable that a lot of vitamins are generated by bacteria within the coral.

Looking at animals like cows, it’s been shown that they actually don’t need any dietary water soluble vitamins since the bacteria in their rumen generate everything they need.

Additonally, in humans a number of vitamins are also produced by gut bacteria in addition to B12:

Thiamine, folate, biotin, riboflavin, and panthothenic acid are water-soluble vitamins that are plentiful in the diet, but that are also synthesized by gut bacteria. Likewise, it has been estimated that up to half of the daily Vitamin K requirement is provided by gut bacteria. Interestingly, the molecular structure of bacterially synthesized vitamins is not always identical to the dietary forms of the vitamins. In fact, several specialized epithelial transporters have been recognized to participate specifically in the absorption of vitamins derived from gut bacteria

Contributions of Intestinal Bacteria to Nutrition and Metabolism in the Critically Ill

Important advances in the study of bacteria associated with the human gastrointestinal tract have significant implications for clinicians striving to meet the metabolic and nutritional needs of critically ill patients. A transition from culture-based ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Corals may not need vitamins in the water, but at least some types of algae do.

Algal vitamin auxotrophy has been well documented. Below is an article that goes into detail about algae requirements for certain vitamins and how they might acquire them. To note, however, is that concentrations of water soluable vitamins in seawater are extremely low:

However, the uptake of these compounds is not as simple as it may at first seem because their concentration in the natural environment is extremely low. Indeed, the minute amount of these organic micronutrients has made them difficult to measure

Instead evidence points to complex symbiosis with bacteria and bacterial films for vitamin acquisition.

It now seems likely that eukaryotic algae rely on other organisms for a source of essential vitamins, at least in some cases via a beneficial symbiosis.

Algae Need Their Vitamins

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

My take is the food web starts with the bacteria, and personally why I think a healthy refugium to aid in maintaining bacterial and planktonic diversity makes a lot of sense.

 

[drawman]

Curious how this is going for people. Seems like there have been a couple of people that have attempted this. Anyone with a low fishload notice a benefit over time?

 

[Subsea]

Curious how this is going for people. Seems like there have been a couple of people that have attempted this. Anyone with a low fishload notice a benefit over time?

In 6 month young ornamental seaweed mixed garden lagoon, the macro growth was so accelerated that some macros partially went sexual clouding up water so much, I couldn’t see back glass in a 55G tank. That was Friday morning < 30 hrs ago. I pruned some old stuff out and will get back on it when sun goes down.

Today was too beautiful not to be outside. I transplanted some mature cherry tomato plants into 20G pots and moved into greenhouse. As my first attempt at winter tomatoes, I decided to get some heat tracing for the soil.

My focus is nutrient recycling by maximizing diversity of bacteria, algae and cryptic sponges. I do not operate heavy in / heavy out. Instead I feed heavy for the light fish load. When fast growing red & green macros remove nutrients faster than they come in, they often go sexual. Using macro algae as a bioindicator, I usually see early stages of macro algae stunted growth and add ammonia to maintain dynamic equilibrium.

 

[drawman]

In 6 month young ornamental seaweed mixed garden lagoon, the macro growth was so accelerated that some macros partially went sexual clouding up water so much, I couldn’t see back glass in a 55G tank. That was Friday morning < 30 hrs ago. I pruned some old stuff out and will get back on it when sun goes down.

Today was too beautiful not to be outside. I transplanted some mature cherry tomato plants into 20G pots and moved into greenhouse. As my first attempt at winter tomatoes, I decided to get some heat tracing for the soil.

My focus is nutrient recycling by maximizing diversity of bacteria, algae and cryptic sponges. I do not operate heavy in / heavy out. Instead I feed heavy for the light fish load. When fast growing red & green macros remove nutrients faster than they come in, they often go sexual. Using macro algae as a bioindicator, I usually see early stages of macro algae stunted growth and add ammonia to maintain dynamic equilibrium.

Nice tank! I can totally see how yours would benefit from the ammonia. Do you spot dose every once in a while (I read the whole thread just can't remember who is doing what - there are a lot of tank variables so far)?

It makes me wonder if corals would benefit more from regular doses from a doser as opposed to spot dosing since any excess would be converted to NO3 rather quickly.

 

[drawman]

@Marc2952 are you still dosing? Have you continued to notice an increase in alk consumption?

 

[Subsea]

Nice tank! I can totally see how yours would benefit from the ammonia. Do you spot dose every once in a while (I read the whole thread just can't remember who is doing what - there are a lot of tank variables so far)?

It makes me wonder if corals would benefit more from regular doses from a doser as opposed to spot dosing since any excess would be converted to NO3 rather quickly.

When lights are on, I spot dose ammonia (1ml / 10G) in high flow area everyday. I know that macro prefers NH4 to NO3 and I doubt that any nitrogen remains unused considering seaweed went sexual because of limited nutrients. In the past when seaweed went sexual I used activated carbon to polish up water removing DOC. When some seaweed went sexual 2 days ago, I did nothing but add 20 ml of ammonia with water clearing up in a few hours.

I just added 1G HOB macro refugium to each seaweed lagoon: 30G & 55G

 

[Righteous]

I've backed off the daily ammonia dosing since my nitrogen levels seem to have stabilized and I started to see some Cyano.

My refugium algae got a lot more healthy. I was also simultaneously dosing micro elements daily like Iodine, Molybdenum, Manganese, Iron etc. About 6 months ago I had pretty much only cheatomorpha. Now I have a number of other species doing really well.

(yes that's a gnarly red planaria infestation I've got going, but they don't seem to harm anything so I leave them)

 

[Marc2952]

@Marc2952 are you still dosing? Have you continued to notice an increase in alk consumption?

I stopped dosing since i increased my fishload and nitrates are stable. But i had good results from doing it.

 

[Jon_W79]

I believe that many reef tanks could benefit from ammonia dosing, there is nothing wrong with it if it is done correctly(I believe it is better than nitrate dosing). If you dose ammonium you need keep in mind that when ammonia is added by fish, it is accompanied by some B vitamins(I believe), and trace elements and organic carbon from fish food, and because of this, I believe that dosing ammonium is more likely to create imbalances than ammonia added by fish, except for a high phosphate imbalance. If you dose ammonium, it is more likely that you will need to dose trace elements, and B vitamins(dosing B vitamins is easy, and is cheap long-term.

I believe that B vitamins are needed for heterotrophic bacteria in a reef tank. I believe that heterotrophic bacteria can compete with cyano, I believe that the bacteria can be used as food for at least many types of corals, and I think that they are capable of consuming all of the DOC that comes from algae.

If an algae filter is big enough I believe that ammonium dosing can be used to control the phosphate level.

 

[Miami Reef]

except that dosing ammonium chloride or similar materials will have a slight pH and alkalinity lowering effect (long term)

Can you elaborate what you mean by “long term”?

I’m fine with alkalinity getting lowered (I can always redose it) but the PH can’t be raised by gassing off CO2?