Nitrate dosing long term log

[Toby_Kourtney]

I'm starting back with daily dosing of .05 po4 and .4 ppm of no3. I dosed .1 ppm p04 yesterday and this morning my coral had way better color and polyp extension. I'll continue with the dosing unless dinos get worse. Today nitrates are 4 ppm and po4 is 0.02 before dosing.

 

[bertoni]

That's interesting. Please keep us posted!

 

[Toby_Kourtney]

Dinos are gone for the most part with the exception of on my birdsnest. Nitrates at 4 ppm phosphates .1. I accidentally bleached a frogspawn after a 3 day black out to kill the dinos so I'm having to reacclimate everything.

 

[bertoni]

Hmm, hopefully, the frogspawn will recover. Making sure it gets a bit of food might help. Of course, it might already be dining well.

 

[Toby_Kourtney]

It's polyps are still all the way extended and it's still eating it's just almost white now. I raised the the light to 13" awl. I'm going to lower the light 1/10 inch per day til I get down to 10" awl. I'm going to have to trim the dead tips of the birdnest that the dinos killed but I'm going to wait til the dinos are completely eradicated. On a side note I just switched all my wavermakers from hydor to all ecotech.

 

[Toby_Kourtney]

FTS w/no3 at 4ppm and po4 at .1. I moved the frogspawn and montis down near the sandbed.

 

[bertoni]

So far, so good, I think.

 

[bif24701]

FTS w/no3 at 4ppm and po4 at .1. I moved the frogspawn and montis down near the sandbed.

What's your intensity of the lighting like? Duration/bulbs/PAR/ what ever information you have. Thank you


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[Toby_Kourtney]

What's your intensity of the lighting like? Duration/bulbs/PAR/ what ever information you have. Thank you


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6x80 ati sunpower with bulbs form front to back
Blue+
Coral+
Actinic
Purple +
Blue +
Geissman tropic
The coral + and blue + are on from 1000-1800. All other bulbs from 1200-1600.
The lights are currently at 11 inches so I don't know the par. But at 8 inches I was getting 400 par at the top of the highest left rock and around 200 par at the sandbed. I did a black out for 3 days and didn't think I would have to reacclimate coral but I ended up bleaching a few things so I had to raise the light back up.

 

[Toby_Kourtney]

After doing a few weeks of reading about the benefits of running elevated alk in a high nutrient reef tank I think I'm going to give it a shot. My alk is currently at 8 dkh. I'm going to raise it to 11 dkh over the next 2 weeks and see how much my calcium uptake increases.

 

[bif24701]

After doing a few weeks of reading about the benefits of running elevated alk in a high nutrient reef tank I think I'm going to give it a shot. My alk is currently at 8 dkh. I'm going to raise it to 11 dkh over the next 2 weeks and see how much my calcium uptake increases.

Watch for precipitation on your heaters and pumps, the sand bed too can become hard. I keep mine a safe 10.5-10.6 so that doesn't happen to me,,,,,,,,,,,,,,again.


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[Lsufan]

I'm following your thread because I have been thinking about dosing no3 for a while now because I have never tested anything but zero on my salifert nitrate kit. I register a little po4 on my Hanna ulr, it's usually between 0 & .01 with the highest reading being .02. All my coral do ok & grow but I think they could have better color, polyp extension & grow a little faster. I do have some hair algea in the tank so I know there has to be some nutrients but I even tested 0 on nitrates before any hair algea popped up. I used to only get a 0 reading on po4 & the hair algea started showing up about the same time a little po4 started to register on the test.

Anyways I'm no expert, I'm sure someone else will chime in on the subject but I would be careful raising your alk & if u decide to do it very slowly. Even though your dosing no3 & po4 I would still consider your tank a low nutrient tank. I'm not sure what is really considered low or high nutrients but personally I consider anything less then about 10 ppm no3 & .1 po4 to be low nutrients.

 

[Toby_Kourtney]

I'll raise it to 10 dkh then and give it a month and see how everything reacts. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Toby_Kourtney]

Alk is at 10.3 dkh (I overshot a little bit) I had to raise my calcium dosing my 2 ml but that's probably from lowering my lights an inch. I'll leave it alone for a week and check levels this weekend. Phosphates at .15 and nitrates >4 ppm and everything is looking great.

 

[Toby_Kourtney]

So after checking today my calcium has dropped from 420 to 400 and alk was back at 8 dkh. I'll slowly bring it back up to 10 dkh and up my dosing pump from dosing 12 ml daily to 15 ml for alk and raise calcium from 15 ml to 18 and retest in a few days.

 

[hubble]

Very interesting read. I've always been told to keep pristeen water qty. 0 on everthing, and i have been doing that. Recently bought a rock piece with zoa's, mushrooms amd a small leather on it from a LFS. Was told the leather liked the water a little dirty. I didn't know what they were talking about. They were saying that you need a little nitrate and phos. because the corals feed on that. I do weekly water changes and keep nitrate and phos at zero. My corals do okay but not much grow at all. Was told to cut back on the water changes and see what happens. They have a large DT (260) and it looks amazing with water changes every couple months.

 

[Toby_Kourtney]

Very interesting read. I've always been told to keep pristeen water qty. 0 on everthing, and i have been doing that. Recently bought a rock piece with zoa's, mushrooms amd a small leather on it from a LFS. Was told the leather liked the water a little dirty. I didn't know what they were talking about. They were saying that you need a little nitrate and phos. because the corals feed on that. I do weekly water changes and keep nitrate and phos at zero. My corals do okay but not much grow at all. Was told to cut back on the water changes and see what happens. They have a large DT (260) and it looks amazing with water changes every couple months.

Raise your nutrient levels and see what happens. I'm doing the balling light method right now so I'm only doing water changes once a month and everything seems fine.

 

[Lsufan]

I know it hasn't been but 3 or 4 days but have u noticed any difference yet in the corals after raising the alk?

 

[Toby_Kourtney]

I know it hasn't been but 3 or 4 days but have u noticed any difference yet in the corals after raising the alk?

My calcium intake has gone up by 5 ml a day but growth has been about the same.

 

[bif24701]

I've been keeping NO3 5-10ppmwith potassium nitrate and my corals are doing great


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