Seeking dosing advice, without test kits

[kniveswood]

Tank Dimensions : 2ft(L) x 1.2ft(W) x 1.5ft(H) (About 70l water)

Lighting Intensity : 72w
No. of hours your lights are on : 4 + 6 hours daily

Type of CO2 (DIY/Liquid/Tank) : Seachem Excel daily, recommended dosage.

Liquid fertilisers Used : Lushgro Aqua
Fertilization regime : 1ml daily

Type/brand of base fert : JBL Aquabasis

Type of Filter : Atman HOB
Filter media used : Wool -> Ceramic rings + Seachem Matrix

Water change frequency : Weekly
Amount changed : 30%

Water surface movement : Turbulent, due to airstone

Tank Temperature : 29-30C

Chemical Properties (Fill what you can)
-------------------------------------
KH (dKH): ?
GH (dGH): ?
pH : ?
NH4 (ppm): ?
NO2 (ppm): ?
NO3 (ppm): ?
PO4 (ppm): ?
Fe (ppm): ?

Bioload (Number and type of fish and plants)
------------------------------------------

- 6 juvenile angels
- 1 adult angel
- 4 threadfin rainbowfish
- 2 SAE

- APP (Foreground)
- E.Tenellus, Red Tiger Lotus (Midground)
- Vallisneria, Balansae, Bacopa, Limnophilia Heterophylla (Background)

Describe your problem :

From the symptoms of my plants, together with my lighting, and the supposely denitrifying Seachem Matrix, i believe my NO3 is quite low.

I have no algae right now, but neither are my plants looking nice and green. Thus i would like to try dosing stuffs like KNO3 and KH2PO4. If i dont use any test kits, what is a safe and recommended ppm to dose? I stay in Toa Payoh and have no idea how much NO3 and PO4 is in my water.

And after KNO3 and KH2PO4, what else should i dose?

[rijac]

you might be losing co2 due to the turbulance. i also think your fishload is way to high for the tank size you have and i doubt low nitrate is a problem...

think increasing the photoperiod migh help too.

[juggler]

From http://www.seachem.com/support/FAQs/...Excel_faq.html , they said surface agitation won't affect the carbon source from Flourish Excel.

Q: Will an airstone or surface agitation decrease the effectiveness of Excel as it would decrease the effectiveness of CO2 injection?? What effect would an airstone/agitation have on Excel's effective CO2 levels?
A: An air stone or other surface agitation will not impact the effectiveness of Flourish Excel. Flourish Excel is not CO2, it is simply a readily available source of carbon. This is an intermediate source and more readily available than CO2 and will not interfere with the uptake of CO2 as a carbon source.

Anyway, for a start, I would:
- add CO2 injection, it is much cheaper than Flourish. And turn off the air stone.
- stop using Matrix. I have no experience with Matrix. But if the NO3 is really depleted by Matrix, then might as well stop using it. Dosing extra KNO3 and using Matrix sounds contradicting. P deficiency is similar to N deficiency too.
- start dosing K2SO4, assuming there's also enough NO3 from fish waste. You can switch to KNO3 if you later think NO3 levels are not enough. Your 1ml Aqua daily adds about 3ppm NO3 weekly. For me, K at 10ppm weekly is good enough.
- start dosing KH2PO4. You can safely dose 1ppm of PO4 weekly.

[kniveswood]

Anyway, for a start, I would:
- add CO2 injection, it is much cheaper than Flourish. And turn off the air stone.

I have a Nutrafin CO2 system, but i took it out as the flipper gets so dirty so fast. And if left uncleared, the dirt traps CO2 bubbles and impacts CO2 diffusion, since stationary bubbles wont diffuse. Maybe there's some trick to keep the flipper clean?

- stop using Matrix. I have no experience with Matrix. But if the NO3 is really depleted by Matrix, then might as well stop using it. Dosing extra KNO3 and using Matrix sounds contradicting. P deficiency is similar to N deficiency too.

What do you suggest I replace them with? Regular ceramic rings? Regular sintered glass rings? What do you personally use?

- start dosing K2SO4, assuming there's also enough NO3 from fish waste. You can switch to KNO3 if you later think NO3 levels are not enough. Your 1ml Aqua daily adds about 3ppm NO3 weekly. For me, K at 10ppm weekly is good enough.
- start dosing KH2PO4. You can safely dose 1ppm of PO4 weekly.

Actually i bought a bottle of Seachem Nitrogen and Seachem Phosphorus yesterday and dosed 1ml of each. That is close to what is recommended on the label, but i noticed that the dosage on their website is different. And also, the recommended dosage seem to be only adding very little ppm of each. 0.2ppm Nitrogen and 0.0625ppm Phosphorus. Am I correct on the calculations?

[juggler]

For the Nutrafin CO2, maybe you can pass the CO2 output through a bubble counter (can DIY one the as shown in the picture in http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/CO2/co2-faiz.html). It helps to dissolve some of the stuff that causes this slime on your flipper. Why not use an internal CO2 reactor powered by your filter? Your CO2 will dissolve better. Can consider investing in a CO2 cylinder as well.

I used ceramic rings and filter wool in my filters. Never changed since day #1. Only rinse it every few months.

Never tried Seachem Nitrogen and Seachem Phosphorus before. SO cant' comment. Maybe bclee has tried. Can ask him?

[kniveswood]

For the Nutrafin CO2, maybe you can pass the CO2 output through a bubble counter (can DIY one the as shown in the picture in http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/CO2/co2-faiz.html). It helps to dissolve some of the stuff that causes this slime on your flipper. Why not use an internal CO2 reactor powered by your filter? Your CO2 will dissolve better. Can consider investing in a CO2 cylinder as well.

I used ceramic rings and filter wool in my filters. Never changed since day #1. Only rinse it every few months.

Never tried Seachem Nitrogen and Seachem Phosphorus before. SO cant' comment. Maybe bclee has tried. Can ask him?

What about the dirt collected on the flipper itself? I'm using a Hang-on-back filter, i thought internal CO2 reactors can only be used with canister filters?

[kniveswood]

My flipper is now back inside my tank, all ready to collect dirt again.

Turned off my airstone too. But merely turning it off for an hour, i can already see some of my angels hovering near the surface once in a while, mouths opening and closing at the water surface. Are they gasping for air? But only the juvenile angels are doing so though, the adult and my other 6 small fishes arent doing so.

[juggler]

Gasping for air? Better introduce air-pump again.
If without the Nutrafin CO2, will they gasp for air too when air-pump is turned off?