Dosing Nitrates (Flourish Nitrogen)

[idisc]

So after a bunch of testing, replacing lights ect... I have come to the conclusion that my sps are faded because I lack Nitrates. Everything is growing great, nice PE ect.. but the color has dulled.

Tanks Specs:
90G w/ 20L Sump
2x 175w 14k Aquamaxx Bulbs + 2x Super Actinic VHO's (VHO 11am to 9pm - MH 1pm-7pm)
SWC 150 Extreme Skimmer
4x RW-4 Wave Makers
Carbon Reactor - Only ran few days a month

Current Levels: Dosing 10ml Alk/Cal Daily on DP-4 (RedSea Liquid A&B)
NO3: 0 on API (Have always been 0 - only slightly increased with heavy feeding)
P04: 0.040 - HANNA
Calc: 410 - API
Alk: 8.5-9 Steady - API
Mag: 1380 - Salifert

I also add 4ml RedSea Coral Colors Weekly of (A,B,C,D)

Fish Load: ( Anytime I add another fish it dies...like a week later in "perfect" condition.
2x Small Occ Clowns
1x Tomini Tang
1x Green Mandarin
1x Blue/Green Chromis

I only feed once a day (Sometimes a cube of mysis, sometimes pellets) - I feed coral once a week with Roids.

Inverts:
1x Cleaner Shrimp
1x Blood Fire Shrimp
1x Peppermint Shrimp
1x Halloween Crab
10x Hermits
3x Turbo Snails
15x Nass Snails
5x Astrea Snails

Corals: Around 40 SPS with a mix of LPS

Anyways - I have noticed that my frags are losing color within a few weeks of being in the tank. Some still have great color (Mostly Green Stuff), but others tend to brown or pale out.

I have noticed that all new growth on the SPS is very well colored including corlates (Polyps) all while the body is still pale..and then a few weeks go by and the new growth pales out.

This leads me to think that my nitrates are just to low. I don't want to start overfeeding the tank and cause both NO3 and PO4 to rise so I just got in some " Seachem Flourish Nitrogen" to raise my NO3. Does anything else have experience using this or dosing nitrates?

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

off topic

off topic

I can't comment on RS dosing because I never used that stuff.
I would think your fish load would produce more than enough trates for your corals to be colorful.
The main thing that jumped out at me from your post is the fact that you only have one Lysmata shrimp of several species.

Keep Lysmata in pairs and they will constantly keep the aquarium fed with zooplankters

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

another thought

another thought

if you want to raise nitrates why not just unplug the skimmer?

 

[tmz]

I haven't used the Seachem fourish nitrogen product,desinged fro freshwater planted tanks ;though based on the product descrition information ,I'd be a little concerned about the extra potassium building up overtime and a potential overdose of ammonia in a reef tank. When I'm inclined to dose a little nitrogen , I prefer sodium nitrate or sometimes a little amino acid . Both provide nitrogen without phosphate.

Whether or not a tank has a nitrogen defficiency is hard to tell. Low or undetectable NO3 doesn't necessarily indicate a nitrate defficiency since trace levels of ammonia and other nitrogen sources are also in play.

Having said that trying it in very small amunts is reasonable. I tinker with a tsp of sodium nitrate for a 650 gallon system from time to time which still allows th NO3 level to stay belo 1ppm. Much more can spur on nuisance algae.

 

[Ellery]

I dose maybe 30-60 mL of Potassium Nitrate (Spectracide Stump Remover) weekly if I am home to try to get my Nitrate just high enough to 1.5ppm in my 400 gallon system. My Acros seem to be more colorful this way. I have not been around to feed more to keep it up since I only automatically feed NLS pellets in sparing amounts 4x/day.

 

[idisc]

Since the dose and this could be that I replaced my bulbs also, but I am seeing new growth beyond the normal, browned out acros getting color, a milli that never had pe or color now has small pe and turning green and red.

I am going to continue this regimen for a few more weeks and see how it does. I'm dosing 1 cap of the flourish nitrogen.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G920A using Tapatalk

 

[pascal32]

a while back I was running heavy SPS tank and couldn't get my nitrates up. I ended up dosing sodium nitrate very slowly till the system was at 1 ppm - for the most part it held there, growth and color were fantastic.

memory serving correct the test kit would turn yellow instead of red when testing.