When and why did dosing nitrates start?

[blasterman]

I've dosed ammonia and nitrate to achieve the same goal. In fact, they do.

Ammonia is not toxic when added to a cycled tank. Ive done this for years. Adding stump remover is just more direct and just as cheap.

 

[flampton]

That introduced food is converted gradually. I suggest reading the article below-

About Ammonia

Ammonia will result any time an aquarist adds any type of organic matter to water. Check out these tips from Fritz Aquatics to learn how to balance it!

fritzaquatics.com

You just sent me a article about ammonia written for a 12 year old.

I feel you’re not thinking this through. I will try to explain as best I can.

When you feed your aquarium food the proteins, nucleotides etc. will be broken down by living organisms and the majority of the nitrogen will be released as ammonia. Okay so what happens? Well hopefully it will be picked out of the water and used to create compounds in another organism e.g. coral or a food the coral can consume like photo or heterotrophic bacteria, If it is not utilized in this way it will eventually be oxidized by nitrifiers to nitrate.

So for corals you want nitrogen flux, you want ammonia. Yet are we talking toxic levels? No! IfI told you to raise your ammonia until you hit 0.2 ppm in your aquarium that would be stupid and completely unnecessary but ifI tell you to add 0.02 ppm daily until your nitrates were 5 then what is the issue? In fact to get to 5 that actually might mean adding 0.2 ppm or more a day depending on carbon availability. So now we are talking multiple dosings a day. Still not going to be toxic if done with any thought. Just like anything else the dose makes the poison.

Again the question was why dose nitrates? I say it is not based on any available evidence as usable nitrogen for most everything we care about is in ammonia or amine compounds. Even the organisms that can utilize nitrate for tissue building must convert it back to ammonia first, which is metabolically expensive. Want your corals and their Symbiodinium happy, well give them their ammonia ;)

 

[Sallstrom]

I think we started to test dosing KNO3 around 2010 at work(small public aquarium). We started taking better notes in 2013, so from that year I know we added both nitrate and phosphate when needed :)
It was a good discussion on a Swedish forum ~10 years ago, with @Lasse as one of the leading persons, and since then we’ve dosed both NO3 and PO4.
Nowadays we use nitrate, ammonium and amino acids for adding N.

 

[Lasse]

The nitrate dosing is for me not direct linked to to Coral health - ammonium and maybe also amino acids will be used in a more effective way compared with nitrate. For me it is linked to the cyanobacteria and dinoflagellates problem. There is a lot of experiences that measurable levels or constant adding of nitrate make it more difficult for at least cyanobacteria to grow and form mats. I have one (debatable) idea that nitrate in the water column (and below the mats) impedes the release of phosphate from the substrate. @Dan_P s investigations also indicate that cyanobacteria seems not be so good nitrate consumer either - they seems to prefer amino acids in vitro.

The way I run my aquarium today is >2 ppm nitrate keep the cyanobacteria away and a daily dose of NH3/NH4 keep algae and corals happy (and my algae eating critters too). :D

Sincerely Lasse

 

[Breadman03]

I think we started to test dosing KNO3 around 2010 at work(small public aquarium). We started taking better notes in 2013, so from that year I know we added both nitrate and phosphate when needed :)
It was a good discussion on a Swedish forum ~10 years ago, with @Lasse as one of the leading persons, and since then we’ve dosed both NO3 and PO4.
Nowadays we use nitrate, ammonium and amino acids for adding N.

I got into salt about 9 years ago and remember reducing nitrate through organic carbon dosing being a popular topic. About 5 years ago, awareness of the need for available nutrients seemed to be becoming more commonplace and I recall discussions about dosing nitrate and/or phosphate to provide balanced nutrients in tanks. I believe that what happened is that carbon dosing and other filtration methods allowed us to achieve the goal of zero nutrients but it wasn't the expected utopia. People began to see their corals bleach out easily and as the anecdotes added up, the hobby learned that we should strive for low but detectable nutrient levels.

 

[KenRexford]

I noted this concept in my own thread earlier this past week. Nitrate flow seems untestable, and nitrate excess testing seems pointless once the tank is stable if the eyeball test (no gha, happy corals) works better. Thought was that Hanna checker nitrate is silliness and serves no purpose. I don‘t even check nitrates at all any more because it is always 0 just 0 with unhappy corals (low flow of nitrates) or 0 with happy gha (High flow) or 0 with happy corals and barely noticed gha stumps (perfect flow). I “dose nitrates” with a product called “more fish and more food” when needed.

 

[KyOsIBa515]

Nitrogen (nitrate) and phosphorus (phosphate) is required for all of life. The fact we usually expect to read immeasurable amounts doesn’t mean it isn’t necessarily there. Rather, if we have exceptional growth and color our systems are effectively using it. Some people I know who have super heavily stocked SPS tanks want to see low amounts when testing so they know it is there and being used. (.01-.03 ppms. )

If someone truthfully bottomed out nitrates our systems would perish.

In ideal systems we can take care of nutrients more naturally. However, most peoples displays vs. fuge (if a fuge is used) are horribly disproportionate so dosing or adding reactors to help control exports becomes almost necessary for heavily stocked tanks. Unless you want to do small water changes after almost every feeding that is.

There is always a fine line though. After all this hobby is a giant balancing act...always walking a tight rope with water parameters.

I ran a biopellet reactor and I used GFO in another reactor to help bring phosphates in check. However, I bottomed them out. In return due to truthfully 0 phosphates bacteria cannot formally colonize properly and cycle...my nitrates went sky high. It wasn’t good. Hard lesson learned there.

 

[taricha]

I got into salt about 9 years ago and remember reducing nitrate through organic carbon dosing being a popular topic. About 5 years ago, awareness of the need for available nutrients seemed to be becoming more commonplace and I recall discussions about dosing nitrate and/or phosphate to provide balanced nutrients in tanks. I believe that what happened is that carbon dosing and other filtration methods allowed us to achieve the goal of zero nutrients but it wasn't the expected utopia. People began to see their corals bleach out easily and as the anecdotes added up, the hobby learned that we should strive for low but detectable nutrient levels.

This is a good point and likely explains the OPs question directly. Why do people care about avoiding zero NO3 now more than in the past? Because carbon dosing has become ubiquitous in the hobby making "zero" testable NO3 far more common.
The other part is Lasse's comment about people concluding that the nuisances that come along with "zero" NO3 are more annoying than those that come with modest NO3.

 

[ichthyoid]

You just sent me a article about ammonia written for a 12 year old.

I feel you’re not thinking this through. I will try to explain as best I can.

When you feed your aquarium food the proteins, nucleotides etc. will be broken down by living organisms and the majority of the nitrogen will be released as ammonia. Okay so what happens? Well hopefully it will be picked out of the water and used to create compounds in another organism e.g. coral or a food the coral can consume like photo or heterotrophic bacteria, If it is not utilized in this way it will eventually be oxidized by nitrifiers to nitrate.

So for corals you want nitrogen flux, you want ammonia. Yet are we talking toxic levels? No! IfI told you to raise your ammonia until you hit 0.2 ppm in your aquarium that would be stupid and completely unnecessary but ifI tell you to add 0.02 ppm daily until your nitrates were 5 then what is the issue? In fact to get to 5 that actually might mean adding 0.2 ppm or more a day depending on carbon availability. So now we are talking multiple dosings a day. Still not going to be toxic if done with any thought. Just like anything else the dose makes the poison.

Again the question was why dose nitrates? I say it is not based on any available evidence as usable nitrogen for most everything we care about is in ammonia or amine compounds. Even the organisms that can utilize nitrate for tissue building must convert it back to ammonia first, which is metabolically expensive. Want your corals and their Symbiodinium happy, well give them their ammonia ;)

“When you feed your aquarium food the proteins, nucleotides etc. will be broken down by living organisms and the majority of the nitrogen will be released as ammonia.”

Your assertion is inaccurate.
Proteins released in the environment are rapidly hydrolyzed, especially by bacterial enzymes, which releases the amino acids those proteins were composed of. The majority of those amino acids are then rapidly assimilated by bacteria in the environment, not converted to ammonia.

Diverse, uncultivated bacteria and archaea underlying the cycling of dissolved protein in the ocean - The ISME Journal

Dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) supports a significant amount of heterotrophic production in the ocean. Yet, to date, the identity and diversity of microbial groups that transform DON are not well understood. To better understand the organisms responsible for transforming high molecular weight...

www.nature.com

Secondly, research I have read indicates that the zooxanthellae in corals require as little as 0.2 micromoles per liter of ammonium in order to be maintained. That is 3.6 x 10^-6 gm/liter, an incredibly small amount. Adding amounts of ammonia significantly above that level may cause blooms of bacteria and/or phytoplankton, including eutrophic and/or pathogenic organisms. One study did show benefit at twice the above level of ammonia (0.4 uM/L), but you may need an analytical scale to measure the quantities required & will need to maintain high alkalinity as well.

https://res.mdpi.com/d_attachment/microorganisms/microorganisms-08-00640/article_deploy/microorganisms-08-00640.pdf

FWIW, while it is known that corals/symbionts consume ammonia during daylight, they also release it at night.

As for me, for nitrogen dosing I’ll stick to amino acids, which feed bacteria, which also feed corals.

 

[flampton]

“When you feed your aquarium food the proteins, nucleotides etc. will be broken down by living organisms and the majority of the nitrogen will be released as ammonia.”

Your assertion is inaccurate.
Proteins released in the environment are rapidly hydrolyzed, especially by bacterial enzymes, which releases the amino acids those proteins were composed of. The majority of those amino acids are then rapidly assimilated by bacteria in the environment, not converted to ammonia.

Diverse, uncultivated bacteria and archaea underlying the cycling of dissolved protein in the ocean - The ISME Journal

Dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) supports a significant amount of heterotrophic production in the ocean. Yet, to date, the identity and diversity of microbial groups that transform DON are not well understood. To better understand the organisms responsible for transforming high molecular weight...

www.nature.com

Secondly, research I have read indicates that the zooxanthellae in corals require as little as 0.2 micromoles per liter of ammonium in order to be maintained. That is 3.6 x 10^-6 gm/liter, an incredibly small amount. Adding amounts of ammonia significantly above that level may cause blooms of bacteria and/or phytoplankton, including eutrophic and/or pathogenic organisms. One study did show benefit at twice the above level of ammonia (0.4 uM/L), but you may need an analytical scale to measure the quantities required & will need to maintain high alkalinity as well.

https://res.mdpi.com/d_attachment/microorganisms/microorganisms-08-00640/article_deploy/microorganisms-08-00640.pdf

FWIW, while it is known that corals/symbionts consume ammonia during daylight, they also release it at night.

As for me, for nitrogen dosing I’ll stick to amino acids, which feed bacteria, which also feed corals.

Well you're wrong. In an aquarium you will be necessarily under carbon restriction. The heterotrophs will not use the amino acids for building so much as for energy. They will release the amines as unneeded ammonia. Where do you think nitrates even come from? How can I cycle an aquarium with fish food if bacteria eat it all up? Come on man start thinking this through!

Dose your aminos at least you're giving the aquarium the ammonia it needs lol!

 

[Dan_P]

Well you're wrong. In an aquarium you will be necessarily under carbon restriction. The heterotrophs will not use the amino acids for building so much as for energy. They will release the amines as unneeded ammonia. Where do you think nitrates even come from? How can I cycle an aquarium with fish food if bacteria eat it all up? Come on man start thinking this through!

Dose your aminos at least you're giving the aquarium the ammonia it needs lol!

Good point on the aquarium carbon economy. We tend to forget that the organic matter goes to generating energy AND building biomass.

The energy generating part only uses the carbon, the nitrogen and phosphorous components are left overs. This can be demonstrated on paper by considering fish food with a Redfield ratio of C:N:P. When an organism consumes it, a portion of the carbon atoms are converted to CO2 and energy. For discussion purposes, assume half the carbon atoms are converted to CO2. The remaining organic matter now has proportion of N and P higher than the Redfield ratio. If the organism biomass building need of atoms is approximately the Redfield ratio, it has to dump N and P.

 

[ichthyoid]

In an aquarium you will be necessarily under restriction of everything but air, unless it’s added.

Why would you assume an aquarium to be carbon limited? Your premise is dated.

 

[flampton]

In an aquarium you will be necessarily under restriction of everything but air, unless it’s added.

Why would you assume an aquarium to be carbon limited? Your premise is dated.

Seriously lol!

Here's a suggestion for you. Add a few teaspoons of sugar to your tank and let me know how that goes for you.

 

[ichthyoid]

Good point on the aquarium carbon economy. We tend to forget that the organic matter goes to generating energy AND building biomass.

The energy generating part only uses the carbon, the nitrogen and phosphorous components are left overs. This can be demonstrated on paper by considering fish food with a Redfield ratio of C:N:P. When an organism consumes it, a portion of the carbon atoms are converted to CO2 and energy. For discussion purposes, assume half the carbon atoms are converted to CO2. The remaining organic matter now has proportion of N and P higher than the Redfield ratio. If the organism biomass building need of atoms is approximately the Redfield ratio, it has to dump N and P.

In all living cells, the universal energy currency is adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. The 3 phosphates are where electrons come from to provide energy for cellular processes. The enzymes driving all of this are proteins containing N, which lower energy requirements thus enabling reactions to proceed, which might not otherwise.

To be accurate, all 3 elements C, N P & many others also, play crucial roles in driving cellular energy transfer. I wouldn’t exactly call N & P leftovers.

 

[littlefishy]

I sort of enjoy reading these kinds of disagreements, as long as they don't involve personal insults!

 

[Lasse]

Why would you assume an aquarium to be carbon limited? Your premise is dated

In a way you are right but in another way your wrong. You can do an experiment - if you want. In your well working aquarium just overdose a little with Dissolved Organic Carbon. Just do a bacteria count after that - I do not think you even need to count - you will see it by your eyes as a bacteria film on the substrate and a bacteria fog in the water. Till what @Dan_P stated about carbon loss through CO2 - much of the organic carbon is bounded rather hard in the organic matter and need to be hydrolyzed in anaerobic environment in order to be released and available for the aerobic heterotrophs . In normal - an aquarium is DOC limited - if it was not - you should not be able with help of adding DOC get a higher growth of heterotrophic bacteria.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[flampton]

In all living cells, the universal energy currency is adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. The 3 phosphates are where electrons come from to provide energy for cellular processes. The enzymes driving all of this are proteins containing N, which lower energy requirements thus enabling reactions to proceed, which might not otherwise.

To be accurate, all 3 elements C, N P & many others also, play crucial roles in driving cellular energy transfer. I wouldn’t exactly call N & P leftovers.

You're over your head my man. Like really far.

 

[flampton]

In a way you are right but in another way your wrong. You can do an experiment - if you want. In your well working aquarium just overdose a little with Dissolved Organic Carbon. Just do a bacteria count after that - I do not think you even need to count - you will see it by your eyes as a bacteria film on the substrate and a bacteria fog in the water. Till what @Dan_P stated about carbon loss through CO2 - much of the organic carbon is bounded rather hard in the organic matter and need to be hydrolyzed in anaerobic environment in order to be released and available for the aerobic heterotrophs . In normal - an aquarium is DOC limited - if it was not - you should not be able with help of adding DOC get a higher growth of heterotrophic bacteria.

Sincerely Lasse

Not sure about your bound carbon hypothesis. The majority of organic carbon that enters or is produced within the aquarium will eventually be utilized by heterotrophic or autotrophic organisms and become CO2. This is undeniable as the majority of cellular mass in an aquarium is an obligate aerobe or facultative anaerobe.

 

[Lasse]

Not sure about your bound carbon hypothesis. The majority of organic carbon that enters or is produced within the aquarium will be utilized by aerobic respiration and become CO2. This is undeniable as the majority of cellular mass in an aquarium is an obligate aerobe or facultative anaerobe

Still - the last carbon will leave a biological system as methane. If it not was bounded - you would have the same fast effect when you add surplus food as you get when you ad DOC. It can happen with overfeeding but it takes time - much time.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[ichthyoid]

In a way you are right but in another way your wrong. You can do an experiment - if you want. In your well working aquarium just overdose a little with Dissolved Organic Carbon. Just do a bacteria count after that - I do not think you even need to count - you will see it by your eyes as a bacteria film on the substrate and a bacteria fog in the water. Till what @Dan_P stated about carbon loss through CO2 - much of the organic carbon is bounded rather hard in the organic matter and need to be hydrolyzed in anaerobic environment in order to be released and available for the aerobic heterotrophs . In normal - an aquarium is DOC limited - if it was not - you should not be able with help of adding DOC get a higher growth of heterotrophic bacteria.

Sincerely Lasse

I understand what you are saying. I have carbon dosed, in many forms both areobically & anaerobically for years & I’m well acquainted with bacterial blooms.

What I’m referring to is, that in historically ‘normal’ aquaria, we did not recognize the need for organic carbon, and that it was the limiting factor especially in nitrogen processes.

Organic carbon has become part of the ‘new normal’ in aquariums. Whether by carbon dosing, algae reactors, display refugia or some other means, many/most of us recognize now that it’s required too.

What I think is important to recognize is that something will always be limiting to biological processes. Known as Liebig’s Law of the Minimum-

Liebig's law of the minimum - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org