Help With Math!

[DegaBird]

Chemistry really scrambles my brain and I need some serious hand holding lol.
I have a 25 gallon IM lagoon. My nitrates are 0 and have been zero. Average phosphate sits around .14
I have a food grade bag of Ammonium Bicorbonate sitting on my desk that even after scouring past forum threads I just do not understand how/how much/how often to dose.

Can someone please help me with how to dose this? Thank you so much!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Sure.

This is the ammonia dosing thread:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-ammonia-dosing-for-low-nitrate-systems.987087/
From it:

Make this dosing solution:

20 grams of ammonium bicarbonate (about 4 and 3/4 teaspoons) in 1 L RO/DI water.


To add 0.1 mg/L ammonia to an aquarium, you would need to add 2.3 mL of either stock solution to a 100 L (26 gallon) aquarium. You may need to add this amount multiply times per day to dose enough.


I would start doing it once per day. Since your tank is just under that volume, I’d dose 2.2 mL per day.

 

[DegaBird]

Thank you SO MUCH! I really appreciate the help.

 

[DegaBird]

Sure.

This is the ammonia dosing thread:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-ammonia-dosing-for-low-nitrate-systems.987087/
From it:

Make this dosing solution:

20 grams of ammonium bicarbonate (about 4 and 3/4 teaspoons) in 1 L RO/DI water.


To add 0.1 mg/L ammonia to an aquarium, you would need to add 2.3 mL of either stock solution to a 100 L (26 gallon) aquarium. You may need to add this amount multiply times per day to dose enough.


I would start doing it once per day. Since your tank is just under that volume, I’d dose 2.2 mL per day.

Actually one more dumb question. Since it's a small tank, that's a lot of fresh water to add. Will this dissolve properly in salt water?

 

[BryanM]

Actually one more dumb question. Since it's a small tank, that's a lot of fresh water to add. Will this dissolve properly in salt water?

Dosing 2.2ml of the ammonium bicarbonate solution is a very small amount of water/solution.

 

[DegaBird]

Dosing 2.2ml of the ammonium bicarbonate solution is a very small amount of water/solution.

I focused on the 1 Liter, not the ML lol. My error, thank you!

 

[Buckeye Hydro Verified Sponsor]

Good grief - how valuable to have a chemist on the board!!

 

[KrisReef]

Chemistry really scrambles my brain and I need some serious hand holding lol.
I have a 25 gallon IM lagoon. My nitrates are 0 and have been zero. Average phosphate sits around .14
I have a food grade bag of Ammonium Bicorbonate sitting on my desk that even after scouring past forum threads I just do not understand how/how much/how often to dose.

Can someone please help me with how to dose this? Thank you so much!

I’m a big fan of just adding a pinch and then retesting after a few minutes to see what the initial results are.

Same as a chef in a 5 star restaurant would do, no math, just add a pinch and taste the results.

Of course “math” is better, but with a 5 gallon bucket and no scale it is pretty easy to make basic measurements and get reasonable estimates that are good enough for reef dosing, especially for those of us who don’t have good equipment and a chemistry lab like the dear doctor RHF does.

I post often about the ancient Polynesian navigators who tasted the water to follow currents and sailed 1000’s of miles and arrived safely on their travels.