Sodium Nitrate

[coolhandgoose]

Does anyone know where to get sodium nitrate from in Calgary? I'm running an ultra low nutrient system with bio pellets and thinking that this may be contributing to my Dino problem. I've heard of people raising their nitrate levels to about 2-3ppm helps to get rid of them. Figured it can't hurt. Failing a spot to find sodium nitrate how about potassium nitrate (saltpeter)?

[ScubaSteve]

Becareful with potassium nitrate and that can trigger a whole set of other problems. If you want your nitrates higher, I'd say feed more. Your livestock will generate more waste and be happier.

Better solution is to just relax a bit of your regime. I vodka/mb7 dose and got hit by dinos just before Christmas. Stopped dozing for a week and restarted at half my dose. Dinos gone! And my nitrates are still zero.

[toytech]

If i could box nitrates i would send you a CRATE FULL i have lots . If you run filter socks you could wait an extra day before changing them , or run a bit of filter floss and let it get dirty to generate some nitrates.

[Delphinus]

If you have dinos you have my sympathies. They are an awful problem to get rid of. I've had (and seen) dinos hit tanks both of low nutrients and not-so-low nutrients .. I'm a bit skeptical that raising nitrates will really help you rid your tank of dinos. IMO the only thing that works is going lights out for a few days and starving them out that way.

Diatoms on the other hand .. if it's diatoms then maybe just relaxing the regime as suggested (or feed more which always seems to work for me in producing nitrates!!!)

Good luck!

[coolhandgoose]

Thanks for the replies guys. I'll try feeding a bunch more and see if that does the trick, I usually only feed about every three days. I'll step it up to every day and see what happens.

I've been battling these guys for about 2 months and haven't seen any improvement. I tried the lights out and that didn't work. I've heard raising ph can help but mine runs at 8.3 in the morning and about 8.4 at night. I even stopped doing water changes in an effort to raise nitrate but to no avail.

It's really strange too, it'll start off in the morning as a brown dusting, get thicker into a brown mat on the sand bed and about an hour two before lights out it turns into a stringy snotty mess. It's not affecting the rocks and corals too badly, mostly the sand bed looks like crap.

I'm tempted to stop the bio pellets but don't want my water to get too out of hand.

[reefermadness]

The whole point of running biopellets is so you can feed more IMO. High import of food and high export of waste products is the way to get good colours.

[coolhandgoose]

You're probably right, I'm gonna start feeding more to see what happens. Tank can't look any worse at this point

[Lethbridge]

Ever thought to give hydrogen peroxide a try? I've used it for a few different applications and it works great. Typically you dose 1ml/10 gal for anywhere from 7-14 days, you should see it start to clear up in a few days of use and your glass will stay cleaner and your skimmer will skim heavier. H2O2 doesn't affect any corals, fish, inverts etc, however your Zoa's will close upon dosing but then open up after some adjustment time.

[Werbo]

Stopping your carbon source (ie biopellets) is pretty standard advise if you are dealing with dino's.

Over an 18 month period I tried all the mentioned remedies with no success. After 18 months I finally removed my sandbed and they are gone.

In the summer I'll try re-introducing sand to the tank.

[coolhandgoose]

What concentration of h2o2 did u use? I haven't researched that technique so I'll have to look it up.
I fed an entire cube of emerald entree today, a bunch of Acan plus for corals and some kent coral grow formula. Tomorrow I'm going to add a bunch of pellet food and some plankton. I also sucked a bunch of dinos out today off the sand bed.