Nitrate Dosing
 

Does anyone here dose nitrate? If so, what product do you use? It seems the accepted product down south is Potassium Nitrate but surprise surprise it seems to be banned in Canada. I have a 180 gallon reef that I can’t get detectable nitrates on. I’d love to just add more fish but unfortunately that isn’t the easiest task right now due to the fish shortages.

How about KNO3 for fertilizing aquarium plants.
In Canada
https://theplantguy.ca/products/plan...rate-kno3-500g

That looks perfect, thanks!

https://www.aquariumdirect.ca/en/dry...te-cano32.html

I switched to calcium nitrate. I have read it is a safer choice as the calcium can be consumed.

If you are needing to dose a fair amount, potassium nitrate may cause an unwanted build up of potassium as it's not heavily consumed.

I use Sodium Nitrate 99%+ pure purchased it off of Amazon.com I was at one time adding a lot and didn't want to throw my potassium out of whack. Not sure about the fertilizer grade KNO3 though. Fertilizer grade is likely pretty low grade not processed or purified, who knows what else is in there. I would recommend purchasing at least food grade. The Calcium Nitrate looks interesting.

Holy cow I didn't know potassium nitrate was banned! I'm still using the 1kg of potassium nitrate I purchased from quick grow about 5 years ago. I dose nitrate on my reef tank with an automatic doser (4 channel doser, 3 channels used for calcium/alk/mag and 4th channel for potassium nitrate).

I target 1ppm nitrate and have to tweak the dosing amount every month or so, by about 20% more or less typically. I test my nitrate weekly.

Back in the early 2000s I purchased a 50 pound bag of potassium nitrate because it was the only way to get it. I had to fill out dangerous goods forms & hauled it to my home. The stuff's not explosive unless you mix it with an accelerant like gasoline but I didn't know that at the time & thought I was driving home with a nuclear bomb in my little chevy sprint! When we moved off the acreage a year or so later I left it behind & haven't thought much of it since. I wonder if it's still there and I can negotiate to purchase it back from the people who bought the acreage? haha

If I keep on top of my nitrate and also dose iron 1-2x per week I notice less pest algae and flourescent greens in my corals do better. I get fewer localized bleaching in my more sensitive deep water acros, too. Before I dosed nitrates they'd be starved and if the lighting increased in the slightest I'd see little patches of bleached tissue on the deep water acros. I don't see that any more.