_Dosing Regime's_

[Wö£fëñxXx]

Originally Posted by imeridian

You'll start posting thread after thread with photos asking "what deficiency is this?!"

lol...

[ZooTycoonMaster]

Does MgSO4 raise pH and/or water hardness? Or nothing?

[imeridian]

It will increase GH.

[Tonysok]

Does anyone else's CSM+B/trace mixture with RO/RI water mold up after awhile?

[dewalltheway]

Originally Posted by Tonysok

Does anyone else's CSM+B/trace mixture with RO/RI water mold up after awhile?

Do you keep it in the fridge? If not, do. This will keep it from molding.

[bsmith]

I believe PPS is a leaner fert routine then EI, where you would start test alittle and add more of what is missing. EI on the other hand is where we dose in excess and test and remove whatever there is too much of. The safer route if you ask me.

Originally Posted by ZooTycoonMaster

Does MgSO4 raise pH and/or water hardness? Or nothing?

[BayBoy1205]

I have all of my dry ferts and wondering what would be the best approach to dose a 125G tank? Would you mix up solution (I have 1000mL bottles) or powder directly?
Do you shoot for the target amount or gradually increase it?

Thanks,

Mat

[Wö£fëñxXx]

Use measuring spoons and dry dose, no gradual increase, just dose, but a few
questions first:

How much light do you have?

How well planted is the tank?

Do you have pressurized Co2?

These factor in on what and how much to dose.

Regards

[BayBoy1205]

I'm running 8 - 36" 39W T-5HO.
Yes, pressurized CO2.
Here is a recent pic of my tank.

[Wö£fëñxXx]

Nice start and good job!

That is a lot of light.

How are you diffusing Co2? Co2 will be the biggest challenge of all, you need
good diffusion & distribution of the gas.

The dosing regime listed on front page will get you started very well, you can
also divide those numbers and dose daily if you desire.

Dose the trace minerals first, if you dose them dry just mix it in a cup of tank
water and pour it in the flow path, dosing the macro's just scoop and dosing also in flow path.

Are you seeing any signs of BBA? black fuzzy looking algae on anything? if so
you Co2 needs to be tweaked for better diffusion and distribution.

What is the filtration on this 125?

Your plants look good and things are growing well, once you start dosing you
may find an explosion of growth and may become a lot of work keeping the
tank maintained, if this becomes the case, reducing the light intensity alone
will slow things down for you.
You will still want the same good Co2 an nutrients however.

[BayBoy1205]

Thanks, I run 4 bulbs a couple hours and then all 8 for 7 hours and then 4 for a couple hours.
I have been dosing the Wonder-Gro product, but cost started adding up and going with the dry route.
I'm diffusing the CO2 using a Mag9.5 needle wheel. The output goes down the middle of the tank about 2" off the bottom and then in both directions about 5".
I try and keep the double checker in the green to slightly yellow. But with my well water (inconsistent) the CO2 varies. Will be using RO water once the setup gets here.
I do have some BBA in some low flow areas. Have some power heads coming to increase flow in those areas.
I'm running two Eheim 2028's for filtration.
Also another Mag9.5 running the 25W UV.

Thanks,
Matt

[kyle3]

forgive me if this has already been included , the thread search tool didn't have any matches.

when you go buy your measuring spoons for dry ferts they're are commonly labeled by drop, smidge, pinch, hint. i think the translation is 1/64=drop, 1/32=smidge, 1/16=pinch & 1/8=hint. can anyone confirm that? i know there are also spoons labeled dash & a few others odd cooking names. it seems like it would be useful to have this info confirmed and part of the thread. If you know for sure please post a reply! thanks!

-K

[binders]

Do you have to mix CSM+Bwith water or can you dry dose it? Seems like most people have problems with the water solution and I was wondering what would be the problem of just dry doing it I some do with the macros. New to the fertz and was just wondering.

[plantbrain]

Well fed fish and well fed plants is a common sense approach to keeping aquarium livestock and plants.

Plants are not merely about the nutrients, CO2 is a nutrient and the largest one really. Light is fairly stable and few folks are ever too low when using CO2. Most are too high with light intensity.

These both affect the results for nutrients/rates etc.
No dosing routine will match all tanks as their rates are different, but we do know the upper bounds/rates. From there, you reduce down (or not, these rates will do no harm, see below).

Starting low and bring it up higher till no more positive effect is noted is much harder, and takes longer. Why? The plants are already starved/limited for nutrients. It takes longer for them to adjust that if they where fat and happy to begin with.

You need to start with a good plant reference state, not a limited plant.
Same for testing algae and analyzing why you have algae.
You need a reference tank(one that's doing well and is nice and healthy), testing a 1/2 dead plant, algae covered, stunted, limited....is hardly a good comparative method to gauge and discuss a treatment.

Still, many aquarist seem to think that it is rational to assume they can "test" something without any control and a loused up tank.
You must have some reference to compare by.

You can look to research for plant nutrients. A basic tool is using Hoagland's modified solution and then DI water for nutrient solution references, one complete and non limiting (Hoagland's), the other, devoid of any nutrients(DI water).

Any sediment or nutrient combination in between will fall somewhere between these two. In the case of salt and other toxicants, it will also do worse than the DI water, but as far nutrients alone, the DI water will have the least.

Now you have a relative measure for any nutrient in between these two concentrations.

EI is pretty much like Hoagland's modified and without the NH4.
Gerloff and Kromboltz(who comes to the AGA conventions, still posted on the APD etc) decades ago used a 1/5th Hoaglands for aquatic plants, which, is about what EI's range is.

http://allhydroponics.blogspot.com/2...ydroponic.html

Now at :

N 210 ppm
K 235 ppm
Ca 200 ppm
P 31 ppm
S 64 ppm
Mg 48 ppm
B 0.5 ppm
Fe 1 to 5 ppm
Mn 0.5 ppm
Zn 0.05 ppm
Cu 0.02 ppm
Mo 0.01 ppm

These are pretty high, yet some clowns claim that 20ppm of NO3 causes plants to melt Such solutions above are what is used for commercial growers of aquatic plants(95% of all aquatics)! Not to mention most other crops. This information is widely available. Many aquarist seem more than willing to **actively** ignore it.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[kali]

so i did tried to read the whole thread but just wanna making sure .. you only mix the plantex CSM+B? everything else KN03,KH2P04,K2S04 just dump tsp in the tank?