Alternative to dosing nitrates discussion

Nick Shades · Oct 29, 2016

So, I know that many of the sps guys prefer to dose nitrates. I haven't bitten into the sickness myself, just yet, but I have been wondering about the guys who dose nitrates.

Has anyone ever tried putting a canister filter I to their loop? Everyone got rid of their canister filters from there reef tanks in the early 90s, but now that SPS is all the rage, why not try a small volume canister with a bunch of floss as opposed to dosing manually?

tofucube · Oct 29, 2016

How about just getting more fish and feed more.

M3ace9 · Oct 29, 2016

I like to just let my sand fill up with yuck, instant nitrate factory lol

M3ace9 · Oct 30, 2016

This whole idea has been kind of funny to me. People are trying to figure out how to induce growth in their reefs by adding a pure substance of something that the ocean has zero of. Am I missing something? haha

Smite · Oct 30, 2016

I choose to dose because its easily fine tuned and super cheap. I bought a 1 lb package for 17 dollars shipped of potassium nitrate. It'll probably last me a year if not longer.

My sticks were pale and I have a decent amount of fish. As I brought my no3 up my corals responded with both growth and color. I now keep my tank at 5. I imagine our tanks are a little sterile when it comes to the microfauna the ocean provides for food. Maybe that makes our sticks a little more dependent on things like nitrates to thrive?

M3ace9 · Oct 30, 2016

Smite said:

I totally agree but why do we choose to dose pure nitrates when nitrates are in fact a bi-product of feeding..... Wouldn't we want to opt for feeding and then have the nitrates as a result?

Rakie · Nov 1, 2016

M3ace9 said:

I think you're right about feeding -- But -- The amount of food needed to keep nitrates high would pollute the tank. Think of it like a vitamin. To get all the max amount of vitamins you'd need to eat a metric ton of food, probably so much that you'd gain weight and become less healthy which is counter productive. Or, you can take a good vitamin.

Reefs definitely have n03/p04, the thing is the tests measure the amount of free nitrates / phosphates, as in, excessive n03/p04. Reefs are a large biomass that act as a water clarifier and use a ton of nutrients to grow. Reefs are surprisingly efficient as well, which is why the water near them is completely clear and free of n03/p04. I'd guess if you were to test water progressively further from the reef you'd find nitrates and phosphates increase.

So I think you're totally right [MENTION=8656]M3ace9[/MENTION], but, I think the dynamics change in home aquaria because there's sooo many factors we don't even know about yet when it comes to the ocean. There's likely countless microfauna that do jobs we don't even know about yet

Alternative to dosing nitrates discussion

Nick Shades

Member

tofucube

Member

M3ace9

Member

M3ace9

Member

Smite

Premium Member

M3ace9

Member

Rakie

2

Latest posts