Azno3

[cthetoy]

So the AZNO3 lowers phosphates as well?

 

[melev]

Apparently, although that was not my primary goal nor was it an expected event. I can't promise that it will do the same in another person's tank.

For now, I would stick to seeing how this works with what it promises.

 

[cayars]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10933591#post10933591 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by iantoh
hi there Carlo,

not meaning to add fuel to the disagreement, but i stand by Boomer's comments on the waterchange issue.

think of it this way, if youre stuck in a room filled with potentially poisonous smoke, would opening the windows or running out of the room into clean fresh air cause you any damage or concern to you? it wouldnt, but more likely bring immense relief and do you a world of good.

Hello iantoh, Consider yourself in the majority. I don't think people realize all that goes on in the tank. They just assume nitrates are bad. Let me see if I might be able to clear up some things without getting to technical or to long winded.

I think what you gave is a poor analogy. Smoke is harmful and not good for living things - non that I know of anyway. This is NOT the case for nitrates. They are one of the 3 core building blocks needed with carbon and phosphates being the other. Some SPS & LPS corals are known to use nitrate levels up and past 40 ppm to fuel their growth. There is also algae and other fauna in the tank that will readily use the nitrates when they are there.

When a tank has a normal routine of running (including water changes) there is a level of normal nitrates in the tank that everything adjusts to (the good and the bad stuff). When you drastically reduce or limit this one thing you upset the balance of the nutrients in the tank.

now relating this back to water changes, fresh NSW typically registers below 0.5ppm of nitrates, and if you grant that this is the typical nitrate level in the ocean's reefs, then replacing water that has elevated levels of nutrients (i.e nitrates, phosphates) should only do the reef inhabitants good, because its a reversion to parameters which they are used to, or genetically predisposed to by nature. of course, this assumes the water replacing what you take out in a water change is cleaner and has better parameters. it would be like a breathe of fresh air vis a vis my analogy above.

This to me is like saying you are 100 foot down diving and are slowly running out of air. Instead of slowing ascending you quickly swim to the surface so you have fresh air to breath. You didn't adjust properly. What happens? This is a closer analogy IMHO of nitrates to corals/tanks.

I have never witnessed a situation where a water change with fresh NSW or a good salt mix of proper salinity levels causing problems. if nitrates may be likened to a pollutant like smoke, that is toxic at elevated levels, i seriously wonder the logic behind slowly lowering the amount of pollutant.

That's the thing. Nitrates themselves AREN'T toxic. They have never been proven toxic to normal tank creatures at reasonable amounts of say 100 ppm. It's not a pollutant but a "food" source so to speak. It should be controlled just like any other source of "need" a coral has.

If your alkalinity was at 6 dKH would you drastically bump it up to 10/11 dKH or would you slowly build it up? Not really any different.

on the other hand, if for example, you had lots of algaes thriving on elevated levels of nitrate, and a large water change with clean water suddenly limited the continued growth of these algae such that they die enmass and consequently cause issues by deleting oxygen levels as they breakdown or release spores, etc, then i guess that truly is a concern, but nothing which cannot easily be prevented or circumvented, and which though sparked by the water change, is more an extenuating circumstance affecting the result of a water change, rather than a general and standard reaction.

Yes that is true. All the fauna in the tank needs to adjust also. This is why I don't like water changes of more then 20% and usually will only recommend a 10% water change. I'd rather see weekly 10% then biweekly 20% for the reason of keeping things more stable in the tank while removing DOCs.

another thing i'd like to ask, if, for example, you come home to find your tank in a state of crashing or semi-crashing. what do you think is the safest thing you're likely to do to help save your reef? more likely than not, i think most people would opt for a large water change. and the history of RC and many other boards shows that more good than harm has been achieved with water changes.

Completely different situation. No doubt, an emergency is just that, and you do what you need to do. What is the worse of 2 evils so to speak? If something was accidentally dropped in the tank that could kill things you quickly put in loads of carbon and start changing water for example. In this case the overall health of the system isn't important. It's keeping them alive. You can nurse them back to health later.

well, pls do share with us the references supporting your claim as we could all stand to learn from differing viewpoints.

ian

ps: sorry to side-track from the main subject of this thread, being the use of AZ-NO3

Without getting long and hijacking the thread. I'll leave a few tidbits of things to think about:

When DOC compounds contain nitrogen, they are mineralized by bacteria present in the tank, into ammonia. The ammonia is utilized by plants, leading to excessive growth, or oxidized by nitrifying bacteria to the final product, nitrate, which may accumulate in the aquarium. That is why water changes are usually advocated. Many people think that water changes are designed to lower the nitrate concentration. While this may occur to some extent, the real reason is to lower the DOC content of the water. Since nitrate and DOC concentrations are sometimes directly related, and nitrate is easy to measure, it is often used as a yardstick to determine when to make a water change. In reef aquariums with higher diversity of organism the FW, DOC may accumulate while nitrate does not or vice versa.

We typically hear/say that coral reefs are "low nutrient" ecosystems. Strictly speaking, this is incorrect and leads a lot of folks to problems in the hobby. Coral reefs are poor in DISSOLVED INORGANIC nutrients (ammonia, nitrate, phosphate) in the water column over the reef. Coral reefs are very, very rich in a variety of organic forms of nutrients--zooplankton, detritus, algae, fish, corals, bacteria, etc. Coral reefs are not nurient poor--they have lots of living and dead organic sources of nutrients--they are just poor in those inorganic nutrients.

Since we don't have the vast ocean to replace our water volume on a continual basis there is something of a contradiction between these two levels in our tanks. Corals on the reef have an abundant supply of nitrates all the time even though the levels are low. In our tanks they both tend to be higher or lower together. The corals adapt to this.

The Reef Aquarium Vol 3 pg 175 (book many will have) "In fact, elevated nitrate levels as high as 10 ppm nitrate nitrogen (approximately = 40 ppm nitrate ion) may encourage more rapid growth of both soft and stony corals (D. Stuber, pers. comm.)."

The above (and also other studies) show the corals do use nitrates to their advantage. Now knowing that the corals can use it and all the fauna, algae and other forms of coral food sources in the tank can use it, why would you want to yank the nitrates out from under them???

If you slowly lower the levels (10-15% decrease at a time shouldn't cause a problem) over time the tank and creatures in it get a chance to adjust to the new levels which doesn't cause a major upset to it's natural running condition.

While I do especially think nitrate levels should be watched closely when you get to 1 ppm or under (to make sure some is available). I also think it wise to watch the levels at any range and work slowly when reducing them as Marc is doing here.

If you want some good reading on what happens when nitrates and phosphates (two of the building blocks) are lowered quickly some of the posts/threads on the Zeovit forum are especially good reads. You can also find some good info here at RC if you look for posts from Jörg Kokott (Germany-Marine Biologist) & Jens Kallmeyer (Germany- Geologist, PhD). They both have a solid understanding of these conditions and their posts are well written and easy to read/understand.

If we really want to get into this in detail we should probably start a new thread and not hijack this one.

Carlo

PS I've never said you can't do large water changes and get away with it. You surely can do it. I just don't think it's the wisest move. Every time you do a large water change you create something of an "upset" and an "unstable" system if you will.

 

[cayars]

melev, you need to up your dosage of the product a bit more. When/if your nitrates stall you should bump it a bit more. I believe you were planning on doing this anyway, but I thought I'd mention it.

ORP drops because you are adding a carbon source to the tank which causes the bacteria to populate quicker and this uses up O2 which causes the ORP to drop.

siskiou, for whatever reason you were dosing to much of the product (not saying you weren't following directions). In general when adding any carbon source and you get what you saw which was probably due to a bacteria bloom, you stop the current dosage, wait out two extra days and then continue at about 3/4 where you were at. If it happens again you do the same, wait out two extra days and continue at about 3/4 of the last dose. This allows the system to stabilize to the level of the carbon addition. You also want to keep a close eye on your alkalinity level and keep it at 8.5-9 dKH for normal salts or 9.5-10 dKH for salts high in Borate like Seachem or Crystal Sea salts.

Carlo

 

[siskiou]

Thanks, Carlo.
I just wonder why the "bleachy smell" and it responding to dechlorinator.
There was no cloudiness in the water, which is one thing they warn about on the bottle.
And I'm absolutely positive I even underdosed a little (didn't take the sump into account, just the 120G tank volume).

 

[Boomer]

iantoh


and the history of RC and many other boards shows that more good than harm has been achieved with water changes.

I agree

Carlo

I know what you are driving at and have no real issue with that. And that was a nice well thought out post.

If you guys decide to start another thread, not my cup of tea however, you should get Mescom involed in it or can PM him to help. He can dump more info than one can read in a year :lol: Another would be MCsaxmaster.

 

[jdieck]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10936141#post10936141 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Boomer
...you should get Mescom involed in it or can PM him to help. He can dump more info than one can read in a year :lol: Another would be MCsaxmaster.

Me too... me too... :bounce2:

Nah... Too busy to play ping pong

 

[cayars]

Honestly I'm not really sure why you got the bleachy smell. I could take a pretty good guess what it was but it would only be speculation.

I don't think anyone is going to be able to ever say with complete certainty what happened because the AZ-NO3 product causes a complex process of events to happen in the tank when it's added. What happens in one tank won't always be what happens in another tank.

The AZ-NO3 is adding a type of sugar to the tank to feed enzymes and bacteria. These processes react differently in everyone's tank but usually end up reducing the nitrates and phosphates. You could have had a bacteria bloom which contributed to your problem.

Typically especially with the older versions of the product you would sometimes get the bacteria bloom (might not be obvious) which caused the ORP to go lower then rise up a lot with another dose of the product. This could cause heavy oxidation to take place in the tank. Similar to high levels of ozone injection.

One possible explanation I can think of is the with high oxidation levels some of the bromide in your tank may have been converted to bromine. Bromine has a bleachy smell to it.

But this is only speculation on my part.

Boomer, what do you think? Does this sound possible to you? Any thoughts?

Carlo

 

[Boomer]

Carlo

Bromine really does not smell and why it is used in some pools and spa's as it has no or little smell. But it cost more. However in chlorine, if we want to look at that, it produces chloramine gases. This is what you really smell in pools, not chlorine gas. A nice fresh swimming pool, dosed properly with bleach, does not smell of bleach. It is once the organics start to get into the pool, skin, pee etc. that have Amines in them, which react/combine with the chlorine to produce chloramine gas. There are also Bromamines but are much harder to produce.

With that all said I think his issue was the dechlor and the production of sulfate gases. In the presence of lots of bacteria plankton, etc. sulfate is picked up much more instead of Molybdate and gets converted to dimethylsulfate and dechlor's are sulfate based. This has been shown a least in plankton studies an why the water stinks if the Molybdate is low and sulfate normal or the Molybdate is normal but the sulfate is high and why some skimmers stink also.

Oop's

So I don't get in trouble with my old forum freind

I meant Mesocosm and he is even online

 

[Boomer]

edit

Missed the part where it already smelled but still could be it. Why the dechlor took away the smell, clueless.


You will not get to bromine in the water unless there is an oxidizer. So the chloride or bromide would have to get oxidized to bromine or chlorine. And I don't see it. It would have to be on the order of crap loads of ozone.

 

[cayars]

I took a stab at it. I have no clue either. I do know that there was problems with I think version 3 of AZ-NO3 where the ORP could sky rocket for a period of time and then would drop back down.

I tried to think of some of the halides that would get affected by high ORP levels and bromide came to mind. Since the high ORP levels can "convert" the bromide to bromine I thought maybe.

I could have swore earlier that bromine had the smell of bleach to it. I did a search and found this a few minutes ago.

CDC - Center for Desease Control:
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/bromine/basics/facts.asp
"Bromine is a naturally occurring element that is a liquid at room temperature. It has a brownish-red color with a bleach-like odor, and it dissolves in water"

So I hypothesized what could have taken place. It still sound reasonable to me but who knows? That's the best "thought/guess" I can come up on the smell.

Carlo

 

[siskiou]

Thanks for checking into the bleach smell for me.
I'll probably never find out what exactly happened chemically, but my corals (just the softies) didn't like it, and neither did the longspine urchin.
He lost a lot of spines, but recovered completely after the water changes.
I ran no ozone on the tank.

 

[Boomer]

Carlo

Since the high ORP levels can "convert" the bromide to bromine I thought maybe.

You can only get these with strong oxidizers. High ORP in reef tank means nothing unless it is brought about by strong oxidizers. See Randy's article on ORP.

Here is what is said about AZ-NO3

http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_AquariumPage.aspx?PageAlias=additives_azno3

Look at the bottom. They would not be telling you to watch your ORP and get ready to add BioOxygen tablets, which increase O2. These are probably perborate or think OxyClean. They are saying AZ NO3 will really consume O2. Now if siskiou added this to his tank it is a new game

siskiou

Well it is to late now but a DPD kit would have told all

 

[siskiou]

DPD?
Sorry, am from Germany (living in the US) and haven't come across that term yet.
And no, I didn't add BioOxygen tablets.

 

[mesocosm]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10938323#post10938323 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by siskiou
DPD? ...

Diethylphenylene diamine ... a testing reagent (typically in tablet form) used to measure chlorine or bromine.

HTH
:thumbsup:

 

[cayars]

Yea I agree Boomer on the ORP and what the bottle says. In my earlier usage of the product that is exactly what I saw also (drop in ORP). I myself never saw a rise in ORP on my system.

However, some people have reported that they see a huge ORP increase that takes place for a short period of time after dosing the product. This came about after version 3 of the product. I can't help but wonder if they added a small amount of oxidizer to the product to combat the known low O2 issues in ver 1 & 2? I wonder how many people that use this product have an ORP probe?

On the front of the bottle it does say "All Natural Oxidation / Reduction Enzyme Catalyst" What would the "oxidation" part be? I get the 2nd part "reduction enzyme catalyst".

Still just a lot of speculation with no proof of anything however.

Carlo

 

[melev]

Let me know when it is safe to post in my thread again.

 

[Billybeau1]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10940861#post10940861 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by melev
Let me know when it is safe to post in my thread again.

Can you spell........... H.I.J.A.C.K..................

You had a nice one going there Marc. Maybe you can start another one.

 

[melev]

I'll just measure my NO3 tomorrow and slip it in between the other conversations.

 

[Billybeau1]

You are a good sport my friend. :lol: