Ammonium Bicarbonate

D

drubeedoo

My question and/or situation:

I have been playing around with ammonium bicarbonate dosing my tank for about 6 months now; however, I'm constantly running into nitrates being near zero--like 1-2ppm. I used to keep my tank around 10-15ppm before ammonium dosing and was having great success. Does anyone have experience with ammonium dosing? If so, did you find that your nitrates tended to run lower than when you nitrate dose? I keep my phos around .07-.15ppm. I shoot for .1 ppm but allow for some small variance.

More information: I had a pretty bad tank crash back in February due to underestimating my alk requirements with sps (probably, most likely, long story), but my tank is back and running stronger than ever. However, I lost my initial batch of SPS. I've been slowly reintroducing SPS into my tank--being more picky about which pieces this time--but my tank is currently fairly flowerpot heavy (gonis and alveopora).
 
It’s primarily used for low no3 systems. I have some but haven’t hit the mark where I’m at 1 ppm nitrate yet steadily. I found it due to Randy Holmes and his articles. He states it’s beneficial but only if you are a nitrogen starved system.

Intend to run as my sps grow.

Will be looking at vinegar/vodka in kalk also for the time being as it brings the carbon limited part of the system up but it brings the no3 and po4 lower lol.
 
Dzi said:
It’s primarily used for low no3 systems. I have some but haven’t hit the mark where I’m at 1 ppm nitrate yet steadily. I found it due to Randy Holmes and his articles. He states it’s beneficial but only if you are a nitrogen starved system.

Intend to run as my sps grow.

Will be looking at vinegar/vodka in kalk also for the time being as it brings the carbon limited part of the system up but it brings the no3 and po4 lower lol.
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What parameters do you like to run?

Also, how much par does your lighting cycle provide?

I've been just playing it safe by checking once a week and bumping my nitrates to about 5ppm. I still dose ammonium, but it's just a small daily dose shortly before my light cycle begins.

My light cycle is a 30 minute ramp up to about 400 par at the top of my rockwork for 4 hours. Afterwards, it tapers off to about 200 to finish off the day until ramp down.
 
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