I just started a new high tech and heavily planted 17 Gallons tank and i want to get ferts right. From what i read on that type of tank you should aim for 10+ ppm of Nitrogen. First is that right?? Second if that is so, am i using the calculator correctly? It would suggest 50ml of dosing!
Isn’t that the equivalent of about 88 NO3? Isn’t that too much? From what I understand this is EI method, over dosing. What about a leaner regime like 5-6 ppm? I’m confused. By the way I am dosing tropica specialized nutrition and on other tank I have been dosing once a week along with a water change. Also a guy at my local fish store told me to not dose potassium and nitrogen (basically saying to use tropica premium instead) in early days, which I am not conviced of, what do you think?
Isn’t that the equivalent of about 88 NO3? Isn’t that too much? From what I understand this is EI method, over dosing. What about a leaner regime like 5-6 ppm? I’m confused. By the way I am dosing tropica specialized nutrition and on other tank I have been dosing once a week along with a water change. Also a guy at my local fish store told me to not dose potassium and nitrogen (basically saying to use tropica premium instead) in early days, which I am not conviced of, what do you think?
Could be 8ppm 2x a week or it could need 15ppm 3x a week, it’s all a very grey area, no such thing as one size fits all. You test and try to find a routine that at least keeps tank at 8-10ppm minimum but hopefully climbing to no more than 30ppm accumulation across the week when it’s time to do your 50% water and reset levels in tank. Lather/rinse/repeat. Your source waters hardness can even have a effect on how much you dose. Measuring phosphate is also a good indicator if your dosing is keeping up with tanks needs.
once the system is up and running, start dosing NPK and micros. ei philosophy is to provide plants with as much nutrients they would ever need. i along with many others dose leaner than ei levels. i dose 9-3-15ppm/week. growth is slower and with a stem dominated scape like mine, makes maintenance (trimming) less time consuming. buy the dry salts and mix your own. cheaper and you can tailor it to your tank. use rotala butterfly or some other nutrient calculator.
1: For light, I am thinking setting it at level 4 which would give about 70 PAR, middle reading for my tank and starting at 6 hours a day and going up 30 every other week until plants establish. Doing 4 hours peak and 1 hours each side 50%->100%.
2: For Co2, 20-30ppm
3. For dosing as of right now I am thinking NPKM tropica specialized nutrition. I am thinking 8ML a week which give 1.6ppm of nitrogen or 7ppm of nitrate. It's pretty much the ADA lean model. Is it enough? My soil is probably not as rich as amazonia aqua soil?
SPECS:
Tank dim: 24W 12L 14H
Light is Chihiros A-serie 601, 8000K sitting 2 inches above the tank. (See PAR reading below)
Filter is Eheim 2215, With coarse pad, Eheim bio media, Seachem purigen and fine filter floss.
Co2 injection
Dosing Tropica specialized nutrition NPKM
Light PAR level
This is taken from another hobbyist. The data is measured at 12 inches depth, middle of the tank.
Level 1: 8.5 PAR
Level 2: 30 PAR
Level 3: 49 PAR
Level 4: 70 PAR
Level 5: 90 PAR
Level 6: 105 PAR
Level 7: 130 PAR
Will be using Seachem Flourite Substrate (Clay based soil) @moke
Bump:
I would probably have to get some K ferts. My tropica premixed has about 30% less K than nitrogen and the way I am seeing it around you should dose a bit more K? Is that right?
I could investigate doing that. I assume it is a bit more work upfront to make sure you do it properly but then you can control quantities more precisely. And it is cheaper. Just a quick question: where do you buy your N P K and traces? Local plant store??
1- Is the daily dosing only a matter of reducing nutrient spike that you would get at the beginning of the week to contain algae problem?
2- Why only 6 days a week and not 7? By the way if you dose like that are you using an automatic doser?
3- If the aquascape is brand new, plant not established yet and still baby size, would you start with a 12ml a day regime already? Or go slower and ramping?
4- If i'm not yet on my full light cycle (I'm doing 30min of 30% to 60% | 30min of 60% to 100% | 4 hours at 100%(70 PAR mid reading) and then going back down symmetrically. Would that affect dosing negatively. Or again would approx 12ml a day be good?
Sorry for the question load I have never dosed as much as that in the past. Maybe that was putting me behind on the algae side. I'm willing to try as everyone and everything I read seems to point toward a stronger dosing than what I would do.
I could investigate doing that. I assume it is a bit more work upfront to make sure you do it properly but then you can control quantities more precisely. And it is cheaper. Just a quick question: where do you buy your N P K and traces? Local plant store??
green leaf aquariums. get kno3, kh2po4, k2so4, and plantex csm-b. also epsom salt from drugstore. it takes less than 10 min to mix up 500ml of macro and micro solutions. lasts 4 weeks (i put about 10ml excel/vinegar to prevent mold in the bottles). yes, you can be precise but i use a teaspoon set and estimate 1/64 t. :icon_wink
Day 7 is water change/maintenance day, your plants not getting fed for one afternoon not going to be that big a deal. If your lean dosing adding a dose on that day is ok to, change water depending on source can replenish a lot of needed nutrients.
The pic I posted earlier, look at iron level, .13ppm, that is the bare minimum you can get by with and that is going to need to be dosed without fail each and every day or your going to go into nutrient depletion. When nutrients bottom out plant growth stalls and algae will have the upper hand. With lean dosing your walking a tightrope between success and failure. You can dose less more often or dose more less often, but you never want nutrients to bottom out for any extended period of time.
My reason posting that pic was to show you that your 8ml week theory was flawed in thinking that it would come anywhere close to supplying a well lit/co2 injected tank with what it needs, 8ml of that fert wouldn’t even get your tank through a day of your plants needs. When using a all in one fert like that you need to hit iron target not N, then you just have to trust that other nutrients are in there at proper ratios.
Also Tropica fert is going to get very expensive to maintain a a rev’d up/supercharged tank like yours, dry salts is way to go.
I see, thank you for detailed answered. I guess i will try that regime, 12ml of tropica specialized a day. I have bottles right now so i'll use that up first but definitely going to order dry salts and an automatic doser, I hate to have a daily task like that haha. Thanks again for all the info. I'll test that out and see how it goes. @pauld738@moke
Thanks for the dry salts link! I will look a bit further since i'm in Canada. Nilocg does not ship and green leaf charge a bunch for shipping like twice the order price which is ridiculous IMO. Worst case it is what is. Thanks again!
And by the way does any of you have suggestion for auto doser? I'm currently looking at Kamoer bluetooth dosing pump.
I was looking at Kamoer pretty hard myself. Saw some guys over on a salt water forum complaining about the Bluetooth model forgetting settings when power goes out. Not sure if they have fixed that yet.
If you top off your water evaporation with distilled water (figure out how much your tank evaporates a week) you can just add that weekly amount to top off water, keep jug beside tank, every day feed your fish and then spend another 20sec topping off for evaporation/feeding your plants. If you’ve got time to feed your fish, you’ve got time to feed your plants. If you miss a day no big deal you’ll double up on top off water/dosing next day. You’ve already measured out and diluted the dose for whole week, all you have to do is pour it in tank.
I keep a .5gal pitcher beside my little low tech 7gal, daily routine, feed my betta/neon/ember tetra then top off/dose. This time of year that = about .75gal, dead of winter with house heaters drying out air it moves up 1gal+. No matter how busy you are if you can’t spare 15sec a day to top off your tank/dose or at least every other day you probably shouldn’t be keeping a planted tank. Even 2x week, say Mon and Wed can work out.
Consistency of routine is where tanks thrive, know the rules/guidelines and learn to observe/test tank over periods of weeks not just a couple days for signs of deficiency etc. Water change and cleaning/waste management routines are easily just as important as light/dosing/CO2 levels. Maintenance/cleaning/pruning vs light/nutrients is easily a 50/50 split on what’s important for a well functioning tank. A lot of people get so caught up on light/dosing/co2 thing and then they ignore the elephant in the room, the cleaning, maintenance and change water prep routines.
One ??? you really should answer/know is what is your source change waters PH, KH, GH, Nitrate and Phosphate levels when you let water set in a glass for 24hrs to equalize to atmospheric gases? That is true water parameters you have to work with. Anything you read in tank different from that is the result of either organic decomposition (feeding/poop, rotting leaves or wood decay) or the release of minerals into water by substrate or rocks dissolving.
Also don’t follow along with people who say because Fluorite has a lower CEC value it’s no better than plain sand that’s not true. CEC is basically a negatively charged surface, it’s able to attract and hold a positively charged ion (nutrients). Plant roots will then strip out that nutrient that’s bound there and that binding site will immediately become available to attract another elements ion. As long as you have a good circulation patterns in tank where gases and nutrients are pushed into the substrate pores via micro-currents and dose the water column those CEC sites will be constantly replenished.
Plain sand has 0 CEC potential until about 6-12mo when some organic matter (natural peats) builds up in it, fluorite will have CEC value of about 3 right out of bag. Aquasoil, peats, soil beds will easily have 30x that CEC potential right of the bag.
Thanks for all the valuable info once again. For the maintenance I never ever skip, I do it religiously once a week, water change, pruning, glass cleaning, filter cleaning etc. Although, there is absolutely nothing wrong with me wanting to buy tech gear (bluetooth auto doser, heck i might even buy an ATO) to avoid a couple of daily task. I am not always home and when busy I have tendency to forget a bit. As you said consistency is mandatory. That being said for me I think it is a great option.
Next I am aware of my tap water parameter and I do also think that it is mandatory.
Thanks again for all the info! Little update, At the moment the scape is still early in cycle, ammonia is still high. Waiting for that to drop!
I’ll never say anything bad about dosing pumps in general, greatest thing since sliced bread for maintaining a stable tank. I had one on my 65gal years ago. These days I couldn’t see going that route for my little 7gal.
They do add a extra layer of maintenance/monitoring but nothing absurdly difficult. Number one is keep nutrient tanks and tubing as much in blackout conditions as possible to prevent funk from growing in them. Lines running up to tank use black opaque tubing that has zero light penetration. You would think the high concentrations in solutions would inhibit growth of bacteria etc, not so, nature has a bacteria/fungi that will grow in almost any condition you can imagine. Usually if you follow those rules you’ll be looking at semi-annually cleaning needed and pinch hose replacement probably every couple years. i used a big sturdy gauge of fishing line to run up through tubing then I’d tie knot on end of that line and pull it through tubing to scrape the inside clean.
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Related Threads
?
?
?
?
?
The Planted Tank Forum
3.5M posts
130.6K members
Since 2002
A forum community dedicated to Aquatic tank owners and enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about flora, fauna, health, housing, filters, care, classifieds, and more!