Woohoo!! I can start dosing NO3

[Fredfish]

I noticed the caulerpa in my refugium looking a little ragged with some leaves turing transparent so I decieded to measure nitrates. They came out as barely measurable (less than .2mg/l)

I also found a source of calcium nitrate yesterday. Turns out my brother is using it for his orchids and has a 20lb bag in his basement.

This should be interesting as I have recently seen my cyano levels rise (last 2 weeks). Lets see if the no3 dosing gets rid of the cyano.

Fred

[Samala]

Yay!! With you and Aero both doing this I feel very confident that we can have a nice idea of what no3 dosing does in a typical reef setup. Both of you have main and fuge areas with live rock, sand, etc. It will translate nicely to the average reefer if we can see how nutrient dynamics play out in these kinds of tanks. Its nice to have a good idea in a macro/grass dedicated tank, but it just not quite the same.

Be sure to keep us posted! Maybe if you and Aero get enough data together of your phosphate levels, presence of microalgaes (the nuisane ones) and nitrates levels together we can get someone to write an article about our 'craziness'.

If you can follow calcium and your alkalinity as well that will help us know how CaNO3 dosing works out, as opposed to Aero's NaNO3 and my KNO3.

>Sarah

[Fredfish]

I havn't looked at phosphates yet, well I have but its a 4 year old kit so I don't trust it.

I need to go shopping for some test kits I guess.

A question about dosing. Aside from trial and error, working with a solid soluble fertilizer, how do I figure out my dosing rates. I suspect I would need to know what the nitrate concentration of my solid is, but I really have no clue.

I was expecting that a small pinch would be all I needed to push my nitrates up to 5ppm. Well, about 1.3 tsp got me to about .5 ppm.

Fred

edit

Oh yea, I don't expect that the calcium nitrate will appreciably effect my ca levels. With no stony corals to use ca and a fine aragonite sand bed my ca should stay at close to 400. This was my experience with a previous aquarium

[Samala]

Probably a good question for the reef chemistry forum.. though they may be pretty curious as to why you'd do it. You'll need to make up a stock solution out of your CaNO3 and some RO water.. so many tablespoons with so much water and then dose from that stock solution. That's what I'd do anyway. They'll likely have you make up some kind of molar strength solution from the dry ingredients in such a way that you can add say, a teaspoon, to raise your NO3 levels 1ppm. Then you would be able to control it pretty well.

I can elaborate if the chemistry guys dont have a good answer for this. I made up a stock of KNO3 so that, given my volume of tank water, adding 5ml to the tank raises the NO3 level by 2ppm. I'll check my notes if you'd like.

I wonder, if there isnt anyone consuming large quantities of Ca ions, if they will eventually precipitate when they reach saturation levels in the water. It only seems logical that they would build up overtime.. might not be too serious if they fall out of solution in this way.

>Sarah

[Seahorsewisprer]

Maybe you'll get a large outbreak of coralline!

[Fredfish]

Actually, I seem to get a large outbreak of giggles every time I re-visit this subject. I wonder if it is an interaction between the calcium and this forum or the nitrate and this forum. I'll have to research that.

Sarah, if the ca builds up to saturation it will start to precipitate. Thats why I like calcium nitrate as an additive. Calcium is a useful addition at less thansaturation and excess precipitates. No unknown risks.

Its the molar thing I was looking for. Being lazy I was hoping someone else had done the work for me . I guess I need to know the nitrate concentration in the fertilizer and the molecular weight of nitrate. Then I need to know that x moles of nitrate with y quantity of water gives me z concentration etc.

I wish my brother still worked in the biochem lab at his local university. All those geeky toys at my disposal. I still remember making my own fw plant addative with supplies from his lab.

Fred.

[Justjoe]

Be sure to keep us posted! Maybe if you and Aero get enough data together of your phosphate levels, presence of microalgaes (the nuisane ones) and nitrates levels together we can get someone to write an article about our 'craziness'.
>Sarah [/B]

This all sounds very intriguing. Not sure if you've seen the following article that I came across that Joe is nice enough to host for me:

http://www.cnidarianreef.com/posted/PO4_Removal.pdf

Fred,
Do you have a brand name of the calcium nitrate you're using?
Thanks,
Joe

[Fredfish]

Joe. I didn't get a brand or product name. Ask at your local agriculture supply or greenhouse supply store.

Well, its about a week since I started dosing. I got distracted by some other things and let my nitrates bounce around a little. As soon as the nitrates get to around 1 mg/l my macro gets pale and some blades start turning transparent.

The cyano is going strong now. Its the worst outbreak since I started up the tank. There are two curious things though.

First, the cyano seems only to grow in my main tank. There is almost none in my fuge. Second, in the main tank it is growing on the sand rocks and algae but not the tank walls. All previous cyano outbreaks were mostly confined to the walls of the tank. There must be a reason the cyano grows where it does.

I will continue to dose nitrates to keep the tank at between 2.5 & 5 mg/l and we will see what happens.

Fred.

[Samala]

Fred - I get the same cyano outbreak from time to time.. I am almost beginning to suspect that heat is a factor. My tank was crystal clear during winter and early spring when it held 71F.. now that it holds about 77-79F cyano pops up. Its perplexing.. my variety also only grows on the sand and leaves and no tank walls.

Perhaps if the grass/macro bed isnt mature enough yet it isnt able to scavange up all the nitrate before the cyano can eat into the levels.

I tend to keep the tank higher at 10mg/L.. but with the seahorses eventually going in sometime by the end of this month I have lowered to 5mg/L also. Perhaps its an opposite cause than too much nitrates.. maybe not enough?

Leo - if you're curator status you should be able to deal directly with places like Fischer Scientific and get ahold of reliably pure sources of Calcium nitrate. Something on the level of tissue culture grade should be more than appropriate and cost-effective.

>Sarah

[Fredfish]

Perhaps if the grass/macro bed isnt mature enough yet it isnt able to scavange up all the nitrate before the cyano can eat into the levels.

This is where I get confused all over again. The cyano has gotten worse as my nitrates have dropped so how can it be because the macros can scavenge it. Also, if we are dosing nitrate to keep levels up, no matter how much our macros take up, there will be lots left for the cyano.

I still don't entirely understand plantbrains explanation of cyano blooms and "limitation". It makes sense to me that rising nitrite levels might trigger a bloom, but what stops it? He is dosing both nitrates and phosphates to levels that are measurable and therefore not limiting to cyano. Why dosn't it grow along with the macro?

He also mentions that once you get a cyano bloom, it will take a while to get rid of.

I wonder if you are onto something with the heat. I also wondered, because cyano seems somewhat selective in its location (at liest for me) if it is taking advantage of a very local source of nutrients. Plantbrain did mention that dying macros leak nitrites. Makes my head hurt...

I cleaned the tank and did a water change today because the cyano was getting out of hand. My chili coral seemed to like this as it opened up after I cleaned the area around it.

FYI, I mixed up 300ml of calcium nitrate two days ago and it now has a nice layer of floc (is that the correct term) on the bottom that is probably the calcium.

Fred

[Samala]

Floc? Hehehe.. I would call it precipitate but you can call it anything you like. Floc sounds better to me.

Maybe it is the heat.. but you're saying the cyano gets worse at the nitrates drop.. so maybe it IS really low nitrates that cause this. I'm just saying its interesting because in the old tank, during the cooler period, when nitrates dropped low I got diatom outbreaks. The only algae so far that seems to indicate just a clean healthy tank is green haze algae that attaches itself to the glass.

But now that I think of it.. my old tank, while it used the SAME lights as the new one, had more light effectively. 96W over 14" on a ten gallon versus 96W over 14" on a 20 gallon.

Hmmmmmmm... or maybe my light bulbs are going bad? That one would be pretty easy to test.

What fun this is..
>Sarah

[Fredfish]

Hehe.. you posted while I was editing my last post to add more.

To make things more confusing, why is the cyano coating everything but the tank walls in one tank and nothing in the refugium. Well... not quite everything. One end WALL in my refugium has changed back from a brownish slime to cyano. This wall has much higher flow than the rest of the system

Actually, I've been watching algae wars on this wall over the last two weeks. It started out covered with a fine layer of cyano that was pushed out by the brownish stuff over a period of about a week. Slowly at first and then very quickly. Now it has completely reversed again in the last two or 3 days.

Who needs CNN when you got algae wars.

Fred

[Seahorsewisprer]

Is your cyano in the area of less water flow? Just for curiosity, try pointing a powerhead at it overnight....works in my tank everytime!

[Samala]

Speaking of algae wars... in my tank I've been noticing a distinct different between the slime-like cyano and a newcomer.. a bright red hazy algae that only sits on the glass. Its not slime, and the snails love it. But its growing really really fast. So fast that I see snail trails through the stuff during the day, and they disappear by the next morning. Its not cyano, so I'm guessing an actual red microalgae?

I'm wondering if its the same stuff as your competing brown algae. Only likes the glass.

Thing is, this week, though the heat is still there, the red algae is outcompeting the cyano. Not that I'm really complaining y'know.. but I did increase flow in the tank the last few days.

Another thing.. my nitrates are at 12.5 mg/L.. phosphate is at 0.05 mg/L. While the cyano was raging phosphate wasnt measurable and nitrate was at 10 mg/L. Hmmmm. I think I need to continue pondering this awhile. Something in this nutrient game is a bit amiss.

Oh! And I overfed with iron last week when I got distracted.. about double the dose. That should have caused a diatom bloom but I never got one.

>Sarah

[Fredfish]

Hehe... My cyano grows wherever it darn well pleases. In the main tank all over the place but thats low/no flow. In the refugium its growing in the area that gets the most flow.

If I point my power head at the cyano I'm gonna have huge sheets flowing all over both tanks.

Wish plantbrain would weigh in here. My brain hasn't hurt in at least a week. .

Fred.

[Samala]

I havent seen Tom around the boards in awhile either.. he must be having too much fun with his research.

Another thing I just realized.. is that the cyano in my tank is dying.. it is almost visibily getting smaller and went from red/purple to black tonight. I checked my logs, I've done lots of little changes, but I'm wondering if this one entry is the key.. "first dose of micronutrients to the tank - fluorish". Why I havent dosed traces yet to this two month old tank I dont know.. I am getting forgetful in my advanced age .

Whats in fluorish trace?

0.017% Zinc
0.0085% Manganese
0.0032% Copper
0.003% Boron
0.0003% Molybdenum
and maybe an atom or two per dose of
Cobalt
Rubidium
Tin
and Vanadium

Notice no iron.. because I was already dosing that separately.

So, possible causes of the bloom:
- Lights are going bad
- Higher water temperatures
- Or my new favorite, one of those above traces was in limitation, not allowing good plant growth.. giving the cyano a chance to grab hold.

Possible events behind the bloom fading out:
- Traces make the plants grow better, outcompete the cyano
- Doubled iron dose is making for better growth
- Increased flow rate in the tank
- One of the above trace elements, in the concentration I added to the tank, is potentially toxic to the cyano cells .. what is in Chemiclean anyway?

Now the thing that is really going to mess with your head is this... why would I be having trouble with trace elements in this tank? I do a 15% water change once a week just for kicks.. with filtered TAP water of all things. Are the plants really chewing through that much in terms of trace elements like these that should be getting to them in salt mix and tap water??

The one thing I know for sure.. that we thought we knew before.. is that low or zero readings of nitrate are not always to blame for a cyano outbreak.

Lets see how this continues to develop.. I may have to retract some of these things later when new info comes to light.

>Sarah

[jmperez32]

I think that the plantbrains explanation of cyano blooms and "limitation" is the key to deal with the cyano boom. I mean there is no way to stop the cyano through a nutrient limitation, they must be defeat by competition with others bacterias or algae.

After almost one year of cyano in my reef, and tried all the things thar are usually recommended, I started adding KNO3, two months later (and because I did it very slowly) I have good macro and coralline grow and almost finish with the cyano .

I hope my experience could be helpful.