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N and P dosing

ofzakaria said:
So did you start dosing before you confirmed you hsve zero or very low no3?
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I tested and had unreadable levels, although at that point I didn’t know how to read below 1 with the salifert.
Then I started dosing 3mL a day and after a few days I tested and was still unreadable so I temporarily increased to 5mL for a few days to bump them up above 0. I have since reduced it to 3mL per day and am still trying to figure out dosage but it’s hard for me to balance. with feeding I can’t predict the amount the food will impact nutrient levels, how long it will take to break down to NO3 and po4, and then water changes just add more variability.

I also think my experience dosing in a new tank will be hard to apply to other tanks since each tank is somewhat unique, like I cured my rocks with dr Tim’s and vibrant as an experiment and in hindsight the vibrant may have played a factor in the low nutrients initially.

Based on what I’ve learned from dosing NO3 in my tank I eventually want to switch to my only food input being pellets from an auto feeder, then acropower/PO4/NO3 to balance the levels of everything. I think it’s hard to have a perfect dose then feed and do water changes without a schedule so I eventually would want to set up awc too. That’s how I’m approaching it at least, I think to get stability there needs to be routines. Then once there is a routine the tweaks can be made with testing. But my planned approach is fueled by a passion for automating things and isn’t right for everyone
 
Well, I have been going on this odyssey for a month or so now, and it hasn't been fun. I just hope it saves me in the long run. Much of it tracked here the issues I'm having: https://www.bareefers.org/forum/threads/not-looking-good-caulastraea-with-tissue-necrosis.26596/

My coral frags seemed to be doing well. I had hair algae, and that ebbed and flowed. Mainly a back glass. However, I had zero nitrate and couldn't get chaeto or coralline to grow. Pods all but disappeared. That seems to be fixed now with dosing. Seeing growth of chaeto and coralline. Lots of pods now. BUT I am dealing with STN with LPS and algae outbreak.

I use food grade or reagent grade

Amazon.com: Prescribed for Life TriSodium Phosphate Anhydrous (TSP) - US Food Grade Granular, 12 oz (340 g): Health & Personal Care

Buy Prescribed for Life TriSodium Phosphate Anhydrous (TSP) - US Food Grade Granular, 12 oz (340 g) on Amazon.com ✓ FREE SHIPPING on qualified orders
www.amazon.com

Sodium Nitrate, Reagent Grade (chemically Pure) – 1 lb. Bag: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific

Sodium Nitrate, Reagent Grade (chemically Pure) – 1 lb. Bag: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific
www.amazon.com

Attached are my calculations. Basically, since I'm using Trisodium Phosphate and Sodium Nitrate instead of the Potassium Nitrate, I have to adjust how much I dose down. So 5 ml for .06 ppm Phosphate and 10 ml for 1 ppm Nitrate. (See: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/sodium-nitrate-dosing.359779/)

What I did learn was once I dosed nitrate at high enough levels to be detectable, my phosphate looked ok for a bit and then tanked to zero. Also had some small-ish alk swings that I hope are fixed now. So you want to have both on hand b/c things can change quickly when one is rate limiting the use of the other.
 

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lhuynh said:
Also had some small-ish alk swings that I hope are fixed now. So you want to have both on hand b/c things can change quickly when one is rate limiting the use of the other.
Click to expand...
I can’t find it again, but I remember seeing a video from a reefing conference where the speaker talked about different nutrient levels having relationships with the alk levels. I also dealt with alk swings but I believe mine were user error from increasing dosage too much at a time. However it would be interesting if the nutrient dosing impacted the alk consumption making alk stability more difficult as the nutrient dosing was adjusted. Ie more nitrate for the corals to consume brings a faster growth rate which requires more alk, or raising nutrients gave a better condition for growth
 
max_nano said:
I can’t find it again, but I remember seeing a video from a reefing conference where the speaker talked about different nutrient levels having relationships with the alk levels. I also dealt with alk swings but I believe mine were user error from increasing dosage too much at a time. However it would be interesting if the nutrient dosing impacted the alk consumption making alk stability more difficult as the nutrient dosing was adjusted. Ie more nitrate for the corals to consume brings a faster growth rate which requires more alk, or raising nutrients gave a better condition for growth
Click to expand...

Right. I wasn't testing alk as religiously as the other two, and I think that was a mistake.
 
Oakland Evan said:
Do you test PH. Low PH was the issue causing my RTN/STN a while ago. Might be worth buying a cheap PH pen to just check every once in a while, really is the easiest thing to test.
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I run a Apex/Trident... so my pH is 8.25 average +/- 0.25... pretty stable and ideal. Was worried that pH might be off so calibrated and manually check

1600795370302.png
 
Oakland Evan said:
Do you test PH. Low PH was the issue causing my RTN/STN a while ago. Might be worth buying a cheap PH pen to just check every once in a while, really is the easiest thing to test.
Click to expand...
How low was your pH? I might push to get the skimmer+scrubber setup for my tank, I’m around 7.3-7.6
 
max_nano said:
I tested and had unreadable levels, although at that point I didn’t know how to read below 1 with the salifert.
Then I started dosing 3mL a day and after a few days I tested and was still unreadable so I temporarily increased to 5mL for a few days to bump them up above 0. I have since reduced it to 3mL per day and am still trying to figure out dosage but it’s hard for me to balance. with feeding I can’t predict the amount the food will impact nutrient levels, how long it will take to break down to NO3 and po4, and then water changes just add more variability.

I also think my experience dosing in a new tank will be hard to apply to other tanks since each tank is somewhat unique, like I cured my rocks with dr Tim’s and vibrant as an experiment and in hindsight the vibrant may have played a factor in the low nutrients initially.

Based on what I’ve learned from dosing NO3 in my tank I eventually want to switch to my only food input being pellets from an auto feeder, then acropower/PO4/NO3 to balance the levels of everything. I think it’s hard to have a perfect dose then feed and do water changes without a schedule so I eventually would want to set up awc too. That’s how I’m approaching it at least, I think to get stability there needs to be routines. Then once there is a routine the tweaks can be made with testing. But my planned approach is fueled by a passion for automating things and isn’t right for everyone
Click to expand...
Somehow I feel dosing n or p on a new tank brings more issues than solutions.
New tanks has some parts that sock in po4 and then leach it when condition is right. So i worry when judging nutrients of new tank as it might look low, only to rage back later on. So doing more p and n might make it worst on the long run...what u think?
 
There are some statements I respectfully disagree with:

New tanks has some parts that sock in po4 and then leach it when condition is right.
Click to expand...

What are you referring to? Dying Chaeto could do this. What else?

New tanks are far too unstable for at least a year.
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What's so magical about a year?

Sometimes this statement is used as a proxy for the reefer's experience level, which is OK but not always true. A new reefer can be conscientious, do his/her homework and handle instabilities correctly. Sometimes, very experienced reefers have crashes.

Some say that it takes time for biodiversity and balance to be achieved...but this is not very well understood and a year is not a magical quantity.
 
svreef said:
There are some statements I respectfully disagree with:



What are you referring to? Dying Chaeto could do this. What else?



What's so magical about a year?

Sometimes this statement is used as a proxy for the reefer's experience level, which is OK but not always true. A new reefer can be conscientious, do his/her homework and handle instabilities correctly. Sometimes, very experienced reefers have crashes.

Some say that it takes time for biodiversity and balance to be achieved...but this is not very well understood and a year is not a magical quantity.
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Am referring to things like rocks and sand. These things can soak in nutrients so at first it look like your nutrients is low, you start adding more and then down the line suddenly you start dealing with neber ending nutrients cause system is saturated and u have parts that keep dumping back po4.
I rarely kept chaetos so I do not much sbout that one..
 
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ofzakaria said:
Somehow I feel dosing n or p on a new tank brings more issues than solutions.
New tanks has some parts that sock in po4 and then leach it when condition is right. So i worry when judging nutrients of new tank as it might look low, only to rage back later on. So doing more p and n might make it worst on the long run...what u think?
Click to expand...
That happened to me, I had them sky rocket because I didn’t stick to daily testing. I don’t think I’d say not to dose it in a new tank, but I would recommend frequent testing while first dosing. Which reminds me I need to get more phosphate reagent.

I went down the dosing route cause I doubted my fishes ability to make enough poop and make the corals happy, but that was due to size limitations. I would probably recommend stocking the tank before going to dosing, but I don’t have experience to back that up since I’m still a newb
 
max_nano said:
That happened to me, I had them sky rocket because I didn’t stick to daily testing. I don’t think I’d say not to dose it in a new tank, but I would recommend frequent testing while first dosing. Which reminds me I need to get more phosphate reagent.

I went down the dosing route cause I doubted my fishes ability to make enough poop and make the corals happy, but that was due to size limitations. I would probably recommend stocking the tank before going to dosing, but I don’t have experience to back that up since I’m still a newb
Click to expand...
Many times i see new reefers under estimate how nutrients adds up later. They see low parakaters early on and stock fish or over feed thinking they need to bring nutrients up. Only to be hit with a wall later snd syart dealing with cyano and diatom cause system mature and imbalance between import and export start to take effect
 
lhuynh said:
Well, I have been going on this odyssey for a month or so now, and it hasn't been fun. I just hope it saves me in the long run. Much of it tracked here the issues I'm having: https://www.bareefers.org/forum/threads/not-looking-good-caulastraea-with-tissue-necrosis.26596/

My coral frags seemed to be doing well. I had hair algae, and that ebbed and flowed. Mainly a back glass. However, I had zero nitrate and couldn't get chaeto or coralline to grow. Pods all but disappeared. That seems to be fixed now with dosing. Seeing growth of chaeto and coralline. Lots of pods now. BUT I am dealing with STN with LPS and algae outbreak.

I use food grade or reagent grade

Amazon.com: Prescribed for Life TriSodium Phosphate Anhydrous (TSP) - US Food Grade Granular, 12 oz (340 g): Health & Personal Care

Buy Prescribed for Life TriSodium Phosphate Anhydrous (TSP) - US Food Grade Granular, 12 oz (340 g) on Amazon.com ✓ FREE SHIPPING on qualified orders
www.amazon.com

Sodium Nitrate, Reagent Grade (chemically Pure) – 1 lb. Bag: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific

Sodium Nitrate, Reagent Grade (chemically Pure) – 1 lb. Bag: Amazon.com: Industrial & Scientific
www.amazon.com

Attached are my calculations. Basically, since I'm using Trisodium Phosphate and Sodium Nitrate instead of the Potassium Nitrate, I have to adjust how much I dose down. So 5 ml for .06 ppm Phosphate and 10 ml for 1 ppm Nitrate. (See: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/sodium-nitrate-dosing.359779/)

What I did learn was once I dosed nitrate at high enough levels to be detectable, my phosphate looked ok for a bit and then tanked to zero. Also had some small-ish alk swings that I hope are fixed now. So you want to have both on hand b/c things can change quickly when one is rate limiting the use of the other.
Click to expand...
I think when system is no3 limited or po4 limited bacteria unable to proccess the oyher high. Thats why, many times when no3 is zero, it's hard to bring down po4. But once u bring up no3 a bit more, you see fast reduction in po4. I think its something about bacteria can proccess nutrients more effectively. Thats why i always believed zero no3 or po4 is never good condition. This is especially true if u have zero po4 but high no3 which is condition for cyno to thrive because cyano can absorb phosphorous from air while benificial becteria cannot. So in this condition cyano have both no3 and po4 to thrive whole other bacteria cannot compete..
 
I had a thick blanket of Cyano when NO3 was 25 and PO4 was 0.1. I did a three day blackout and it all vanished, never to return (yet). Nutrients stayed the same. A month later, my PO4 started dropping like crazy and NO3 stayed the same. Now, I have close to zero PO4 and high NO3. Not saying this to contradict your statements, just as an example.
 
svreef said:
I had a thick blanket of Cyano when NO3 was 25 and PO4 was 0.1. I did a three day blackout and it all vanished, never to return (yet). Nutrients stayed the same. A month later, my PO4 started dropping like crazy and NO3 stayed the same. Now, I have close to zero PO4 and high NO3. Not saying this to contradict your statements, just as an example.
Click to expand...
Its not contradictory at all.
What I described is one of the conditions it can happen and can some times puzzle reefer.
Dr. Tim talked about this in one of his tables that I posted om bar while back. He explained the mystery why some times thu system have zero po4, cyano rage.
 
has anyone here pursued the redfield ratio? Or know more about it, I’ve seen it mentioned and want to learn more if anyone has a good resource to share.
 
max_nano said:
has anyone here pursued the redfield ratio? Or know more about it, I’ve seen it mentioned and want to learn more if anyone has a good resource to share.
Click to expand...
I tried in the past it was so hard to dial. Then I read on couple places saying the Redfield ratio is not that critical for home aquaria cause it hatd to recreat ocean condition.
If my memory not failing me I think Rich ross was one of the folks who said it was not that important.
I believe its all about stability. Coral snd fish adabt, thwy just need stability and avoid changing parameters often
 
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