High Tide Aquatics

Mixing your own nitrate supplements

arod2051

arod2051

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I posted this on the NCRC site and was directed to as for Norm, since he was crowned the king of chemistry.

--snip--

I was wondering if anyone here has mixed their own supplements. Specifically, I want to make a potassium nitrate (KNO3) solution. It has a molar mass of 101.1032 g/mol with a composition of:

K: 38.672%
N: 13.854%
O: 47.474%

This leads me to think that every gram of KNO3 will have 61.328% NO3 and 38.672% K. To make numbers easier, let's say 60% NO3 and 40% K. The potassium is an upside for my carbon dosed tank, but I want to dose NO3.

Here is where I am confused:

I have a 66G NWV tank, which is equivalent to ~250L. If I want to raise NO3 by 1 PPM, then I take 250,000 mL / 1,000,000 mL to get 0.25 mL of a compound. Does this sound right?

Now to get 0.25mL of a NO3, I need to get 0.25mL/0.60 g of KNO3 into solution which is .4167 g of KNO3. Does this sound right?

I can measure out .4167 g of KNO3 and dump it in the tank or I can dissolve .4167 g of KNO3 into 1mL of water. I can dose that 1mL of water into the tank for the same effect. If I dissolve 41.67 g of KNO3 into 100mL of H2O, I now have a stock of solution I can dose into the tank at 1PPM of NO3 per mL. If I dissolve the same 41.67 g of KNO3 into 500mL of H2O, I can dose 5mL of the solution to increase the tanks NO3 concentration by 1PPM. Does this sound right?

By the same token I will increasing the K of the tank by 0.67 PPM, but this is negligible.

Any advice or pointers are appreciated.

--snip--
 
I'll look through the numbers later but you can also check this out (need to register)
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/fertilator.php

It is the freshwater equivalent of 2part type calculators (SW you dose Alk/Ca/Mg. FW you dose N/P/K/Fe)
 
OK, well....here are the calculations I got:
you need .25ml NO3 to raise your 250L by 1ppm.
.25ml NO3 =.6 Vol(KNO3) --> Vol(KNO3)=.4167ml
.4167ml KNO3 (2.1109g/ml) = .8796g KNO3 I got the 2.1109g/ml as the density of KNO3.


Using that, if you wantd to create a stock soln where 1ml of stock raises your tank by 1ppm, then dissolve 880g KNO3 into 1L (1000mL) of DI water. To check, 880g/L x .001L = .88g Hope that helps and I hope my math is right.
 
phishphood said:
.4167ml KNO3 (2.1109g/ml) = .8796g KNO3 I got the 2.1109g/ml as the density of KNO3.
Click to expand...


Ahhh. I would have completely missed the mass-to-volume transfer function. I, mistakenly, used water's density of 1g/mL. Very nice.

I am going to come up with my own brand of supplements. I will market it as

"More expensive and you get to put your livestock at risk!"
 
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