Dosing aspartic acid

sorry its taken me so long to get an update up but my school schedule got crazy with midterms and finals. Anyway, I was dosing 1 salifert test kit spoon everyday. I didn't notice much of a difference between that and 3 spoons every three days. I then upped the dose to 2 spoons a day. I still didn't see much difference after that. Then the pump on my PSK150 started producing stray voltage so I started running my PSK100H. This is when I started to see a difference. After running the smaller skimmer I noticed that my green cap and some of my orange caps started browning out. Also my SPS corals lost some of their color.I haven't dosed in about 2 weeks and it looks like my corals are starting to color back up, at least my green cap is starting to turn green again. My nitrates leveled off at 20ppm and I have to clean my glass more often than usual. From what I observed, it doesn't matter how much you dose (1 or 2 spoons a day) as long as you have a good skimmer. I didn't really see any problems until I started running and under sized skimmer. Since I didn't see a difference with the higher dose I'm going to try dosing 2-3 spoons once a week. I have a feeling there will be no difference. I'll keep you guys posted.
 
jlinzmaier said:
Just remember too much of a good thing can lead to a very bad outcome!!

Jeremy
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yes! To those that are trying this for the first time, TAKE IT SLOW! My process took about 4 months and I was very careful in observing my aquarium. They browning out of my green cap was my first negative sign and I immediately discontinued use because from what I saw, My protein skimmer is not cutting it. So yeah, be very careful when using large doses.
 
Anyone have any updates?

I'm thinking of starting a dosing regimen soon and will include other AA's individually.

What I would like to hear is if anyone else is dosing Asp with a low nitrate system and/or with biopellets in conjunction? I've reached nearly undetectable nitrates in my system and think that I could be limiting N for further bacterial growth.

I was thinking of including glutamine as well as it breaks down into ammonia.
 
Randy Holmes-Farley said:
FWIW, all amino acids can break down to ammonia when fully metabolized. :)
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Oh of course! My thinking was more along the lines of abiotic/non-enzymatic degradation of Gln into NH3 when in water. I've seen this with solutions I made before that sat out on my benchtop. Since it's pH mediated, perhaps making a low pH stock solution of Asp/Gln would give a nice mix of Asp/Gln/NH3. :)

Here's a link that shows some of the curves based on pH/temp: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0261-5614(91)90037-D
 
Yeah I read the full article. It was about a 1% decay rate at ambient (22-24C) in water. It also said the products formed were NH3 and pyroglutamic acid. Kinda odd since I thought Glu +NH3 would be the products much like the mechanism of how Glutaminase works on Gln.
 
FWIW, I'd think it will mostly be taken up in a day or two, so there won't be much abiotic degradation. But I have no actual info how fast bacteria and other organisms might metabolize it.
 
Yeah I was thinking more about the stock solution being stored at ambient rather than in the tank dynamics. I was thinking of keeping sterile aliquots around and using them as needed. But maybe keeping them at 2-8 and nonsterile would be easiest.
 
Bump for any new experiences anyone may have to share.

I started dosing my SPS dominant nano (30 gallons total) with aspartic acid about a month ago, at the rate of two Salifert spoons per week. Can't say I've seen any results yet, positive or negative.
 
I'm not sure that corals require glutamine, but it'd be safe to dose in small quantities. You might want to check into what's known about corals and amino acids.
 
Anybody else experimenting with aspartic acid? I decided to dose because I felt my tank was lacking nutrients. I run bp's and a very over sized skimmer as well as carbon. Nitrates at 0, phosphates on the low side at .01 using Hannas ULR. Colors were lacking as well from my sps. Dosed 4 small red salifert spoons into my tank maybe a week ago and have noticed lots of my sps sprouting new branches and one of my dying chalices is recovering really speedily.
 
I have it and have been thinking about dosing it in lieu of some of the vodka and vinegar I dose. . xxviet, what water volume are you dosing tose 4 salifert small spooons to? Does it dissolve readily ? Any effects from the added organic carbon that comes with it?
 
Read back through the thread and rlized I had tried it ;it's been awhile. Didn't observe any changes with small amounts. May try again.
 
tmz said:
I have it and have been thinking about dosing it in lieu of some of the vodka and vinegar I dose. . xxviet, what water volume are you dosing tose 4 salifert small spooons to? Does it dissolve readily ? Any effects from the added organic carbon that comes with it?
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I knew that it was going to add some carbon to my tank so that would be semi-ineffective since I was trying to add more nutrients to my tank to color it up, but I can tell you that my consumption of alk/cal has sky rocketed. My dosing has been very steady at 64ml/day prior to dosing l-aspartic. I just checked my calcium and alk after four days and both my alk and cal are down. I don't know how much of it is due to the aspartic acid but nothing much as changed in the past four days. Interestingly enough, I am seeing a little more green film algae on the tank walls. Very weird. Will update though in a week.
 
xxvietxjustinxx said:
Interestingly enough, I am seeing a little more green film algae on the tank walls. Very weird. Will update though in a week.
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Why would that be weird? You've added a great nitrogen source, essentially a fertilizer.
 
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