Very ULNT Nitrate 0 & po4 0... Potassium Nitrate?

[tmz]

Nitrate in my tanks is almost never over 1ppm . Been like that for about 7 years ; often nearly undetectable and it is not an issue for a wide variety of vibrant corals without any nitrogen supplementation from amminos or otherwise. Nitrogen deficiencies are possible but rare in a fed tank. NSW runs around 0.01 /0.02ppm btw.

The video posted offers no reason to boost K (potassium) to twice the natural level; just a cavalier approach to "crazy " ratios. There is no plausible reason presented for any benfit. Since K effects gradients , ion movement and osmolarity I wouldn't target levels beyond the nautral seawater level of around 400ppm.

 

[bertoni]

long term not good. unless you are dosing amino acids.

Lots of people say that, but there are a lot of very nice tanks that run at zero measurable nitrate. My tanks ran at that level for many years, but I had primary soft corals. I think the nutrient level issue is still open for more learning.

 

[Dan_P]

Hi,

I have an sps tank with this parameters:

Salinity 1026
Amonia: 0 API
Nitrite: 0 API
Nitrate: 0 (salifert)
PO4: 0 (hanna phosphorus ULR)
kh: 7dkh
cal: 420
mag: 1320

Its an big SPS Frag tank 1600 liters with very little rock and also not much fish. 2 yellos tangs, One Salifert tang, one 6 line and 11 chromis. ( 7 chromis added today to try to reis PO4 and NO3). I was Feeding with ocean nutrition mixed pellets 4 - 5 times a day.

When I feed froozen food, some corals start to RTN and some do from base up, others from the tips and other both.

So, I want to try the Potassium Nitrate, but the KNO3 also will keep down my PO4 and I think that this is maybe a bad idea. Maybe will couse the corals to RTN like when feeding froozen food.

I have 2 frag tanks one LPS and one SPS each one with the same fish and have the some problem. Some LPS are not showing negative response but they are not that colorfull. Some mushroom have pale color.

So, can I does Potassium nitrate to the tanks? Is the ULNT issue afects more the sps than the SPS?

I added 8 chromis to each tank and change from Ocean Nutricion to Tetra food to reise first the PO4 and then use the Potassium nitrate. Is this a good way to go?

By the way I dont have any GFO or Biopellets and I dont does votka.

thanks and sorry for My bad English.

I think it is too soon to start experimenting. Is the evidence for your coral issues strong enough to start raising nitrate levels? I don't think so. If you are having issues with LPS, I suggest that you explore the possibilty of ther causes.

How old is the system? If it is less than a year, skip adding nitrate, and consider other potential causes. Older than a year? Perform the detective work a bit longer, looking for other causes for coral issues.

 

[Alitoo_81]

hi, My tank is now almost one year old. I stopped dosing N and P becouse I am where I want to be. NO3 2,5 and PO4 at 0,04. Its a Frag tank of 1600 liters with only 20 fish (5 tangs and the rest chromis). That is why I had a very low nutrient system (I had only 5 chromis and 5 tangs before). Now I feed 5 times per day, I add amino acids, also pappone every 3-4 days and CV from Korallen-Zucht. Corals are doing well now.

The other thing suspicious is that I use only home made plugs and they may couse ph to reise in the system. But I do cure them for at lest 30 to 45 days with 2 water change every week. I only had API ph test but today I will receive a digital one. I use White portlend cement with cruched corals and aragonit sand. After curing them I do not take them out of the water ever. I store them in RO water in a bucket and chage the water every other day. So I dont think that this is making any issues unless the cement that I was using had any chemicals. I was using hidraulic cement before. I made also water changes of 30% 2 times in the last 2 weeks just in case. We do use a lot of plugs so we have to be very carefull.

thanks

 

[tmz]

Maybe, after storing them in RO for a while , moving them to salt water curing so a bacterial film can develop would be useful. I don't make my own but do store plugs and frag rocks in the sump.

 

[Alitoo_81]

Maybe, after storing them in RO for a while , moving them to salt water curing so a bacterial film can develop would be useful. I don't make my own but do store plugs and frag rocks in the sump.

good idea I have a big quarantene tank I can put them in it.

 

[oceanarium]

When I started my own coral farm i was using the home made frag plugs out of white cement and aragonite because i wanted them to look like natural stones.

I was also culturing live rocks of the same manufacture and it lead to us having difficulty. PH was stable something else was going on. I also spoke to some abalone farmers who had done some testing on using concrete for the ab farm who advised me to stop using the concrete as their tests had revealed products leaching from the cement. They were not prepared to tell me all the detail of the tests results just a friendly warning.

I moved or substrate production to ceramic and the problems stopped.

Interestingly I was super low on phosphates while using the concrete rocks, perhaps they can adsorb it for a while. Here is a post i made else ware detailing our story;

Looking for opinions and information on what might be negative effects of concrete products to reef building corals within re circulation systems. Attempts to find information leads to conflicting results. I see the concrete blocks are now popular to build and rehabilitate wild reefs. I also know of an abalone farm that moved away from the concrete products they used because of tests revealing certain substances being leached.

A bit of background, I have been using concrete and aragonite mix to make the base we culture our corals onto for many years. Researched a lot in the early days about curing etc and came up with a product that worked well for us. Initially I had a wild collect operation, the culture side R&D for a future expansion to a full blown culture operation. A few years back we started the new culture operation. This involved several systems dedicated to live rock and coral grow out, in order to get the government approvals conditions place on us was that no natural rock could be used to grow our products. We settled on the concrete option.

Each system as it came on line had a large amount of concrete rock, to become live with time. We added all the bits as required coralines, sponges, bacteria etc. Simultaneously we added corals all glued to fresh but small concrete stones. The systems all took a long time to dial in at least a year before I had them performing adequately well for all coral types. Things chugging along fine for several months selling nice cultured corals :mrgreen:

Then we start to do a bit of live rock sales, at first only small batches of a few boxes here and there. replacing the sold rock with new base rock to become live. We notice difficulties in our coral culture in attempts to keep all corals growing well, things like loss of axial polyps on SPS, set backs in montipora's etc. Change a few things fiddle around for several weeks, things improve. This happens several times and in different systems.

By now i am becoming suspicious, but still we have been successful using such products for many years though never quite in such volumes. I am mixing concrete and making rocks now most days of the week, curing them for several weeks then placing them for 2-3 months in a 2500ltr tank that stores our waste sea water from water changes this is emptied of 1000ltrs every week.

Then we get some big live rock sales and one system in particular gets a few hundred kilograms of fresh rock added... The SPS all loose axial polyps sensitive corals like monty in particular are hard hit with colony's receding even tougher corals as Serriatopora with some color morphs also receding.

By now I am certain the adding fresh rock has effects, I decided to wait for the corals to improve though not to add any more rocks. After several months things have improved, though still not quite right. I bit the bullet and remove all the freshest concrete rocks out and replace with a quarried rock. within weeks axil polyp production is very good.

As a result we have switched to use of ceramics for our corals these past few months so no fresh concrete no enters any of our system tanks .... All 4 systems are now producing the best growth we have achieved since we started them up. Even some SPS variants I have had mixed success with to date now bursting into growth for the first time for us.

 

[oceanarium]

Nitrate in my tanks is almost never over 1ppm . Been like that for about 7 years ; often nearly undetectable and it is not an issue for a wide variety of vibrant corals without any nitrogen supplementation from amminos or otherwise. Nitrogen deficiencies are possible but rare in a fed tank. NSW runs around 0.01 /0.02ppm btw.

My situation is very much like Alitoo a huge number of frags relative to a small fish population. Plus i use carbon dosing to reduce P with no P adsorbent media.

Mine tests below 1ppm too, though I am adding significant amounts of KN03 and CaN03 twice per day to raise it above 0.000. Adding over 100g in dry weight in a week, so i seem to have a significant N deficiency in what my systems want to consume.

I can certainly see significant gains in my corals colors, growth and vitality. Certainly know when N is deficient the coralines stop growing.

I tried many possibilities papone and other foods etc that did work, but these tended to lead to other issues for me Phosphates, Apitasia, Vertamids, algaes etc. I found a balance now with smaller feedings and the nitrogen additions.

 

[tmz]

Pete, Thanks for the observations. I don't use phosphate binders either (PO4 runs 0.02 to 0.04ppm) but do feed a large fish population regularly and dose vodka and vinegar daily. I wonder if alk or aluminum might be part of the concrete story.

 

[oceanarium]

Its been some time now since i used the concrete, I always have tested regular so ALK swings would have been detected.

The effects of aluminium are known on sps from the aluminium based Phosphate removers, so would agree this could be a high possibility.

 

[Alitoo_81]

Hi Oceanarium, I have all corals good but I did not add any new coral frag till today. A fragged several corals and I will see if some thing negative happens again. I now boil the frags to lol.

I also thought about it that maybe the home made plugs are cousing some thing in the water. But there is many farms using them with no problems. If some thing bad happens now I will change to ceramic plugs too.

Any one have more info on this?

Thanks

 

[Alitoo_81]

Now I am worried... can my cement plugs couse something? I made 2 30% water change and corals did will sense, so maybe there was something in the water coused by cement. But I also had several other issues. Like low alkalinity, salinity and most of all very low nutrient tank. All fixed! So cant tell for sure if the concrete plugs are the couse. Only time will tell now.

 

[bertoni]

The cement plugs might spike the alkalinity and the pH, but that's about it. Low alkalinity would be more difficult to explain unless somehow the cement plugs were acting as nucleation sites.