Where should I keep Nitrates for the best SPS color?
- Thread starter Lazylivin
- Start date
sahin
Ultimate Reefer
Peter can you elaborate on what the exact effect is on your Acropora? I presume deeper/stronger colours? - Meaning it wont make ones acropora colour up, but rather make a difference to colours already present? Or none of that at all?
cambo123
New member
In short, no. Unless you dose ALOT of nitrates. 2/3's of the solution is nitrates. If you pump up your nitrates to 1ppm that basically corresponds to a .5ppm bump in potassium. Pretty negligible...even dosing every day as your system will consume as much if not more.
Peter Eichler
New member
Deeper darker colors, I struggled for years to keep certain corals from being pale and dull when I didn't do water changes weekly. I also had a lot of problems with mesenterial filaments and stress reactions during feeding. Things would get especially bad when I went on vacation and the fish weren't fed as much or as regularly as I fed them. Dosing a nitrogen source seemed to have solved this.
However, recently I've been having similar issues with keeping my PO4 levels detectable and having similar reactions from corals. Whether or not this relates to my dosing nitrates is yet to be determined, but I feel pretty strongly there is a link.
Peter Eichler
New member
I was starting below .5 ppm according to Red Sea.
Yes, I increased all in one dose.
My dosing regimen is I'll toss enough nitrogen to boost by a few ppm when I feel like it might be time to do so and test nitrates every now and then. It's been remarkably sporadic, unpredictable and unscientific thus far.
Yes, I increased all in one dose.
My dosing regimen is I'll toss enough nitrogen to boost by a few ppm when I feel like it might be time to do so and test nitrates every now and then. It's been remarkably sporadic, unpredictable and unscientific thus far.
markalot
...
Just tested nitrates and took a few topdowns. I have some corals that are refusing to color up, so I suspect not all acros respond to high nitrates in the same way.
PO4 0.05 (salifert)
Nitrates ...
Miami Orchid
subulata
Under LED the coral above had a lighter green skin and striking violet/blue polyps. Unfortunately I did not test nitrate when it had those colors.
PO4 0.05 (salifert)
Nitrates ...
Miami Orchid
subulata
Under LED the coral above had a lighter green skin and striking violet/blue polyps. Unfortunately I did not test nitrate when it had those colors.
jackson6745
Yeah Yeah
Mark you're kind of high there. Looks like your 50ppm + on the no3. What are you using to test po4?
markalot
...
Salifert, high rez (double everything). I did a 10% water change right after testing and I plan do do another tomorrow or Tuesday. ProdiBio hasn't worked for me yet (ending second month) and an algae scrubber I'm trying out just now has some algae on it.
I'm just not too worried about it at the moment.
markalot
...
So a few more pics from today. These are all at 30, 40+ nitrates.
SSC
But here is the UC Rainbow Milli. In this case rainbow is purple and brown.
I'm guessing that lower nitrates would color some of these lighter, maybe faster, and maybe some simply won't show full colors until nitrate is lower?
SSC
But here is the UC Rainbow Milli. In this case rainbow is purple and brown.
I'm guessing that lower nitrates would color some of these lighter, maybe faster, and maybe some simply won't show full colors until nitrate is lower?
ydshim
New member
Thanks for your post! :hmm5:One of the primary things I am trying to understand is carbon uptake by zooxanthellae. Do they use organic carbon, or inorganic (e.g. CO2). Also, do they get it directly from the water column or from it's host coral.
Carbon is the number one nutrient needed by most living things (apart from H an O of course, but that we have plenty offFor a bacteria the ratios are roughly: (20:14:3:1:0.2) C:N
:K:Fe.
I want to get reference of your comments about C:N
:K:Fe ratio. plz
cambo123
New member
So a few more pics from today. These are all at 30, 40+ nitrates.
SSC
But here is the UC Rainbow Milli. In this case rainbow is purple and brown.
I'm guessing that lower nitrates would color some of these lighter, maybe faster, and maybe some simply won't show full colors until nitrate is lower?
I would trade you these colors for mine!
Triggercdog
New member
I'm confused...what is a moler? I'm not a scientist or biologist, can you explain the ratio to make a solution for dosing? In easy terms please
...I am highly interested in using this, just want to make sure I do it right! Thx
ydshim
New member
Thank you!Don't remember the exact link. Just check wiki e.g. "composition of a bacteria" or "composition of a human body". We are all not that different
http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/m...ation-and-its-importance-micro-biology/33573/
BTW. I did some more research and it looks like there is still a debate on whether zooxanthellae utilize HCO3- directly or, indirectly after HCO3 -> CO2 + OH- reaction taking place in the coral.
e.g.
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/39/16541.full.pdf
cambo123
New member
I'm confused...what is a moler? I'm not a scientist or biologist, can you explain the ratio to make a solution for dosing? In easy terms please
Yeah, a mole is a base unit in chemisty...kinda. Anyway, if using KN03, 1 molar solution is roughly 101g which is roughly 18 tsps.
Step one - mix 18 tsps of stump remover with 1L of water
Now we need to figure out how much to dose for a desired PPM.
Lets set our variables as gallons of water and target N03
Step two- convert gallon to L, 100g is 378L
Step three-multiply target ppm of N03 and multiply by Liters of tank water
So if we have 2ppm target N03, multiply 2 by 378L to get 757mg of No3 desired
Now stump remover is only %61 KN03. Hence 1 mole of N03 is roughly 61mg.
Step four-divide desired N03 by 61
This gives us 12.411mg of Kn03 required to raise 100g to 2ppm. Since we have previously made a 1 molar solution, this now corresponds to 12.411ml of solution to dose to 2ppm.
Hope that helps
Last edited:
Triggercdog
New member
It does and thank you a ton for that!
