TM NP plus and 0 phos and nitrates.

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

I have read through the threads on this I've found through searching on here, but didn't quite see the advice I was hoping for.

So i was dosing 15ml neophos and 5ml neonitro per day, to keep 5-10 ppm nitrate and .03 phosphate.

I decided to switch to TM plus NP, in an attempt to, in short, increase the good guys over the bad while having to dose. I plan wheb my nutrients are up to use bacto balance or elimi when applicable to maintain the NP dosing line.

However, I am wondering if I should continue the neophos and neonitro for a little while.

I switched all at once, and as expected phosphates and nitrates hit 0, however, what I did nkt consider, was the reduction in ph due to what I assume was less photosynthetic activity having reduced freely available "nutrients".

My PH pretty heavily relies on photosynthesis in the fuge and display to keep ph up.

It dropped below 7.8 for the first time today, ( lately its been 8.0 at the lowpoint and it worried me and i dropped i. 3 ml neophos, and it did appear to turn the ph around.

Any thoughts on dosing more than the recommended Plus NP, or continueing neonitro and neophos while establishing Plus NP dosing?

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

Instead of buying another neophos, i decided to ride out the 0 phos and attempt to combat it feeding reefroids or reef chilli every day alternating along eith polyp booster.

Finally up to .03 only dosing Plus NP. Nitrate is still hitting 0 without dosing Neo Nitro, but from what I've read about Plus NP I assume I can stop that too, going to stop in 3 days and see how it goes sitting at 0. Which, considering how dinos have shown up everyother time I let it bottom out, I am a little worried but putting faith in Tropic Marin here. So far it seems like their claims hold up, just considering ive heavy fed roids before and it never got me up over 0 on its own.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Any thoughts on dosing more than the recommended Plus NP, or continueing neonitro and neophos while establishing Plus NP dosing?

How are the N and P values looking now?

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

How are the N and P values looking now?

This morning:

Phos .02
Nitrate 0

I dosed the max of neonitro last night, going to officially stop dosing the nitrate today and see where it goes with only Plus NP, I assume it will remain 0. Watching and logging everything the rest of the next 2 weeks to try and get an idea of what sitting at 0 nitrates with Plus NP looks like.

So far my corals are looking better than ever, but that could be from all the recent overfeeding too. I never used the full dose of coral foods before this last week. I only have 4 corals, so 3/4 tsp of reefroids seemed rediclous to broadcast feed, but I have other filter feeders and im sure it will eventually be copepod food.

I've also taken out my filter socks 2 weeks ago, and only skim 18 hours a day down from 24.

No mechanical filtration now.

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

Update:

My NO3 continues to read 0. I dosed some Neo Nitro for a few days, an amount that used to get me to 12ppm, now also puts me at 0.

With daily testing, my phosphate climbed from 0, to .12 at .04 per day, over 3 days (reaching that value February 28th)
Nitrates have not read above what I would call on the nyos kit, a .5ppm, the only time it wasn't 0 is if I dosed 4 hours prior to testing.

My Phosphate is currently sitting at .11 still, so it is sustaining the value it climbed to quicky after sitting at 0 for 2 weeks.

I have made no adjustment to Plus NP dosing since I still have no measurable nitrates, and haven't picked up any bacto balance yet.

My ph has improved, up to 8.22 before lights out, and only drops to 8.4 at lights on, so it looks like photosynthetic activity has improved from when I made the switch. My chaeto growth has increased noticeably.

Now I need to figure out how to treat my lack of nitrates if I switch to bacto balance. I imagine it does not include any nitrogen source.

 

[dubmaneh]

@Court_Appointed_Hypeman Did you start at the full recommended dose of the NP Plus or scale up?

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

@Court_Appointed_Hypeman Did you start at the full recommended dose of the NP Plus or scale up?

I started immediately at the max dose.

A quick update on my usage:
I continued dosing the max dosage through to March 22nd. My phosphates were at .11 from march 11th and never climbed or dropped from there maintaining that dosage. I knew at that point I should switch to Bacto Balance, but did not yet have it on hand, and since phos plateaued i decided to just keep what I was doing consistent. I dropped my dosage from March 17th to a 70% max dose, and my phosphates stayed at the .1 to .11 mark. March 28th I finally switched to the max 1 year dose on Bacto Balance. My phosphates are now at .07 droppsing very slowly. My nitrates still hover between 0 and 1ppm. I started dosing Neonitro from brightwell, as it seems to help raise my PH, I am guessing this is from photosynthetic activity improving with nitrate availability. But what I started dosing in nitrates is about 10% of what I used to do to keep it readable.

Seems to be going very well, and my corals really seem to enjoy it, but this could also be due to tank maturing.

I beleive what I have observed with nitrates being undetectable, and the claims from TM on what that means with this product is acurate. While it sat at 0 for a month before I decided to dose a little bit daily, i experienced no issues, aside from slightly reduced co2 consumption in my system. Obviously this is a sample size of 1 tank, and anecdotal, but I personally trust the product.

Keeping in mind that I way overfeed my cirals, fish and use aminos and poly booster, reef chilli reef roids, powedered spurulina, i think the carbon portion of this dosing is doing its part to keeo nutrients stable. And again anecdotal, but given no other feeding change has taken place, it feels like the corals are getting more nutruents.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

FWIW, neonitro won’t directly boost pH, but dosing and consuming nitrate will boost alk and pH, though the pH effect is small while the alk effect can accumulate.

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

FWIW, neonitro won’t directly boost pH, but dosing and consuming nitrate will boost alk and pH, though the pH effect is small while the alk effect can accumulate.

I figured it was photosynthesis causing it, giving the photo organisms something to metabolize.

I might just stop completely dosing it then, because if the affect is only the alk boost, then it has to be more negligible than what I thought I was observing and must mean I have no use for it. If I am correct about my nitrate availability being fine while nitrates sit at what looks like a .25ppm on a nyos kit.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I’d personally like to see nitrate in the 2-10 pom range.