My random question of the week....

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

Nutrients - Since the begining of the year I have watched my nutrients come way down. It took me from December to maybe March to really get my lighting to where it is now 600ish par at my sand, flow rivals my light. My coral growth and color I am happy with. But, I am getting nervous about my nutrients. I was earlier in the year 33ish No3 and .25ish Po4. Today No3 is 6 and Po4 is .08. If you take the +/- margin of error, I could be on hells door step. When I hit around 12-15 and .10 I started dosing Ammonia. I am doing 70mil over 10 hours during full spectrum. I feed 9 times a day. With as much energy as I am creating, I think I need to get my nutrients up some. I just continually tick in a downward trend. My system is 525ish gallons. If I am dosing ammonia and want to get my nutrients up some, is a safe lever to pull dosing No3? My starting point is 42mil a day and wait for it to start to slow its decent, stop or raise and go from there. Similarily with Po4. Or should I up ammonia? Thanks for any insight.

 

[Dan_P]

Nutrients - Since the begining of the year I have watched my nutrients come way down. It took me from December to maybe March to really get my lighting to where it is now 600ish par at my sand, flow rivals my light. My coral growth and color I am happy with. But, I am getting nervous about my nutrients. I was earlier in the year 33ish No3 and .25ish Po4. Today No3 is 6 and Po4 is .08. If you take the +/- margin of error, I could be on hells door step. When I hit around 12-15 and .10 I started dosing Ammonia. I am doing 70mil over 10 hours during full spectrum. I feed 9 times a day. With as much energy as I am creating, I think I need to get my nutrients up some. I just continually tick in a downward trend. My system is 525ish gallons. If I am dosing ammonia and want to get my nutrients up some, is a safe lever to pull dosing No3? My starting point is 42mil a day and wait for it to start to slow its decent, stop or raise and go from there. Similarily with Po4. Or should I up ammonia? Thanks for any insight.

What much does the 70 mL of your ammonia dose raise the ammonia?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

You can up ammonia dosing or dose nitrate, or even urea. :)

 

[rishma]

Are you seeing any darkening in the corals with that much ammonia?

I don’t think your nutrients are good but agree if it keeps trending lower it could be bad.

Feed more?

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

What much does the 70 mL of your ammonia dose raise the ammonia?

Per @Randy Holmes-Farley basically nothing. On my Hanna it showed .04 the last time I asked him.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

Are you seeing any darkening in the corals with that much ammonia?

I don’t think your nutrients are good but agree if it keeps trending lower it could be bad.

Feed more?

Out of the 100+ items in this display there is 1 browned out Acro. That happened 2 years ago in a different system. I just can’t seem to get it to color up:

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

You can up ammonia dosing or dose nitrate, or even urea. :)

Guess I’m going to your archives to check out urea. Also need to make sure I’m suppose to mixing Ammonia Chloride. I heard Sanjay say he was mixing something different, Ammonia carb or bicarbonate I don’t recall. I’ll take it to 100 mil. I’m also going to put about 40 mils of no3 also. As always, thanks friend.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

Someone asked about feedings. I’m feeding pretty heavy as it is:
- 1 - 1.5 pieces of nori daily now
- (using an InD aF4) 2 cubes or 10 mill of Rods 5 times a day
- my Plank spins for 90 seconds 5 times a day
- my AFS feeds medicated flake 4 times a day x 3 drum spins.

Now that I type that, that’s a lot more than I even realized.

I have between 24 - 28 fish a couple small damsels and a wrasse haven’t been seen in a while. 12 of those fish are tangs.

 

[rishma]

A

Guess I’m going to your archives to check out urea. Also need to make sure I’m suppose to mixing Ammonia Chloride. I heard Sanjay say he was mixing something different, Ammonia carb or bicarbonate I don’t recall. I’ll take it to 100 mil. I’m also going to put about 40 mils of no3 also. As always, thanks friend.

Ammonium bicarbonate is what many use. Here is the thread to review.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-ammonia-dosing-for-low-nitrate-systems.987087/

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

A

Ammonium bicarbonate is what many use. Here is the thread to review.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/diy-ammonia-dosing-for-low-nitrate-systems.987087/

Yeah, I mucked up and got the wrong stuff. I wonder what the impact is or could be?

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

Yeah, I mucked up and got the wrong stuff. I wonder what the impact is or could be?

I take that back. Reading this, I selected the chloride. No clue why, but I now recall this as I used this to come up with the formula. But, I think I may switch it up.

 

[Dan_P]

Per @Randy Holmes-Farley basically nothing. On my Hanna it showed .04 the last time I asked him.

Then there seems to be a large enough safety margin to up the dose.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Yeah, I mucked up and got the wrong stuff. I wonder what the impact is or could be?

Just depleted alk. Ammonium chloride is an otherwise fine alk supplement.

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

Just depleted alk. Ammonium chloride is an otherwise fine alk supplement.

Yeah, I am struggling to keep my alk at 9.5. I’m doubling my bicarb dosing right now. I show no signs of precip, I’ve poked around rocks, etc.