In case you dose nitrates

[kevensquint]

Hi , so my tanks are bare-bottom and until year 1 is done I always need to manually boost Nitrate and phosphate to keep at least a minimum reading on my tests. Since this style of reefing is becoming more popular, I want to share an observation. It's only an observation, not a scientific analysis. But I usually dose B ionic Nitrate which is Calcium Nitrate . I ran out and went with NeoNitrate from Brightwell. I like Brightwell products, except the Nitrate in this additive is a "propriatory" Nitrate. I don't do regular water changes at all in this first year of the tank in question and don't dose anything except Alk and Ca. So somehow my potassium tested at 390ppm a few months ago. Today after week 3 of regular NeoNitrate dosing the same Salifert K test kit shows 460ppm of K. My only possible suspect is the NeoNitrate. I will stop and use another brand to see if K drops . But in case you're dosing Nitrate, I wanted to give a heads up for you guys to check potassium just in case it is actually affected by dosing Brightwell or any Nitrate.

 

[jda]

They just say that it is nitrogen salts... which means sodium, calcium or potassium nitrate, most likely. Many suspect that the NeoNitro is potassium nitrate as a main/high ingredient.

I would not let that K level get much higher. Higher levels of K can really harm fish.

You can make your own nitrate mix out of cheap chemicals off of Amazon that are likely higher quality than what you buy in the bottle... and you know what it is it. Ammonium is also a great way to add nitrogen to the system.