Adding Nitrate via sodium nitrate

[chrisaggie]

Does anyone have any experience adding nitrate to their tanks by making a stock solution of dilute sodium nitrate? I have a DSB in my tank and a large clam that suck the nitrate out of the tank. My nitrate runs at undetectable levels and I would like to bump it up to 2-3 ppm. Any ideas or comments are welcome. I understand that some of you do not agree that nitrate is necessary, please do not post just to state thsi opinion.

[acroporas]

I prefer to just add more fish

[blueoceandiver]

[chrisaggie]

I've already got 10 fish in a 75 gallon tank. I could get more, but I do not think that will solve my "problem". I think the extra nitrate from an extra fish or two will be used by the DSB and the clam and the nitrate will remain at undetectable levels. I believe I need to take a more extreme measure if I want to get "more natural" nitrate levels in my tank.
~Chris

[acroporas]

Originally posted by chrisaggie
"more natural" nitrate level

Natural levels are pretty much undetectable.

[BonsaiNut]

Originally posted by chrisaggie
I believe I need to take a more extreme measure if I want to get "more natural" nitrate levels in my tank.
~Chris

What are you trying to accomplish? Why do you want to pollute your tank?

[chrisaggie]

Guys, I really don't want to argue what natural levels are or if adding nitrate will "pollute" my tank. If you want to read about it you can look on page 321 of Anthony Calfo's Coral Propogation Book. Natural levels run from about 0.1 to 3ppm. In a tank with a DSP and/or clams the Nitrate can be less than that. Despite what you may believe nitrate is used as a source of energy by clams, corals, and other critters. If you don't have enough of it your tank can possibly suffer. I really don't want to argue this point, if you would like to discuss this with others please start your own thread.
~Chris

[chrislove01]

Hello mate

Hows about adding more food? Maybe a chunk of prawn or something?

Sodium Nitrate may work but I think it my take the tank out of chemical balance eventually.

Plus if you add more food, more stuff will grow and feed the rest of the tank.....

You should be able to get to a point where you add the right amount of food to maintain your nitrate levels. But i think you will be surprised at how much you need to add.....

Cheers

Chris

[chrisaggie]

I thought about adding more food, but if I add more food I also add more phosphate and other nutrients. This could cause the algae in my tank to grow much more. My goal is to add more nitrate without adding more phosphate.

[chrislove01]

Hello

Thats why I mentioned the shrimp. Almost all protein, so should be less phosphate.

Also do you have a source of pure Sodium Nitrate? I reckon the best you'll get is 99.5%

Cheers

Chris

[chrisaggie]

I think adding shrimp and just letting it decompose in the tank would be more trouble than it's worth. That would also be hard to use to "dose" nitrate since you don't really know how much you are adding. I think the sodium nitrate would be good becuse I can add a small amount daily when I add my 2 part Ca/ALk. I do already have some sodium nitrate that is 99.9% pure.

[john76]

I've never heard of this being done. But please post the results.

[chrisaggie]

OK, I will try to remember to post back in a month or so after I have this dosing under way.
~Chris

[BonsaiNut]

Originally posted by chrisaggie
Guys, I really don't want to argue what natural levels are or if adding nitrate will "pollute" my tank. I really don't want to argue this point, if you would like to discuss this with others please start your own thread.
~Chris

That's fair. But understand that a lot of people read these threads, including newbies who are coming here for advice on keeping healthy clams. So it would be greatly appreciated if you started your thread with some sort of disclaimer stating that this method is (1) experimental, (2) of questionable value, and (3) possibly harmful to clams and other tank inhabitants.

The last thing any of us want is to be answering a lot of questions about "I just put some sodium nitrate in my tank and now all my sps corals are bleaching can someone help me".

[chrisaggie]

1) This meathod is not experimental. Clam farms have used it for a while now

2) Clam farmers have had great success with nitrate and ammonia dosing

3) It is potential harmful if you let the levels get too high, but so is everything else that you dose

I will say that if you do this you need to monitor your nitrate values and optimally keep them well under 5ppm. It is my opinion that nitrate in the reef aquarium is widely misunderstood. Nitrate is found at values of 0.1 to about 2.5 in natural seawater conditions. As Anthony Calfo says in his Book of Coral Propogation on page 323 "Obviously, this feeding method is only for systems with undetectable nitrate (which is more common in aquarium systems nowadays more than ever before, thanks in part to deep sand beds) by aquarists with applied, accurate test equipment. Although surprising to many aquarists, the practice is quite common in mariculture." I think that quote applies quite nicely here.

Just a side note: many reefers do not do adequate water changes and it is not uncommon to see nitrate values of 25 ppm and even >100 ppm though tanks with this level of nitrate will certainly see effects of these nitrate values.

[uscgbeachbum]

FYI for everyone here...chrisaggie isn't the run-of-the-mill joe shmoe reefer. his occupation posted is grad student, but what you don't know is what he's going for. hes a marine chemist. unless you are as well, I really doubt you can say he's doing something bad without personal experience doing it yourself. he is looking for people who have done it before, what their results were, and any other pertinent information. as he said in the thread starter he is looking for people who have done this ONLY and not opinions.

[rxx2]

A few months after I set up my tank, and there was the whole thing about the diseased clams out there, which I had a hard time buying, my clams were dying. I thought perhaps that because the tank was newly set up my nitrates were too low, they were undetectable. One of the thoughts I had after reading Daniel Knop's Giant Clams book was to add nitrate. I went to Aldrich to get some but they would only send it to a laboratory. I was able to find some through a spice company. I mixed it according to what Knop's book said and added it directly into the tank. Was able to get the nitrates up in the 5ppm range. Clams kept dying so I gave up. I guess my tank was just too new.
FWIW, rxx2

[BonsaiNut]

Ok I was wrong Sorry to sound like a jerk but I had never heard of this practice and it seemed so unusual that people would actually dose nitrates into a system when so many people work to minimize them. At the very least you run the risk of nuisance algae blooms and other problems. However in the case where you have little nitrate being actively generated in your system (for example a fish-less system where you are not adding any food) I could certainly see a long-term absence of nitrates having a negative effect on not only clams, but on any other invert that relies on symbiotic algae for a large portion of its energy.

After researching this subject a little more thoroughly, I have found additional references of clam farms in Palau and the Solomon Islands that use solutions of dillute ammonium nitrate to provide additional fertilizer for clam growth. It should be noted that you are fertilizing the algae itself within the clam, not really feeding the clams directly.

From the Center for Tropical and Subtropical Aquaculture, Publication #130, Spawning and Early Larval Rearing of Giant Clams (Bivalvia: Tridacnidae) by Simon Ellis: A daily addition of 100 mM ammonium nitrate (4 g per 1000 L of tank volume) in the morning is sufficient to raise nitrogen levels for the rest of the day. Note that this is used in semi-closed systems in land-based farms, which is probably most applicable to our reef setups. Also note that this use of fertilizer was accompanied by use of herbivorous animals such as rabbit fish, surgeon fish or Trochus, in combination with regular cleaning to prevent excessive algal fouling in the tanks which I would guess would be a problem in a fertilized environment with bright lighting.

Hope this helps I always wondered when I dosed my clams with phyto whether the clams were reacting positively to the phyto itself, or some of the dissolved nutrients in the phyto culture media. Interestingly, it is one of the explanations given for why NOT to try to feed larval clownfish with phyto (or try to maintain high phyto cultures in larval fish systems): the nitrate levels are too high and have a negative impact on larval health.

[chrisaggie]

Thanks BonsaiNut for sharinf the information that you found. My only major concern with the nitrate dosing is an increase in nitrate, but I am hoping that something else is the limiting growth factor for the algae (iron or phosphate). After all lots of people have nitrate levels >5ppm and don't have an algae problem. I'm going to give this nitrate dosing a try and ssee what happens. If I don't like what it's doing I can always just stop.
~Chris

[Travis]

Chris,

I have also been thinking about adding some form of nitrate to my tank to achieve more natural levels but I have been too scared to because I don't want to deal with an algae bloom. Please post your results after experimenting for a while.

[chrisaggie]

I wil be sure to do so. I am also a little leary about an algae bloom in my tank, but I figure phosphate of iron or another nutrient will limit the growth of the algae in the tank, after all plenty of reef tanks have nitrate values of >10ppm and don't have an algae problem.
~Chris

[guitarfish]

I don't want to get too off topic here...

I'm setting up a new 75g, it's cycling now, it has sand and live rock in it. A fellow reefer suggested I NOT RUN the skimmer right now, because he felt it would remove stuff that would hinder the buildup of nitrate. "Why would I want nitrate," I asked? I always assumed it was an unwanted by-product.

I'm still running the skimmer...but now wondering about the role of nitrate in a reef tank.

[chrisaggie]

Well, a fairly simple answer is that nitrate is a nutrient in your tank, just like phosphate. Nitrate is changed to free nitrogen in anoxic environments by bacteria. If there is not sufficient anoxic zones in your tank you could possibly have excess nitrate. Nitrate is normally considered a bad thing because in the past it has been difficult to keep under control in a reef tank. With the current trend of deep sand beds nitrate is more easily kept under control. Sometimes nitrate in aquariums no is reduced to free nitrogen at at rate that makes the nitrate undetectable. This could potentially be a problem to some corals and other animals (clams) because they use the nitrate (nutrient) as a food source. In general you do not want nitrate in your tank (because most tanks do not get rid of nitrate at a fast rate).

[Snarkys]

how did this work out for you ?

[bkbailes07]

you could always pee in a cup and pour it in. just a suggestion