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Happi's Recipe with Micro/Macro and Everything

29K views 79 replies 18 participants last post by  Margis 
#1 · (Edited)
let me begin by saying i have put the last few years into the hobby by studying the plant health, nutrients, fish/shrimp health, i have obtained quite impressive results, i will try my best to post them here much as i could, i been busy with life and might not be posting much anymore, so hopefully i could post much as i can today and i promise to post more whenever am free.

I am here to help based on my own research and observation, along with input from our friends who have contributed in this journey. I don’t want full credit, and want to give credit to others as well but anonymously, just for their privacy, unless you feel there is an need for it to be mentioned.

My vision for this thread is that we will post recipes, help others with questions, and discuss opinions. I want everyone to post with full freedom to be honest and blunt, but without personally disrespecting anyone, just as I and some others have been doing in private group chats.

I want to remind everyone that there is no magical recipe that will always work and solve any problem. This thread is simply for people to share what has worked for them, and to share recipes based on scientific data. There will always be some margin of error and room for improvement. But we will start from here, and hopefully I can help some people.

We are not doing this to earn money or run a business. Everything you need regarding recipes and chemicals will be posted here. We just ask for your help and contributions in fostering a positive discussion environment.

some of those who think everything about me is related to Trace Toxicity is completely wrong or misunderstand my posts or maybe am not best at describing it, my English isn't that great, so you can except some grammar and other mistakes from me.

Before i post some recipes for our plants, lets start with some testing on fish and shrimps that i did, believe it or not Co2 isn't the solution to everything, it is important but, if your plants are suffering, its not only due to low co2, this is where you are most likely to kill your live stock while plant still struggle to grow. next one is going to sound like what i have mentioned earlier, but higher traces have a negative affect on live stock which is not visible immediately, but it will eventually lead to death to live stock and plants. one good example is Staurogyne repens where it would randomly melt for some people, but there are many other plant Sp. that will do the same under same condition. these were repeated tests over the last few years.

also Use these numbers for reference for later on
N 1
K 0.6666
Ca 0.3332
Mg 0.1332
P 0.1332
S 0.066666
Cl 0.006666
Fe 0.006666
B 0.001332
Mn 0.003332
Zn 0.001332
Cu 0.0004
Mo 0.0000066
Ni 0.0000066

Next one is about the above numbers, this would be what plant would use if one have to follow the exact numbers, i have tested it and it does work very well, but it would become almost impossible for one to maintain the above ratio especially if their water parameter aren't stable to begin with, in most cases you will fail with the above numbers due to this reason, any change to these above number results in negative results, for example, raising the B and Zn alone resulted in death to leaves and there was heavy outbreak of BBA, this is why i have always said try not the break the ratio, we can only break it under certain conditions, for example, we can add more of the above numbers if our GH/KH is high to begin with and if there is precipitating/oxidizing event taking place in our tanks, since we cannot successfully use the above numbers i will consider the reasons and we will go from there far as the recipe goes.

next one i want to talk about is many people are confused with what fish really produce, is it NH4 or Urea or something else? the fact is they only Produce NH4, for those who have heavy fish load, they can expect very good plant growth.

next one, which one is superior, chelated or Non chleated recipe? i have used both and i have obtained better growth with Non cheleated, but you will need to add Non cheleated more often vs the cheleated one, i dosed once a week with cheleated one and also had great results. the reason it works better is simply because these metals are now fully free in the water and more available to plants where on the other hand plant have to put much more energy to extract nutrients from the cheleated form.

next one, Fulvic acid, i have used this in some of my mixes, i believe it strongly enhance the existing solution or recipe if you add little bit of it, it will prevent the precipitating and other reaction from happening and it is also helpful to the plants, it kind of act like steroids/booster for the plants. overdosing it will results in GDA, so be careful not to overdose it, i use 0.2-0.5 gram in my solutions.

next one, which source of N is superior for plants? some might argue NO3 is enough, this isn't simply true, i had a chance to try all kind of N sources and NH4 was the most superior one, next one that comes close is Urea, but Urea can sometime fail to work if your water lack nickel enzymes, process of urea degradation was also slow, NH4 can skip certain steps and directly used by plants making it superior to others. Monte carlo was an good example of this test, where it obtained very small leaves when NO3 was the only source of N, soon as NH4 was added, leave size was doubled or tripled.

next one is Potassium, we should never add so much potassium, those who add so much potassium are likely to see pale looking plants and plant don't really use much as what most people has been adding for many years now, plant use almost 3-4x less potassium than NO3, however extra potassium will enhance the plant growth by increasing the uptake of other nutrients.

next one is PO4, this one is tricky one, those who add tons of Po4, are most probably precipitating Iron and other important trace minerals, no need to add so much PO4 in water column, however plant like ludwigia pantanal seems to like little bit extra PO4, so you need to look for the right dose

Next one is Traces/Fe, we will discus as we go, but for now, all i can share is that plant did not use more than 0.1 ppm Fe weekly from DTPA even in high light, rich co2 tank, plant actually had very rich colors, those who are adding tons of Fe from DTPA and still having issue, there issue isn't low Fe, they need to look into other cause such as precipitation and oxidizing. traces also need to stay much lower compare to Ca/Mg and NPK otherwise you will end up with twisted weird growth.

my personal thought based on my own experience: try to stay in ratio whenever you can, breaking the law of ratio will results in buildup of nutrients and also lead toward death to fish/shrimps, plants in the long term, if we cannot keep the ratio and really want to break this law, then make sure we use the protection such as high CEC soil, more water changes, high Ca/Mg NPK to counter this, the only problem with this would be that certain plant will respond in a negative way, while other will not mind at all, long story short, try not to overdose on Micros, its better to dose smaller dose of micro more often than dosing a weekly dose in one single dose. it is best to stock your tank with lots of plants and lots of fish, try not to add so much Bio media or sponge media, good flow is only what you really need, let the fish produce the NH4/PO4 and you only need to add is Traces/Fe/K, no need to add Po4 or No3 in this case, they are not necessary in this case.

Above is based on my own observation and many tests over the many years, they might work for you or not, i cannot promise, but i am quite certain if you did everything right as i have mentioned, you will see good results, now lets get to some of the recipes.

500 ml, 20 ml per 50 gallon Recipe#1

Add 0.54126599918399998 Gram of H3BO3
Add 0.283905 Gram Cu EDTA 15%
Add 4.301 Gram of Fe DTPA 11%
Add 1.819904 Gram Mn EDTA 13%
Add 0.6309 Gram Zn EDTA 15%
Add 0.017897 Gram Na2MoO4*2H2O 39.658%
Add 0.031785785082 Gram of NiSO4.6H2O
Add 36.370216151 Gram of MgSO4.7H2O
Add 6.428728726 Gram of KCl
Add 0.25 Gram Fulvic Acid


B 0.02
Cu 0.009
Fe 0.1
Mn 0.05
Zn 0.02
Mo 0.0015
Ni 0.0015
S 1
Cl 0.25
K 0.712
Mg 0.757

use the above recipe if your water is hard and already have too much Ca/Mg NPK in the water. use the reference to understand how much NPK you should dose with this.


Recipe #2
500ml solution, 20ml per 50 gallon
Add 4.301 Gram of Fe DTPA 11%
Add 0.379 Gram H3BO3 17.48%
Add 2.438 Gram Mn EDTA 13%
Add 0.441 Gram Zn EDTA 15%
Add 0.441 Gram Cu EDTA 15%
Add 3.075 gram Ca EDTA 10%
Add 2.00 gram Mg EDTA 6%
Add 0.0357 gram Na2MoO4*2H2O 39.658%
Add 0.25 Gram Fulvic Acid

Fe 0.1
B 0.014
Mn 0.067
Mo 0.003
Zn 0.014
Cu 0.014
Ca 0.065
Mg 0.025
Ni

this recipe will work for both kind of water, soft or hard, but under softer water, cut the dose in smaller dose and dose based on that, use the reference to understand how much NPK you should dose with this.


Recipe #3
MnSO4.H2O: 27.95 Grams
CuSO4.5H2O: 4.462 Grams
H3BO3 (Boric Acid): 4.330 Grams
Zn Sulfate monohydrate: 1.066 Grams
MoO3 85.5%: 1.328 grams
NiSO4.6H2O: 0.2543 Grams


Concentrate recipes, each 500ml solution need to be made seperate and follow the rest very carefully.

MnSO4.H2O:

Add 27.95071989 Grams to 500ml
Mn 18170.117729462 ppm (1.82 %)
S 10605.464252665 ppm (1.06 %)
50ml will contain 2.8 gm of MnSO4.H2O


Copper Sulfate, CuSO4.5H2O:

Add 4,462.1 mg to 500ml (4.4621 gram)
This solution will contain,
Cu 2271.264715901 ppm (0.23 %)
S 1146.069261293 ppm (0.11 %)
50ml will contain 446.2 mg of CuSO4.5H2O

Boric Acid, H3BO3:

Add 4,330.1 mg to 500ml (4.330 gram)
This solution will contain,
B 1514.176477269 (0.15 %)
50ml will contain 433.012799347 mg of Boric acid

Zn Sulfate monohydrate:

Add 1,066.3 mg to 500ml (1.0663 gram)
This solution will contain,
S 351.886082747 (0.035 %)
Zn 757.088238638 (0.076 %)
50ml will contain 106.6 mg of Zinc Sulfate Monohydrate 35.5%

MoO3 85.5%:

Add 1328.39368606 mg to 500ml (1.328 gram)

This solution will contain,
Cl 0.053135747 (0.0000053 %)
Mo 1514.176477271 (0.15 %)
NH4O3 0.132839369 (0.000013 %)
Pb 0.026567874 (0.0000.027 %)
PO4 0.007970362 (0.0000008 %)
SO4 0.531357474 (0.000053 %)
50ml will contain 132.8 mg of MoO3 85.5%


NiSO4.6H2O:

Add 254.3 mg to 500ml (0.2543 gram)
This solution will contain,
Ni 113.5632355 ppm (0.011 %)
S 62.041275165 ppm (0.0062 %)
One ml will contain 0.508572561 mg of NiSO4.6H2O


Trace mix solution recipe:
Add 249 ml of distilled water to a 500 ml container
Add the concentrates listed below,

50 ml of MnSO4.H2O concentrate
50 ml of CuSO4.5H2O concetrate
50 ml of H3BO3 concentrate
50 ml of Zn Sulfate monohydrate concentrate
50 ml of MoO3 85.5% concentrate
1 ml of NiSO4.6H2O concentrate


The 500 ml of trace mix that will be created by adding the concentrate amounts is,

Analysis:

B 0.015 %
Cl 0.00000053 %
Cu 0.023 %
Mn 0.18 %
Mo 0.015 %
NH4O3 0.0000013 %
Pb 0.00000027 %
PO4 0.00000008 %
S 0.12 %
Zn 0.0076 %
Ni 0.000023 %


A 5 ml dose in 50 gallons of water will result in the following,

B 0.004 ppm
Cl 0.00000014 ppm
Cu 0.006 ppm
Mn 0.048 ppm
Mo 0.004 ppm
NH4O3 0.000000351 ppm
Ni 0.000006 ppm
Pb 0.00000007 ppm
PO4 0.000000021 ppm
S 0.031975849 ppm
Zn 0.002 ppm


this one was one of the best recipe i ever used, this one works best when you have heavy stock of fish and all you need to do is add some Ca/Mg/K along with this micro and leaves the rest to fish, works best for softer water.

Recipe #4
500 ML SOLUTION, 25 ML PER 50 GALLON

12.211598 GRAM POTASSIUM GLUCONATE
0.5 PPM K

6.076083 GRAM FE GLUCONATE
0.2 PPM FE

for those who are trying to give their plant quickly available source of Fe and K

Recipe #5
500 ML SOLUTION, 25 ML PER 50 GALLON

1.445642 GRAM NH4CL
1.05694 GRAM NH4H2PO4 (monoammonium phosphate)
5 GRAM UREA

TOTAL N = 0.75
TOTAL P = 0.075
TOTAL CL = 0.25

for those who are looking to enhance the plant growth, this one should be used with caution, for expert user Only, it will add NH4 as a main source of N.

KHCO3 Recipe, this one works better than K2co3. K2CO3 melted certain plant sp. so i have decided to move forward with KHCO3 which worked like charm.
Add 36.348401 gram KHCO3 to 500 ml solution, 20 ml per 50 gallon;
K 3 ppm
DKH 0.2

https://www.plantedtank.net/forums/...1233202-custom-edta-dtpa-trace-fe-recipe.html

for those who are interested in this recipe, please follow the link above and you can make the recipe based on just traces only and keep the NPK separate or All in one as you wish, dont forget to add 0.25 gram Fulvic acid to each solution. i have explained everything in this linked thread, possibly everything that you need to know. increase 0.5g Ascorbic Acid to 1 gram, 0.2g Potassium Sorbate to 0.4 gram if you are seeing precipitation, usually Fulvic acid will take care of this though.


tank with some of these above recipes:






feel free to use the above recipes, not for sale as i have mentioned earlier and hopefully you will keep it that way as well, i will post more updates in free time, i will be posting more recipe on NPK as well, i have few based on NH4NO3. please remember try to be very accurate with your calculation, otherwise you will get mixed results, accuracy is extremely important


where to buy EDTA/DTPA? i buy from these guys: https://www.mbferts.com/
 
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#5 ·
Hi happi,

thank you for re-posting your recipe and fertilization suggestions in this thread. I think it's great to have more methods of fertilization to choose from according to our goals and needs. I quickly skimmed over the post as I don't have a lot of time, there may be more points to discuss but I feel some were addressed over the years and will continue to be ad infinitum in the absence thorough examination.

More examples of aquariums with greater plant diversity (15+ species) would also make a great case for your fertilizer.

these were repeated tests over the last few years.
It would have been nice to see the methodology and results /raw data of these experiments. This may help inspire others to run their tests and be able to try and duplicate your results. In addition it would allow the hobbyist to make his own interpretation of the data. Not just the experiment from the quote, but all the ones you mentioned. I for one would be interested how you ran the N source experiment. How did you inhibit the conversion and how did you test that conversion did not occur ? How did you prevent NH3 to escape as gas ?

You might say this is an undue burden for suggesting a fertilization recipe. Yes it is, but I think this hobby would benefit from actual data instead of dreamed up stuff. We had/have plenty of that, even from official companies.

next one i want to talk about is many people are confused with what fish really produce, is it NH4 or Urea or something else? the fact is they only Produce NH4, for those who have heavy fish load, they can expect very good plant growth.
emphasis added by me

This statement is false. It is part of basic ichthyology courses and has been known for a very long time that fish also excrete urea not only ammonia (NH3). Some only excrete urea.:surprise:

See Randall et al. (Nature, 1989). Don't have to read very far, just the abstract :" Freshwater fish mostly excrete ammonia2,3 with only a small quantity of urea4,5". I find this slideshow from York University, Canada a very nice and basic introduction to the topic : http://www.yorku.ca/spk/fishbiol09/FB09lecture11.pdf . You will see there that NH3 is the actual molecule which crosses the gills and is then protonated (depending on the water characteristics).

I had the above references at hand, but I think a basic search would reveal that fish also excrete urea. Like I said don't have a lot of time to go line by line, but this kind of statements make me be more skeptical regarding the rest of the post.

Wish your approach to fertilizing helps us all learn more about growing plants.
 
#6 ·
More examples of aquariums with greater plant diversity (15+ species) would also make a great case for your fertilizer.
This has been my thought for quite some time.

Many tanks like mine have more like 20 to 30 species. Seems difficult to correlate anything to experiments performed on a single species or two in a bare tank? And a blend that one species loves......another may hate.

And that is where the "art" part of the equation comes in. Figuring out the right mix of plants and ferts (and everything else) that keeps them all happy. I haven't seen ANY recipe that would do that for every tank, and frankly I don't think it exists. Too many other variables can have causal effects.
 
#15 ·
Compare the ppm traces of the chelated vs non chelated recipe, example chelated Ni 0.0015ppm vs Ni 0.000006 ppm. Notice how the ppm for the non chelated is much much lower? He basically made the separate solution so that he could cut it down to much smaller ppm for the final recipe. does this make sense?
 
#17 ·
due to accuracy, i have trying measuring very low amount on my gram scale and it would be impossible to measure such a small amount, the solution was to simply make a stronger solution and then use say 20 ml from 500 ml solution, adding say 20ml to another 480ml solution give you 0.0001 ppm etc, i hope that make sense.
 
#19 ·
Update: am bit late to respond as i had put Amino Acid Glycine to test as traces, it have many issues such as precipitation and formation of SO4 in the solution, only some of them were very soluble without issue.

i hope to see other members try to make their own ferts, feel free to ask question
 
#20 ·
Hi happi,
How does the ppm specially for macros given in the first post translate to someone having a high light and fully planted tank?Had problem with plants stunting in my tank(with high light) with full RO water(KH:3-5,Gh:3-5) remineralised with Barr's GH booster(didn't use any K2CO3).My dosing included NO3:7 ppm,Po4:0.7 ppm,K:15ppm.GSA and GDA also followed stunting.Co2 was at par(had no fishes so dosed about 4-5 bps,above 1 ph drop from 6.6 to 5.5 or so through JBL inline diffuser)
Was it due to lack of metals and other micro elements stripped away from water by RO?Or was it due to less dosing of macros?I was following your recipe no. 3 for micros.
Don't have any pics with me atm since I have dismantled my tank due to mentioned issues but I intend to plant it again after sorting out these issues.TIA
 
#21 ·
i had multiple members make mistakes while making most of the recipes, i hope you are making everything correctly as margin of error is very high, i do not suggest using Barr Gh booster or other Method such as EI while using my recipes, please refer to this quote:

"next one, which source of N is superior for plants? some might argue NO3 is enough, this isn't simply true, i had a chance to try all kind of N sources and NH4 was the most superior one, next one that comes close is Urea, but Urea can sometime fail to work if your water lack nickel enzymes, process of urea degradation was also slow, NH4 can skip certain steps and directly used by plants making it superior to others. Monte carlo was an good example of this test, where it obtained very small leaves when NO3 was the only source of N, soon as NH4 was added, leave size was doubled or tripled.
next one is Potassium, we should never add so much potassium, those who add so much potassium are likely to see pale looking plants and plant don't really use much as what most people has been adding for many years now, plant use almost 3-4x less potassium than Nitrogen, however extra potassium will enhance the plant growth by increasing the uptake of other nutrients.
next one is PO4, this one is tricky one, those who add tons of Po4, are most probably precipitating Iron and other important trace minerals, no need to add so much PO4 in water column, however plant like ludwigia pantanal seems to like little bit extra PO4, so you need to look for the right dose"


for GH, plant don't really need such a high GH either especially Calcium, you will only need to add so much calcium if you are adding so many trace minerals in excess amount, especially Boron, 5 ppm Calcium and 2 ppm Mg is more than enough for weekly dose, this is already in upper range. far as GDA and GSA goes i suggest you read my article where i might have answer to these questions, if you are really Interested, just send me PM

i can tell you one thing for sure, don't believe if someone tell you "Not Enough CO2" or "Not Enough Nutrients" they have no idea whats truly happening.
 
#22 ·
Thanks for the reply happi.I am gonna try those values for Ca and Mg then.Seems like I was dosing too much.Does excess Ca and Mg block any nutrient absorpotion?
I was facing bent edges and tips of plants' leaves hence started using Barr's booster which cured the problem.Would 2ppm Mg and 5ppm of Ca be enough for fully planted tank?
Regarding making traces recipe,Yes I was really careful while making measurements.I have a scale with least count to .001g.For chemicals that were way lower than min. count I made strong solutions just like yours.
 
#23 ·
it will depend on what source of Ca and Mg you also add, most of the time if the water is rich in CO3 coming from CaCo3, Mgco3 etc, you will face more issues with certain nutrients. for me 5 ppm Ca and 2 ppm Mg is more than enough, i myself use very low amount and you would be surprised if i said how much, i also use 100% RO/DI water, this could change the results for others as they they tap water, if something isnt working for you, please post a pics of the plants, pros and cons of what you observe etc, this would help further. its not Ca and Mg that could block other nutrinets, its more complex than that, for example one of the member use exact same recipe with their tap water and it failed to work for them, i use the same recipe and it works for me, simply because i have more control over my parameter while the other person doesn't. i can add you to our group chat on facebook, so you will be in touch with us more often and we can help you further.
 
#24 · (Edited)
Nice! Thanks a lot for this!

I've been out of the hobby for a while but back at it again, and Hoppi, you have helped me before. Some years ago, when I also came to the conclusion that Micros/CSM was the issue.

Anywho, some questions. The "pink" recipe, how much do you dose of it? Like how many ml pr gallon? Also, I can't find MoO3, but I can get Na2MoO4. You have any clue to what I have to add to get the same Mo concentration as the MoO3?

Thanks.
 
#28 ·
@Fishly

i use Smartwater bottles, i clean them with vinegar and use them to store all my solutions, i use potassium Sorbate and Ascorbic Acid in all my solutions, i sometime use SODIUM BENZOATE if needed, around 0.25-0.5 gram in 500ml solution, but the other two does the job just fine. see my 2nd thread under my signature
@thefishey
What PH would the water have to be to prevent precipitation between the Phosphate and Iron? I'm a bit confused on that topic.
you want the PH to remain acidic, more acidic the better it would be, PH of 5-6 is generally good but there is no need to measure the PH if you are adding the potassium Sorbate and Ascorbic Acid at decent levels. Phosphate and Iron precipitation doesn't easily occur with the the EDTA/DTPA/EDDHA, adding PO4 and Fe gluconate in the same solution could become more of an issue. also adding Fulvic acid to the mix will also prevent precipitation and actually make the Trace mineral more available to the plants by passing through the cell membrane of the plants due to smaller molecules. the only major issue could arise from fuvlic acid is Algae if added in excess amount, so play with it wisely.


if you guys choose the ppm and the chemicals of your choice, I could help make the recipe.
i buy my chemicals from MBferts and customhydronutrients if you guys need them
 
#29 ·
Here are some simple Chelated focused Trace recipes which should be simple to measure on the scale and mix, nothing complicated here compare to some of my other recipes. make sure you add 0.5-1g Ascorbic Acid and 0.2-0.4g Potassium Sorbate to each solution before mixing any of the other chemicals. #2 and #6 are my personal favorite, most of these were used at 0.1-0.2 ppm Fe per week maximum and I never really needed to add more, but you can add higher if you want to explore more. I also usually keep my water at 10 ppm Calcium, 4 ppm Mg, about 4-8 ppm Potassium weekly without adding any of these additionally unless I include them in the Mixes. you can also use Cacl, MgSo4, KHCo3 if you are using 100% RO water, i keep the GH and KH quite low. if you are keeping fish and feed decent amount of food, I see no real reason to add N and P, unless you are pushing for extreme plant growth. feel free to ask questions, I will update some of the NON-Chelated recipes in my free time.

Simple Micro/Fe Recipe Version #1, based on 500 ml solution, 5 ml per 50 gallon

6.55 gram EDTA Fe 13%
Fe 0.045

4.30 gram DTPA Fe 11%
Fe 0.025

6.988 gram Mn EDTA 13%
Mn 0.048

0.433 gram Boric Acid 17.48 %
B 0.004

0.75 gram Cu EDTA 15%
Cu 0.006

0.253 gram Zn EDTA 15%
Zn 0.002

0.190 gram Na2MoO4*2H2O 39.6582%
Mo 0.004
Na 0.002

Simple Micro/Fe Recipe Version #2, based on 500 ml solution, 5 ml per 50 gallon

12 gram DTPA Fe 11%
Fe 0.07

6.988 gram Mn EDTA 13%
Mn 0.048

0.433 gram Boric Acid 17.48 %
B 0.004

0.75 gram Cu EDTA 15%
Cu 0.006

0.253 gram Zn EDTA 15%
Zn 0.002

0.190 gram Na2MoO4*2H2O 39.6582%
Mo 0.004
Na 0.002

Simple Micro/Fe Recipe Version #3, based on 500 ml solution, 5 ml per 50 gallon

4.37 gram EDTA Fe 13%
Fe 0.03

6.88 gram DTPA Fe 11%
Fe 0.04

4.557 gram Fe Gluconate 12.46%
Fe 0.03

6.988 gram Mn EDTA 13%
Mn 0.048

0.433 gram Boric Acid 17.48 %
B 0.004

0.75 gram Cu EDTA 15%
Cu 0.006

0.253 gram Zn EDTA 15%
Zn 0.002

0.190 gram Na2MoO4*2H2O 39.6582%
Mo 0.004
Na 0.002

Simple Micro/Fe Recipe Version #4, based on 500 ml solution, 5 ml per 50 gallon

6.55 gram HEEDTA Fe 13%
Fe 0.045

4.30 gram DTPA Fe 11%
Fe 0.025

6.988 gram Mn EDTA 13%
Mn 0.048

0.433 gram Boric Acid 17.48 %
B 0.004

0.75 gram Cu EDTA 15%
Cu 0.006

0.253 gram Zn EDTA 15%
Zn 0.002

0.190 gram Na2MoO4*2H2O 39.6582%
Mo 0.004
Na 0.002

Simple Micro/Fe Recipe Version #5, based on 500 ml solution, 5 ml per 50 gallon

8.735 gram EDTA Fe 13%
Fe 0.06

6.88 gram DTPA Fe 11%
Fe 0.04

9.754 gram Mn EDTA 13%
Mn 0.067

1.516 gram Boric Acid 17.48 %
B 0.014

1.766 gram Cu EDTA 15%
Cu 0.014

1.766 gram Zn EDTA 15%
Zn 0.014

0.190 gram Na2MoO4*2H2O 39.6582%
Mo 0.004
Na 0.002


Simple Micro/Fe Recipe Version #6, based on 500 ml solution, 5 ml per 50 gallon

17.20 gram DTPA Fe 11%
Fe 0.1

9.754 gram Mn EDTA 13%
Mn 0.067

1.516 gram Boric Acid 17.48 %
B 0.014

1.766 gram Cu EDTA 15%
Cu 0.014

1.766 gram Zn EDTA 15%
Zn 0.014

0.190 gram Na2MoO4*2H2O 39.6582%
Mo 0.004
Na 0.002

Simple Micro/Fe Recipe Version #7, based on 500 ml solution, 5 ml per 50 gallon

34.41 gram DTPA Fe 11%
Fe 0.2

14.56 gram Mn EDTA 13%
Mn 0.1

1.516 gram Boric Acid 17.48 %
B 0.014

1.766 gram Cu EDTA 15%
Cu 0.014

1.766 gram Zn EDTA 15%
Zn 0.014

0.38 gram Na2MoO4*2H2O 39.6582%
Mo 0.008
Na 0.004
 
#36 ·
I also usually keep my water at 10 ppm Calcium, 4 ppm Mg, about 4-8 ppm Potassium .. if you are keeping fish and feed decent amount of food, I see no real reason to add N and P, unless you are pushing for extreme plant growth.
What are your favorite NO3 and PO4 concentrations without fish?
 
#30 ·
@happi,

Recently, I've been thinking about adding fulvic acid (can't hurt) to my daily micro dosing and just saw your comment on it. May I ask what your source is (customhydronutrients mentioned above?) and how you determine dosage amount / gallon?
 
#32 ·
Deanna, I got my Fulvic Acid from Kelp4less few years ago. Far as how much to add and how I came up with that? well far as I know there is no way to accurately figure out the correct dose unlike other chemicals which gives us a % of certain content which can be calculated easily. With Fulvic Acid its little bit tricky, the closest we could come to calculate It, is by calculating the Carbon content based on https://www.webqc.org/molecular-weight-of-C14H12O8.html

Honestly, I have only tested it in my tank for few months, while it could give good results, but at the same time it could also cause this algae that looks like cyano and usually form on the tip of the plants, the results from using Fulvic acid was similar to adding Urea, there is tons of organics in this acid and you could expect some good amount of organic Nitrogen coming from this Acid, I add about 0.15-0.25 gram of Fulvic acid in my recipe for testing purposes, Adding too much resulted in some algae.

I also played with Humic acid and it probably isn’t best used when mixing with the solutions.


Hi @happi.

thanks for posting , i see majorly two versions one is B 0.004 and other is B 0.014, which one to dose when?
you can use any of the above recipe from the list according to your needs, I wouldn’t go based on which recipe to use just based on the Boron. However, try to maintain Fe levels around 0.1-0.3 ranges weekly, you can split the doses in daily dose or dose 2-3x week or however you like, but I wouldn’t dose 0.3 ppm Fe in single dose. also, the only time you need to add more if your water is rich in PH/KH or say liquid hard.
 
#38 · (Edited)
Simple Macro Recipe Version #1, based on 500 ml solution, 20 ml per 50 gallon

17.08 grams KNO3
NO3 2.2100
N 0.4992
K 1.3935

5.072 grams Urea CO(NH2)2
N 0.5000

2.765 grams KH2PO4
PO4 0.4
P 0.133
K 0.17

N 1
P 0.13
K 1.56


Very Simple Macro Recipe Version #2, based on 500 ml solution, 20 ml per 50 gallon

34.1014 grams KNO3
NO3 4.4200
N 0.9984
K 2.7869

2.765 grams KH2PO4
PO4 0.4
P 0.133
K 0.17

N 1
P 0.13
K 2.957

Advance Macro Recipe Version #3, based on 500 ml solution, 20 ml per 50 gallon
13.520136 grams NH4NO3
N 1
NH4 0.64
N-NO3 0.5
N-NH4 0.5

2.078931 grams KH2PO4
PO4 0.3066
P 0.1000
K 0.1262

8.43 grams K2SO4
K 0.8000
S 0.3281

Advance Macro Recipe Version #4, based on 500 ml solution, 20 ml per 50 gallon

6.76 grams NH4NO3
N 0.5
NH4 0.32
N-NO3 0.25
N-NH4 0.25

8.5254 grams KNO3
NO3 1.105
N 0.25
K 0.7

2.5360 grams Urea CO(NH2)2
N 0.2500
N 1

2.765 grams KH2PO4
PO4 0.4
P 0.133
K 0.17



Advance Macro Recipe Version #5 (Marchner Ratio), based on 500 ml solution, 10 ml per 50 gallon (make two seperate bottles for this one)

Bottle #1

19.6 gram KNO3
NO3 1.2707
N 0.2870
K 0.8012

22.34 gram Ca(NO3)2.4H2O
Ca 0.4005
NO3 1.2393
dGH 0.0561

13.33 gram Mg(NO3)2.6H2O
Mg 0.1335
NO3 0.6810
N 0.1538
dGH 0.0308

3.78 gram Urea
N 0.1866
NO3 0.824

Bottle #2

5.5 gram KH2PO4
PO4 0.4056
P 0.1323
K 0.1670

Recipe #5 Note: DO NOT MIX KH2PO4 with the other chemicals, keep it separate.



Advance Macro Recipe Version #6, based on 500 ml solution, 20 ml per 50 gallon

10.15 gram Urea
N 1

2.765 grams KH2PO4
PO4 0.4
P 0.133
K 0.17

8.43 grams K2SO4
K 0.8000
S 0.3281


Maintain 2-3 N weekly, which is Equivalent to 8.8 - 13.2 ppm NO3, Use N as Proxy
 
#39 · (Edited)
here are some pictures of good, bad and the worse from some of the experiments gathered in several years, i will continue to upload more pictures in my free time, there are tons of pictures to share:

https://happi-singh.imgbb.com/

as you can see there are several good and several bad pictures of the plants, the purpose of the experiment was to observe plant health under different ratio, PPM, Chemicals, including varieties of light spectrums, Necrosis and chlorosis on plants were also observed under several conditions. these set of picture were not designed to impress you by only posting a good one and not sharing the bad one, it was designed for you to see how plant respond under different conditions.

algae also responded to several different ratio, fertilizer and such. in some cases algae grew equally well along with the plants when condition were setup wrong on purpose, especially the fertilizer.

root tabs were also put to the test, while root tabs benefited some plant simply by leaching into the water, it also caused several type of algae issues and negative impact on plant health. root tabs are not needed, it was observed that aquatic plant should grow quite well even free floating as well as in inert substrate, under this condition plant seems to grow well when NH4/Urea is the major source of Nitrogen and other nutrients were present in the water. once NO3 was the only source of the Nitrogen, plant would struggle unless there is a NH4 leaching from somewhere, from fish or soil.

Urea, when Urea was added to the water, some plant from the soil will appear that were never there before or previously removed completely. it could be seeds that seems to be triggered by the addition of urea. i observed several plant would only appear when urea was added and they would stop appearing once urea was replaced by NO3 as a nitrogen source. it was also observed, under NH4/Urea dosing very little Calcium was needed and there were no calcium deficiency under even 1 ppm Calcium weekly.

several plant are very sensitive to cold water, i observed that some plant would melt away if you added cold water to drop the temp from 78 to 60, under this condition Rotala Sunset for example dropped its leaves and slowly melted away.

another observation was made where plant started to show more issue was when the balance shifted from NH4 to NO3 or simply say when NO3 became more dominated source of N, under such condition twisting became quite evident and rich color faded away. keeping the NO3 low seems to be more beneficial and let the plant use much of the NH4 coming from your tank naturally or by adding small doses of NH4 daily. if No3 is high, adding some addition of Nh4/Urea will reduce the issue mentioned above.

i used the following recipes in most cases with great results
Micro #2 or #6, 0.1 ppm Fe weekly
Macro # 3 or #4, 1-2 ppm N weekly, 0.4-0.8 ppm Mg weekly


there are several other observation which i will share in my free time
 
#44 ·
once NO3 was the only source of the Nitrogen, plant would struggle unless there is a NH4 leaching from somewhere, from fish or soil.

it was also observed, under NH4/Urea dosing very little Calcium was needed and there were no calcium deficiency under even 1 ppm Calcium weekly.

another observation was made where plant started to show more issue was when the balance shifted from NH4 to NO3 or simply say when NO3 became more dominated source of N, under such condition twisting became quite evident and rich color faded away. keeping the NO3 low seems to be more beneficial and let the plant use much of the NH4 coming from your tank naturally or by adding small doses of NH4 daily. if No3 is high, adding some addition of Nh4/Urea will reduce the issue mentioned above.
I’ve read, in the aquaponics/hydroponics world, that when the NO3/NH4 ratio is low, Ca (and Mg and K) is increasingly impacted. Would you say that this is what you are seeing with your Ca observations?

Similarly, I’ve read some comments, in the aquaponics/hydroponics world, that plants increasingly prefer increasing NO3/NH4 ratios as pH drops below 6. Have you seen any indication of this?
 
#40 ·
Hi happi
Here is a chart with your seven trace element versions listed in post #29. Can you tell us why so many and which one should we use? I entered Hydroplus Tenso Cocktail that has also high copper as your versions 5 and 6 in ratio to the other elements. Did you find more copper helpful?


 
#41 ·
@Edward Thanks for posting the Data. i can only speak of what works best for me and should work well for others, all these recipes are based on tested ratio and the response of the plants. nothing is set in stones and all these recipes can be modified for the user, for example: if one require more Fe, they can add more if their water doesn't favor the Fe very well in term of PH/KH or high PO4, but these recipe should work well as they are.

the reason i have multiple recipes is because some of them use different source of chemicals especially the Fe, some user can choose to use varieties of Fe or mix different kinds of Fe as they wish. after several experiments, i settled between Tropica and Tenso numbers in term of PPM, keep in mind i usually only added 0.1 Fe as proxy per week, amount of Cu is still low compared to some of the name brand such as Tropica, but i find the additional copper to enhance the red colors in plants and tank water usually remain quite clear.

in conclusion, plant seems to do well under Tropica and tenso ppm numbers or the between the two, somewhere in the middile. furthermore, NH4NO3 or Urea produced the best results when combined with these recipes.

here is the quick breakdown for my dosing approach:

Dose 0.1-0.2 Fe as proxy weekly from any of my Micro recipe
Dose 2-3 N weekly as Proxy weekly from any of my Macro recipe
Dose or maintain about 10 ppm Ca, 4 ppm Mg and about 4 ppm K, 8 ppm K should be Maximum and honestly 4-5 ppm K is plenty.

i also find the Fe and Mn to play much more major role in term of Micro, so i maintain 2:1 ratio as i mentioned earlier, it has been lately being confirmed by some users that Mn is quite important after they started adding more. i discovered this many years back when i had rich colors while using Miller then followed by Tropica Clone.
 
#42 ·
after several experiments, i settled between Tropica and Tenso numbers in term of PPM, keep in mind i usually only added 0.1 Fe as proxy per week, amount of Cu is still low compared to some of the name brand such as Tropica, but i find the additional copper to enhance the red colors in plants and tank water usually remain quite clear.

in conclusion, plant seems to do well under Tropica and tenso ppm numbers or the between the two, somewhere in the middile.
Nice observations. So you found Tenso and Tropica having the best results. Your trace element versions #1, #2, #3, #4 and #7 resemble Tropica ratios, and #5, #6 Tenso.





These are two different products in terms of ratios. When should we use one or the other?

furthermore, NH4NO3 or Urea produced the best results when combined with these recipes.
I don’t see nickel in your trace elements. Isn’t nickel necessary for plants in order to process urea? How did you solve this issue?
Dose 0.1-0.2 Fe as proxy weekly from any of my Micro recipe
Translated to daily language 0.014 – 0.029 ppm Fe a day.
Dose or maintain about 10 ppm Ca, 4 ppm Mg and about 4 ppm K, 8 ppm K should be Maximum and honestly 4-5 ppm K is plenty.
What methodology do you use to maintain 4 ppm of K?
 
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