Raising No3 Via Spectracide Stump Remover (Potassium Nitrate)

fragit · Jan 20, 2017

Wow those are some good results! Wish mine would start looking better.

ReeferMadness80G · Jan 20, 2017

I've also started dosing AV reef fuel along side my acropower. Skimmate is super dark .

ReeferMadness80G · Jan 20, 2017

fragit said:
Wow those are some good results! Wish mine would start looking better.

What's up with yours? Post some stats and parameters

fragit · Jan 20, 2017

ReeferMadness80G said:
What's up with yours? Post some stats and parameters

A couple weeks ago I got a bunch of frags from BattleCorals and Cultivated Reef. They looked great for two days then started fading color and no PE. I lost 2 of them then a couple days later another 1. Before I got them I was running ULNS on AquaForest. A month and a half before or so I lost another 5 SPS frags suddenly when I started using the full program. Fast forward the week before I got my last batch I started dosing stump remover to bring my nitrates up to about 2. I was still dosing the bacteria and supplements. I think what happened was that the bacteria and my mechanical export were too efficient and the corals still starved. On top of that my lighting may have had some effect as the frags were placed in areas where par was in the 300s. Effectively with the light and not enough available nutrients they began to starve. I've since turned my lighting way down and have been keeping an eye on nitrates no real positive effects other than no more losses. Tonight I dosed 60mL in my 150 gal system hoping to get my nitrates up from 2-3 to 8-10ppm. I also fed some Reef chili. I'm using twilliards recipe. 10ml raises his nitrates by 1.4 per 10ml in his 80gal system.

fragit · Jan 20, 2017

Your dosing seems a little more exact so I may adjust my mix and try to be more exact with the dosage.

ReeferMadness80G · Jan 21, 2017

http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/calculator.htm use this to make your own recipe unique to your system. The first 2 days I did it I tested almost every 3-4 hours. What are your NO3 levels at now?

ReeferMadness80G · Jan 21, 2017

fragit said:
Your dosing seems a little more exact so I may adjust my mix and try to be more exact with the dosage.

http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/calculator.htm use this to make your own recipe unique to your system. The first 2 days I did it I tested almost every 3-4 hours. What are your NO3 levels at now?

fragit · Jan 21, 2017

ReeferMadness80G said:
http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/calculator.htm use this to make your own recipe unique to your system. The first 2 days I did it I tested almost every 3-4 hours. What are your NO3 levels at now?

Going to be testing all parameters this morning. My weekly maintenance practice. Last night before I dosed it was like 2-3ppm. Hoping I'm close to 10ppm right now. No changes in Corals as of yet. Stand by for results.

brad65ford · Jan 21, 2017

fragit said:
A couple weeks ago I got a bunch of frags from BattleCorals and Cultivated Reef. They looked great for two days then started fading color and no PE. I lost 2 of them then a couple days later another 1. Before I got them I was running ULNS on AquaForest. A month and a half before or so I lost another 5 SPS frags suddenly when I started using the full program. Fast forward the week before I got my last batch I started dosing stump remover to bring my nitrates up to about 2. I was still dosing the bacteria and supplements. I think what happened was that the bacteria and my mechanical export were too efficient and the corals still starved. On top of that my lighting may have had some effect as the frags were placed in areas where par was in the 300s. Effectively with the light and not enough available nutrients they began to starve. I've since turned my lighting way down and have been keeping an eye on nitrates no real positive effects other than no more losses. Tonight I dosed 60mL in my 150 gal system hoping to get my nitrates up from 2-3 to 8-10ppm. I also fed some Reef chili. I'm using twilliards recipe. 10ml raises his nitrates by 1.4 per 10ml in his 80gal system.

Been down this road before. I to have run ulns with added elemates from zeo which works for some sps's but not all. Recently pulled the plug on my skimmer and filter socks similar to a reef system i read years ago with great success. Guess what corals are doing better. I was dosing sump remover which does help but its only one part of the equation, the p04 is stripped most likely and needs to go up naturally. Best suggestion most would give would be to feed your fish and make them pee and poop more or as much as naturally possible. Right now i so want to do a water change but forcing myself not to is tough, they system looks great corals look great so why do i want to do a water change (habit?). Not saying that what im doing or suggestion will work for you, just give another option instead of dosing. There are many successful skimmer-less systems out there with 5-30 no3 and 1 p04. Running 0 po4 and 0 no3 (unls) is a tricky game getting bacteria as the food source in which i haven't learned or figured out. Better to have a dirty tank with good flow and good lights, much easier too.

Also if your p04 is really close to 0 no need to go over 2-3 no3ppm imo since there is no p04 to balance.

edit.. .one last thing to mentioned , not sure what size tank you have but don't worry about algae if you get a herbivore. Totally recommend a tang to eat algae when running higher nutrients

fragit · Jan 21, 2017

So completed my testing this morning. Currently nitrates at like 10ish and phosphate is 0.025. All other parameters are right where I want them. I did get some new refractometer calibration fluid. My salinity is 1.024. I like to run at 1.025-1.026. So I'm gonna do a 15 gal WC with 1.030 water and I shut the ATO off for a while. @brad65ford I am totally with you. I already feed heavy, I have a Kole Tang and decent clean up crew and plenty of flow in my system. DT is 120gal total 150gal. I would like to try and keep nitrates at 5ppm or so and phosphate where it is. I stopped dosing any supplements almost 2 weeks ago.

brad65ford · Jan 21, 2017

sounds good, keep us posted. No waters changes for me and algae is getting darker. There is a strange thing that happens with glass when you don't do water changes. Do you have coralline algae growing on the glass?

ReeferMadness80G · Jan 21, 2017

Parameters today.
Cal-460 Alk-10 Mag-1500
pH-8.3 NO3-17ppm PO4-.25ppm
My magnesium is a bit high, working on getting that down. Other than that, everything is doing great. I'm going to also try and resist doing WC for another week while everything is still good. It's very tough keeping stable with such a small water volume but so far so good.

brad65ford · Jan 21, 2017

Guys could use some suggestions regarding increasing p04. Since i stopped zeobak dosing and skimming as well as dosing n03 via stump remover I still read 0 on p04. I've heard that these test kits really don't show the whole picture though i'm wondering if i'm p04 limited still. Currently my no3 is 5-7ppm still feeding a lot during the day.

fragit · Jan 21, 2017

brad65ford said:
sounds good, keep us posted. No waters changes for me and algae is getting darker. There is a strange thing that happens with glass when you don't do water changes. Do you have coralline algae growing on the glass?

I do have coralline growing on my glass. I know farmerty says he hasn't changed his water in over a year I think.

brad65ford · Jan 21, 2017

Believe he is running a triton system though, god bless him for being able to test everything and know what is needed and how much to dose.

ReeferMadness80G · Jan 21, 2017

brad65ford said:
Guys could use some suggestions regarding increasing p04. Since i stopped zeobak dosing and skimming as well as dosing n03 via stump remover I still read 0 on p04. I've heard that these test kits really don't show the whole picture though i'm wondering if i'm p04 limited still. Currently my no3 is 5-7ppm still feeding a lot during the day.

Is adding more fish out of the question?