I have been dosing for a couple of weeks and noticed the new growth on my swords is light green. Do I need to dose more micros or just only Iron or more macros?
Hi Chet
The normal micros dose on 55 gallon aquarium should be 12 drops a day of solution #2. If you still see pale new growth then double the dose to 24 drops a day for a week or two.
What should I do? Major water change? I think this explains my excessive algae and plants not doing great. Should I hold off on dosing micros for a week. My swords have pale new growth. Is this from too many micros.
No need to do a water change. It is actually good you have dosed micros like that. It proves the yellow growth is not lack of micronutrients. Don’t stop dosing micros, plants need daily supply.
Something is not right with macros. What do you know about tap parameters?
My tap is 180 ppm. My water change was done with tap water. I stopped dosing on last Thursday and the plants seem to be growing better with no algae on new growth. My tank was 257 ppm tonight.
i have a water softner with a bypass valve. The only water that is soft is hot water to match tank temp. FYI when I looked at my micro bottle it had white solid settle out of it. My tank ph is 6.4 with ph controller. Drop check is light green. My TDS is 268. Should I do a water change? I am still double dosing excel to control bba. I just connected the ph controller this past Friday.
This is getting complicated.
You use larger portion raw tap mixed with smaller portion filtered via whole house “softener”. The ratio is dependent on temperature, so the water parameters are never the same. Not good. Can’t you fill something with raw tap water and heat it up electrically?
To make this working we need to know more details.
What do you use to regenerate the whole house “softener”, NaCl or KCl?
What is raw tap GH, KH, TDS ppm as NaCl?
Knowing raw tap Ca or Mg would help a lot.
What is “softened” water GH, KH, TDS?
Your plant problems are caused by mineral imbalance of Ca, Mg, K and Na.
If raw tap water, “softened” water and aquarium water don’t have the same KH then the CO2 controller will make it worse. The controller is regulating CO2 delivery referenced to pH. When KH fluctuate then pH and CO2 does as well. This is bad for plants.
The white precipitation in micro solution is not good, you may need to use RO or distilled water to mix it up and put little Excel in to control fungus.
I should have Filters by Thursday. I am going to remix the micros at the lower rate. I mixed the first batch with distilled water I cant figure out why it settled out 1 1/2 months later.
Continuously, the RO water with Essential Minerals will be replacing the previous tap water. At the same time daily fertilizing will continue as recommended. Monitoring TDS or Conductivity will determine water changes.
RO Essential Minerals need to be added at 3 dGH based on the new RO water volume. Water changes are due when TDS readings exceed 125 ppm as NaCl ( 75 RO Essential Minerals + 50 fertilizer limit ) or Conductivity readings of 250 µS ( 150 RO Essential Minerals + 100 fertilizer limit ).
@Edward What's the difference between PPS pro and classic in exact numbers? The pro numbers are easy to get but classic, from your signature, it's NOT so easy to find.
I made an ferts app on apple and I'll add the dosing methods to it.
PPS-Classic is not suited for hobbyists. It is more of an analytical tool and a system for large scale aquariums. It comes with its own calculator. You can include PPS-Pro, but not PPS-Classic in your application.
What would be nice is to integrate PPS-Pro with tap, RO, RO Essential Minerals, TDS ppm as NaCl and Conductivity in µS for water change techniques.
Why won't TDS reading drop significantly after 1 10gal water change with RO water on Friday and a 13 gal water change last night with RO water. My reading before water changes on my 55 gal as 280 now it is only 250. My RO water TDS was 8. I added seachem equalibrium with each change at 4grams per 5 gallons of RO water.
What should my nitrates in ppm? I have changed 40% with RO water and my nitrates are 20ppm. Should I stop dosing? I did notice some osmacote pellets in the substrate when I did the water change. I put asmacote in the substrate in January. I think this is what is elevating the nitrates.
What should nitrate level be before I switch back to regular macro solution? I think osmacote was a 3 month long release. I have switched to RO water with nutrients you recommended added. I am doing weekly water changes hoping to clean up the water. I am only running purigen and matrixs and filter floss in my canister filter. I regenerated the 1 month ago. Is my filter missing anything? My Kh is 3 and pH is 6.4. Dosing with pH controller.
Keeping NO3 up to 10 ppm is ok, not zero. Adjust it to match conveniently your NO3 test kit lowest resolution. In the filter, Matrix is the important part, more is always better.
The CO2 controller will cause problems when mixing different KH level waters. When KH fluctuates so does CO2 level. The controller by design is regulating pH, not CO2.
Hello, excuse my English, I from Russia and not know English, I use translator. Not long ago, was to use PPS-Pro and mineralizing water prescription Edward . Tell me what should be the pH ? I have a KH of 0-1. How to apply CO2?
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