What is your max Ammonia dose (in ppm) daily?

[Reefahholic]

What is your max Ammonia dose (in ppm) daily? Plz don’t tell me what you’re dosing in mL.

3 other questions:

1. Have you noticed a ppm concentration where nitrogen starts to rise?

2. At what ppm have you observed any negative effects from any animal in the system.

3. How many times are you dosing per day, and at what ppm potency. Looking for the most optimal place to start some DIY ammonium bicarbonate dosing, but want to gather a little more data before I do.

 

[Subsea]

Best you qualify how you are measuring ammonia; it changes that fast. I dosed twice a day: 1hr after lights on and at half way through light cycle.

I don’t test but you can start with 1ml of ammonia per 20G of system volume twice a day.

 

[Reefahholic]

Best you qualify how you are measuring ammonia; it changes that fast. I dosed twice a day: 1hr after lights on and at half way through light cycle.

I don’t test but you can start with 1ml of ammonia per 20G of system volume twice a day.

I’m not as interested in measuring the ammonia in the tank other than making sure it’s not reading much over 0.25-0.5 ppm.

I’m more concerned with how much I’m actually dosing in ppm in a certain volume so I can track it, and watch for visual cues in the tank if I’m increasing the potency /dose or if nitrate is rising or falling.

 

[Miami Reef]

Dose a set amount daily. If NO3 remains unchanged after a week of dosing and you want it higher, dose more.

Rinse and repeat.

Every system has different food inputs and exports. Make changes based on your individual system.

 

[Subsea]

I’m not as interested in measuring the ammonia in the tank other than making sure it’s not reading much over 0.25-0.5 ppm.

I’m more concerned with how much I’m actually dosing in ppm in a certain volume so I can track it, and watch for visual cues in the tank if I’m increasing the potency /dose or if nitrate is rising or falling.

How do you calculate ppm? PPM is calculated by dividing the mass of the solute by the mass of the solution, then multiplying by 1,000,000. Both parts of the equation.

So use 1ml of ammonia and 20G of water and determine your theoretical ppm.

When I do that calculation, I come out with .25ppm.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

What is your max Ammonia dose (in ppm) daily? Plz don’t tell me what you’re dosing in mL.

3 other questions:

1. Have you noticed a ppm concentration where nitrogen starts to rise?

2. At what ppm have you observed any negative effects from any animal in the system.

3. How many times are you dosing per day, and at what ppm potency. Looking for the most optimal place to start some DIY ammonium bicarbonate dosing, but want to gather a little more data before I do.

I presume when you write nitrogen you mean nitrate? Ammonia also contains nitrogen.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I’m not as interested in measuring the ammonia in the tank other than making sure it’s not reading much over 0.25-0.5 ppm.

I’m more concerned with how much I’m actually dosing in ppm in a certain volume so I can track it, and watch for visual cues in the tank if I’m increasing the potency /dose or if nitrate is rising or falling.

My recipes give doses in ppm.

 

[Reefahholic]

My recipes give doses in ppm.

Thank you for that! I’ll use the calculator and mix a solution for my total volume and start at 0.1 ppm as the daily dose. Then move up from there.

How did you or do you calculate the nitrogen/nitrate value in ppm that’s available in the ammonium bicarbonate?

 

[Pod_01]

So what it’s worth I am dosing 0.05 ppm as per the suggestion below:

2) Then I suggest to dose ammonium to a calculated concentration of 0.05 ppm twice a day according to instructions by RHF here.

As an aside I started a 10gal reef tank, one small rock from my system and I put in few corals just to see what happens (insta tank).

So first I dosed aminos, phos-feed and some carbon but corals didn’t like that combination:

Some bleached, some pieced RTN etc…

The white piece is red Montipora, (not so red).

Anyways I switched from aminos to ammonia and dose 0.05ppm. Some of the corals recovered, I was actually shocked.

Red is back on the montipora pieces.

Green is back as well.
This was after 2 weeks… Water has been crystal clear as well.

Don’t ask at what level the NO3 or PO4 are at. I am running this based on what corals look like so no measurements.
Also there is one snail in the tank.

 

[Reefahholic]

So what it’s worth I am dosing 0.05 ppm as per the suggestion below:


As an aside I started a 10gal reef tank, one small rock from my system and I put in few corals just to see what happens (insta tank).

So first I dosed aminos, phos-feed and some carbon but corals didn’t like that combination:

Some bleached, some pieced RTN etc…

The white piece is red Montipora, (not so red).

Anyways I switched from aminos to ammonia and dose 0.05ppm. Some of the corals recovered, I was actually shocked.

Red is back on the montipora pieces.

Green is back as well.
This was after 2 weeks… Water has been crystal clear as well.

Don’t ask at what level the NO3 or PO4 are at. I am running this based on what corals look like so no measurements.
Also there is one snail in the tank.

Nice! Seems like they like it! Thx for sharing.

 

[Reefahholic]

Anyways I switched from aminos to ammonia and dose 0.05ppm.

BTW, you’re the first person that actually knows what he’s dosing. Thank you! All this mL talk is pointless.

So what it’s worth I am dosing 0.05 ppm.

 

[Reefahholic]

What product are you actually using?

 

[Pod_01]

BTW, you’re the first person that actually knows what he’s dosing. Thank you! All this mL talk is pointless.

Hmmm… maybe ask for potency and volume of the reef tank…

As an aside I was on vacation and added the proper amount into ATO and that seems to work. The ammonia is dosed through out the day, not sure if that helps or not…

 

[Pod_01]

What product are you actually using?

On the 10gal, ammonia and TM Phos-Feed daily.
I dose TM Plus NP twice a week, few drops just to promote bacteria (maybe it does nothing). Once a week I dose TM Reef Actif.
Amino a drop or two once a week.

Still experimenting, it is work in progress. The aim is to make this tank as simple as possible, if such a thing is possible…

So far GSP and devils hand are doing great, Hollywood stunner chalice is doing ok, the Montipora is recovering and so is the psammocora. Copper cyphastrea is hanging on.
I lost piece of blueberry wine acro, zoas are not happy and one lepto gave up. Most of these losses happened when I dosed amino.

As for algae, what was on the original pieces is still there. Algae is not expanding nor is it disappearing so I am not sure what to make of that yet.
The tank still didn’t hit the ugly or bad stage…

 

[Reefahholic]

Hmmm… maybe ask for potency and volume of the reef tank…

That should be a given! If you asked me what my daily KH dose was, and I said, oh…it’s 235mL. That means absolutely nothing to you unless you know my total volume and the actual 2-part potency or product I’m using. That is key information that needs to be known. Otherwise the conversation is pointless. We should be taking in ppm and not mL’s.

I think the problem is that most reefers don’t know, and they’re relying on others to mix up their stock solutions. Not a good idea. You need to know what’s being added to the system in order to understand and tweak the dosing.

 

[Pod_01]

That should be a given! If you asked me what my daily KH dose was, and I said, oh…it’s 235mL. That means absolutely nothing to you unless you know my total volume and the actual 2-part potency or product I’m using.

I agree, but if you ask Fauna Marin about their Balling Light Kh potency you end up on their naughty list.
Just dose by ml and more ml = good… easy as that.

I think the problem is that most reefers don’t know, and they’re relying on others to mix up their stock solutions.

Maybe FM released a new bottle…

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

BTW, you’re the first person that actually knows what he’s dosing. Thank you! All this mL talk is pointless.

Seems a little over the top, but i understand how an mL dose causes you to work harder to get to ppm. Nearly everyone in this forum dosing ammonia is dosing my specific recipe.

 

[Reefahholic]

Seems a little over the top, but i understand how an mL dose causes you to work harder to get to ppm. Nearly everyone in this forum dosing ammonia is dosing my specific recipe.

Yeah, I’ve seen they only know the mL information you’ve given them. I may be the only one using a calculator to figure out my dose and tweak it for my system.

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

Seems a little over the top, but i understand how an mL dose causes you to work harder to get to ppm. Nearly everyone in this forum dosing ammonia is dosing my specific recipe.

I thought I replied sufficiently to the question in the other thread….in ppm as requested, but it was overlooked somehow which can happen when there are multiple replies. Like you mentioned, pretty much everyone here started with your stock solution recipe and dosing and altered as needed along the way.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Yeah, I’ve seen they only know the mL information you’ve given them. I may be the only one using a calculator to figure out my dose and tweak it for my system.

I expect most folks here started with the 0.1 ppm dose I recommend and go from there up or down as seems beneficial.