Nitrates 100+ppm, Need help with Dosing Vodka

[Ashish Patel]

A sodium phosphate dosing solution should fully dissolve. If you made it with ro/di, dilute it more.

Thanks Randy

 

[Ashish Patel]

Wow this PO is potent.

I mixed 4 grams/300ml RODI. Dosed 2ml and it increased my PO4 by 10ppb

Now I can make adjustments as needed but now that I'm up to 19ppb, I've increased my Vodka from 15ml/day to 22ml/day. Thinks are going well in the system so I will take my time to ramp up the carbon dosing again.

NO3 still 100-150ppm.

PH has been climbing steady for a week. it started when the Frag tank was on a reverse photoperiod and probably around the time I reduced carbon dosing. Not to mention this past week weather was good

 

[Ashish Patel]

After my last post when PO4 was 19ppb I increased vodka yesterday from 15ml to 22ml. Yesterday bumped it up to 25ml.

Tested Today and got a 0ppb reading. I was not expecting a 0 after 2 days and barely ramping up.

Anyways I did reduce feeding a bit last few days but still kind of blown away the tank lost 19ppb in 48hours.

I just dosed 20ppb of phosphates. How fast can I bring this up to even higher? Say 60ppb? I will need to monitor it every few days for now

 

[Ashish Patel]

Yesterday I dosed 40PPB PO4 (8ML)

Tested just now and still got a 0PPB

I dosed 50ppb PO4 just now. Going to let it mix and test again in 30mins

 

[Ashish Patel]

Added another skimmer but messed up the needle wheel when I was cleaning so it's not really doing much at this point.

 

[Ashish Patel]

Ok tested again 50mins after dosing 10ml PO4 and got 32ppb reading. So I guess my initial 5ppb increase is less or it's hard to tell since the first time I don't think I waited long enough to let the PO mix in the system before testing.

I will test again tomorow around the same time and see how much it drops. Then I will get a good number on how much my daily dose should be to maintain PO4 levels of around 30ppb

 

[DCR]

That is a Phosphorus ULR so the 32 ppb is almost 0.1 ppm PO4.

 

[Ashish Patel]

Tested PO4 11 hours from the last test and got 19ppb. Today dosing 30ml/vodka over 22 doses in 24hrs.

Tested my NO3. Seems slightly lighter or it's my mind playing tricks on me.. for sure still over 100ppm+.

I am very shocked PO4 can drop this quickly and not sure how long I can take such pain

 

[Ashish Patel]

I tested my PO4 at 1pm today (24 hours after testing 32ppb). PO4 is 12ppb, so 30ml vodka resulted in a 20ppb drop in PO4.

I dosed 4ml of Phosphates.

Alk consumption in 48hour increased. Last time I tested it was 8dkh. Today it was 7.6dkh. Growth tips are evident.

I am thinking about dosing phosphates via dosing pump

 

[Ashish Patel]

If I dose Phosphates via doser I can manipulate my readings. What I am contemplating is should I try to maintain 40ppb, 30ppb, 20ppb, or 10ppb.
I am not sure which level will be most beneficial but my gut tells me to keep it between 15-20ppb

Any suggestions?

 

[killer2001]

Since your NO3 is so high right now, I would crank that PO4 up to 100 ppb if it was me, then maintain it there until NO3 starts to drop. Once NO3 is at an acceptable level, bring PO4 back down to 20ppb and call it a day. As the vodka begins to do its magic on the NO3 your alk will increase, but this takes time and you really need to be patient and just stay the course.

My nitrates use to be in the 50-60ppm range for the longest time, and I set up a vinegar/vodka combo on my doser and have been dosing pretty much the same amount for over a year and now my nitrates sit comfortably in the 5-15ppm range. I check my nitrates maybe once a month now, if NO3 is below 5 ppm, I will back off on the carbon dosing a bit, if NO3 is above 15, I will increase the dosing amount.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If I dose Phosphates via doser I can manipulate my readings. What I am contemplating is should I try to maintain 40ppb, 30ppb, 20ppb, or 10ppb.
I am not sure which level will be most beneficial but my gut tells me to keep it between 15-20ppb

Any suggestions?

All of those are within my recommended range.

 

[Ashish Patel]

Since your NO3 is so high right now, I would crank that PO4 up to 100 ppb if it was me, then maintain it there until NO3 starts to drop. Once NO3 is at an acceptable level, bring PO4 back down to 20ppb and call it a day. As the vodka begins to do its magic on the NO3 your alk will increase, but this takes time and you really need to be patient and just stay the course.

My nitrates use to be in the 50-60ppm range for the longest time, and I set up a vinegar/vodka combo on my doser and have been dosing pretty much the same amount for over a year and now my nitrates sit comfortably in the 5-15ppm range. I check my nitrates maybe once a month now, if NO3 is below 5 ppm, I will back off on the carbon dosing a bit, if NO3 is above 15, I will increase the dosing amount.

Wow was not expecting that high of a recommendation. I am not convinced it being that high will help with exporting my NO3 any faster since I will be dosing the same amount of PO daily to maintain a specific level. I have to many variable to know for sure but in my previous tank I found the PO4 being 30-80ppb was the sweet spot for growth and color - this system was low on NO3 so i had to dose it. My current system I feel the SPS seems to prefer 10ppb but the LPS and Zoas like it when its 30ppb+. Hard balancing act but since I have mainly acros I think going with 20-30ppb would be a safe range to start.

 

[Ashish Patel]

I'm going to give this old Becket skimmer a try and see if it outcompetes the reef octpus. They say these skimmers where energy hogs but If I want to spend the money I can get 1100gph flow with 30watts using these energy efficient periha pond pumps. This skimmer was build to last a lifetime, which is why they are out of business today. Im not really a fan of reef octpus anymore since the prices dont make sense. Always find they weir down and get damaged during cleaning. I think i could use more skimming with the carbon dose but figured 2 is better than one, and I got this skimmer for free and have an old metric pump that I need to figure out how to connect to US...which is always fun...this skimmer should help PH as well. I don't know what do you all think?

Were these skimmers replace with needlewheel by corporation for profits? I only used needlewheels so interested to see how it performs. I read they are loud (which it's in the basement so I don't care), and energy inefficient (which I can make it). However they probably are more reliable and seem to be better for a larger system like mine.

 

[Ashish Patel]

I added the beckets skimmers and it is loud but pretty efficient at pulling out things fast. I am not sold its better than the Reef octopus yet but it has allowed me to ramp up my Vodka dosing without causing white slime build up. I am currently dosing 33ML vodka per day.

I added the Phosphates on a Versa Dosing pump, I am starting around the dose I was doing by hand but now continuous for 24 hours. I added 12 Grams of Phosphates powder to 4500ml of RODI. If my math is correct that would be 50ML/24hours.

Major Observation - My system responds to Lower Phosphates better than High! I think its the primary factor of why I notice growth tips one month and then they stop (ongoing for a year). I knew it was caused by unstable nutrients but now I have a way to stabilize the PO4 in my system. In the week that I was dosing Phosphates up to .1 ppm growth tips and overall vibrancy seemed to stop. The give away was my Milka stylo was developing white tips again and within 3-4 days I observed the white tips fading away. The only change was increased PO4 levels in the morning and then it dropped down until the next dose.

I tested my PO4 before adding the PO4 on a Versa Pump and they were at 8ppb. I will test every 24 hours and if they are level then every 48hours. Once I am confident they are where they need to be I will test every 4-7 days.

I feel my system may benefit from ULR reading since the fish and inverts are large and constantly pooping in the system. Even when my nutrients bottom out I don't think my SPS will starve! However, the LPS and softies will not appreciate low nutrients!

 

[Ashish Patel]

Entire Sump has become dedicated to Nutrient Removal

 

[Ashish Patel]

I just had a pretty big Ah ha moment watching this video from Parkers reef. The LFS owner is top notch...he tests Phosphates daily so anyone who does this will be able to ID what foods are causing nutrients to fluctuate. He mentioned that he tried feeding Prawns (aka shrimp) to help cut costs of feeding mysis shrimp but his NO3 went to 60ppm.

Since I made my last batch of frozen food I i added 6lbs bag of shrimp along with tilapia, and smells. However I'd say 40-50% of my frozen blend is probably shrimp.

I had it in my mind that I may have an issue with my food but wasn't sure which one it was. I could not find any information out there but since shrimp is relatively Inexpensive I always used it.

WHAT DO YOU ALL THINK? COULD IT BE THE SHRIMP

He starts talking about Nitrates at 18:00 minutes

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Shrimp from a grocery store are not naturally unusually high in N or P. Some seafoods get treated with phosphate to preserve freshness. Not sure on mysis.

I discuss data on phosphate in foods here:

Aquarium Chemistry: Phosphate And Math: Yes You Need To Understand Both

Foods are by far the most important source of phosphate in most aquariums. In considering whether sources of phosphate other than foods are important, one must carefully look to the actual amounts involved to determine whether other sources are even worth trying to minimize.

reefs.com

 

[Ashish Patel]

Shrimp from a grocery store are not naturally unusually high in N or P. Some seafoods get treated with phosphate to preserve freshness. Not sure on mysis.

I discuss data on phosphate in foods here:

Aquarium Chemistry: Phosphate And Math: Yes You Need To Understand Both

Foods are by far the most important source of phosphate in most aquariums. In considering whether sources of phosphate other than foods are important, one must carefully look to the actual amounts involved to determine whether other sources are even worth trying to minimize.

reefs.com

Thanks, My observation right now is shrimp I am using is not high in Phosphates. P drops fast and I have had to dose them continuously to keep them detectable. However, the NO3 is just constantly above 100 + PPM even after a big waterchange so they must be introduced via the cheap walmart shrimp i am adding. I am probably adding 2-3 medium size shrimps in my system daily. On my next batch of food I will just stop using shrimp and just use tilapia/salmon/smelts and see if this could be an issue.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

IMO, most foods represent a pretty even balance of N and P, since they reflect the sorts of biomolecules needed by cells.