Sodium Nitrate Dosing

[bowen1022]

How much can you raise nitrate per day or week without having adverse effects?

 

[Kungpaoshizi]

The slower the better.

Fwiw, calcium nitrate will add calcium instead of creating a sodium imbalance... (another reason not to use potassium base)

 

[drawman]

I'll keep updating this thread to document what I'm doing.

I finally made up a stock solution of my sodium nitrate. I went with 4g/500L which is roughly 1/10 the concentration of a molar solution. I measured using a kitchen scale which may not have been the most accurate. My rationale for this was so that I could make up a larger volume of solution which would be less prone to concentration from evaporation and I could dose more solution without worry of being as precise.

I have two tanks currently in two different locations. My 25 gallon frag tank is where I have the low nitrate issues and I regularly do larger water changes on it. It makes sense to me to predose my NSW for water changes with sodium nitrate so that things stay stable. I did my first 10 gallon water change with roughly 2ppm of sodium nitrate predosed into it. I may eventually bump it to 5ppm but I will see how things level out in the tank.

 

[thetedinator]

So I never did get around to dosing this yet but I want to get started mixing up a solution maybe @Randy Holmes-Farley you can help me with this? It has been a long time since I had chemistry and I wasn't the best at it anyway . Would it make sense to make a 1 molar solution? If so here is my calculation.

MW NaNO3 - 84.995g/mol
Dissolve 85g in 1 L of RODI water.
NaNO3 is about 73% NO3 so therefore 1mL of this solution would add about 62mg (85mg x 73%) of NO3.
If I add this 1mL of solution to say 10L of tank volume, then it would raise NO3 by 6.2mg/L or 6.2ppm is this all correct?

If so I can make a more dilute solution but at least I know I am on the right track. Maybe a more dilute solution would be less harmful in terms of household storage. This is for a 25 gallon tank so I don't really need a lot of it. I could dilute by a factor of 10.

I found a source for Calcium Nitrate as Ca(NO3)2 on Amazon. It is a fertilizer used in hydroponics. Chemistry class was a long time ago but I found a very cool calculator in the internet.
MW CaNO3 = 164.0878g/mol
Dissolve 164g in 1 L of RODI water.
CaNO3 is about 76% NO3 so 1mL of this solution would yield about 124mg (164mg x 76%) of NO3.
If I add 1mL of solution to 10L of tank volume, then it would raise NO3 by 12.4mg/L or 12.4ppm.
Since I want to raise my Nitrates to about 5ppm, I would cut this down.

 

[rchraska]

Following along as I think I am getting to the point were I need to raise my nitrates using this method as my tank consumes nitrates very efficiently.

 

[drawman]

Everything has been going well so far in terms of keeping nitrates stable this way. Have some of the greenest hair algae I've ever had so I had to order some snails that I added on Thursday to get things back into balance. Acros are a little unhappy from alkalinity instability over the past month or so so it's hard to judge much on the nitrate dosing at this time.

 

[drawman]

I've realized dosing my water change water alone wasn't going to get nitrates where I want them so I've been dosing the tank as of the past week or two. I'm up to about 2.5ppm after dosing a little bit twice daily for a little over a week. One A. tortuosa I can really tell the difference it's starting to gain some nice blue after being a brown slob. The others may take a little more time to notice a difference if at all. I think my end goal for now will be 5ppm.

 

[TX_Punisher]

Can anyone recommend a good, reliable calculator for dosing sodium nitrate?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Sodium nitrate will be hardly different than potassium nitrate (sodium nitrate is just a tad more potent), which is an entry in this calculator:

http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/calculator.htm

 

[sasa]

One more recipe that is super straight forward:
137 gramms of sodium nitrate to be FILLED UP to 1 litre of RO/DI. (so do not add 1 liter to it, max it up for a total of 1 litre!)

This solution contains 100 gramms of nitrate, thus 1 ml increase 1 ppm of nitrate / 100 litre.

 

[Mark Gray]

I am following will start dosing soon

 

[chevythang92]

I'm thinking about trying this also.

 

[sasa]

I found a source for Calcium Nitrate as Ca(NO3)2 on Amazon. It is a fertilizer used in hydroponics. Chemistry class was a long time ago but I found a very cool calculator in the internet.
MW CaNO3 = 164.0878g/mol
Dissolve 164g in 1 L of RODI water.
CaNO3 is about 76% NO3 so 1mL of this solution would yield about 124mg (164mg x 76%) of NO3.
If I add 1mL of solution to 10L of tank volume, then it would raise NO3 by 12.4mg/L or 12.4ppm.
Since I want to raise my Nitrates to about 5ppm, I would cut this down.

Watch out, Calclium Nitrate is usually available as tetrahydrate, meaning there are 4 water molecules in it. If that is the case the 53% of the total weight is nitrate, 17% is calcium and the rest is water.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Watch out, Calclium Nitrate is usually available as tetrahydrate, meaning there are 4 water molecules in it. If that is the case the 53% of the total weight is nitrate, 17% is calcium and the rest is water.

Since the post was 3.5 years old, he likely won’t see your reasonable cautionary note. lol

 

[sasa]

Well even if not it may be useful for others who read it

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Well even if not it may be useful for others who read it

True.

 

[LRT]

Just started dosing sodium nitrate a cpl weeks ago. Go real easy with it. And make sure you have a good test kit for both nitrates and phosphates and be prepared to monitor and make corrections to both phos and nitrates.
I screwed up with my API nitrate kit. Just kept dosing and not seeing a reading.
Went and got a red sea test kit and nitrates where so high off the charts basically fluorescent purple when I checked it.
Anyhow at about 85% water change over the weekend I got it down between 15-20 ppm but not before doing any damage. Probably going to lose my Jawbreaker colony.
Before dosing Nitrates:

After dosing Nitrates:

Completely wiped out my phosphates as well.

 

[Stigigemla]

If You are low on both nitrate and phosphate and start dosing one of them there is a risk that the other will bump in to zero. The consumption will raise a bit and the one thats limiting the growth is now the one You are not dosing. Thats why Your phosphates are wiped out now. So add some phosphate.
Maybe the Ricordea will do better if you turn down the air to the skimmer. That will leave more nutrients in the water.

 

[SBB Corals]

@Randy Holmes-Farley

is this sodium nitrate ok? it says Tech/ Industrial grade.. i know some hobbies are using this one with no issue but wondering if this will cause pollutants long term?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

It may be fine, but "Industrial Grade" doesn't mean anything. The 99+ is good to know, but I'd still prefer food grade since it has a specific test for heavy metals.