Nutrient tracking..

[Samala]

I'm curious.. how many of you out there in crazy macro/grass land are adding nitrate to your tank? Have you been testing to see that the levels come up appropriately and that they are diminished over time as the plants grow (or LS, LR, etc) and uptake it? I'm curious to see how much your plants are consuming on a per day basis. Have you been following PO4 levels if you are dosing nitrate into a typical reef tank? Are they falling? Holding steady? Do you see cyano disappear (as I do)?

In my tank.. with about 50% footprint covered in plants.. consumption runs daily about:

2.5ppm NO3 or 130mg
0.15ppm PO4 or 8mg
0.6 meq/L of Alk or 31.2 meq.. (not sure how to convert to a meaningful dry weight..)

pH moves a little bit during the day from 8.2 AM to 8.4 PM so I have some free CO2 consumption going on along with the carbonate scavanged from the alkalinity.

Anyone else monitoring their nutrients and want to share? PS: Yes, since the tank consumes 0.15ppm PO4 per day that does mean that I'm dosing PO4. No one faint, k? I havent found an iron test I really trust yet.. I'm guessing I'll have to pitch for another Salifert to get good readings from that.

I've been really tempted to throw the tank water up on Bradford or NanoOrange tests to see how much free protein is floating about with the skimmer on and off.... but that's just me being nerdly.

PS: "consumption" here means the tank as a whole.. I realize that not all the PO4/NO3/etc disappearing is wholly due to plant uptake. Just as if you were to post.. 1ppm of nitrate disappearing from your reef it would be understood to be assimilated by all the nitrate sinks in your tank.. not just the macro.

>Sarah

[Seahorsewisprer]

Wow! I test weekly to figure out how much crappola to add, but I have no where near the science you do!

My tanks consumption (270 ish gallons altogether)

Biweekly:
4 caps Fe from Kents Big Jug
2 med cups Ca+ Turbo calcium!
1 dose HCO3 (5 teaspoons baking soda, 1 washing soda!)
2 caps Mg+ ( again from the big jug!)
1 cap Iodine (I think iodine comes in food, 'cause I don't need much)
2 caps Sprungs Strontium I'm trying to get rid of!
4 caps NaNo3 (kents Nitro+)

I don't add no stinkin PO4, that is sooo crazy! Unless, you consider using our tap water adding P04.

I got the analysis of our tap water and the TDS is off the charts! No Rocky Mt spring water for my part of the valley! It has a large amt of silicate, too, so my new Diatoms bloom in about 2 days!

And with the addition of Flouride, my puffer has got the whitest teeth! (I wonder about the minty fresh breathe, though?)

[Harmsway]

I didn't want to start dosing until had a fair amount of macro for the uptake. Of course otherwise I would be crazy. Anyway my cheato is growing good but slow, so soon I shall start dosing nitrate and test. I'll need a few more weeks before I can report.


Right now my pH is quite low, 7.8 most of the time.

Gene