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According to Dr Mallick, he told me that fish food has calcium. So does our tap water. So that's why he left it out.
If you add a bit of coral chips in the filter, it will provide abundant supply of Ca and Mg too.
I notice that Ca is missing in LUSHGro range of products for planted tanks, isn't this a problem?
Purpose of calcium in planted tanks
Calcium, an essential part of plant cell wall structure, provides for normal transport and retention of other elements as well as strength in the plant. It is also thought to counteract the effect of alkali salts and organic acids within a plant.
According to Dr Mallick, he told me that fish food has calcium. So does our tap water. So that's why he left it out.
If you add a bit of coral chips in the filter, it will provide abundant supply of Ca and Mg too.
koah fong
Juggler's tanks
Its not an issue if you do water changes frequently. For my case , my tank is running on a high lighting regime. I notice Ca deficiency ( white transparent new shoots) after 6mths. I start dosing CaCl2 to supplement the Ca. The sysdrome disappears after 3 days.
It took me awhile (lost a few rare eriocaulons) before i isolated the problem.
Hope this helps.
cheers
xtrekker
You can dose some Seachem Equilibrium to prevent any deficiency due to Ca or Mg...
coral chips is calcium carbonate, it will swing the ph to a higher level, so where to get cacl?
I think Juggler did not add that much coral, just enough to balance with the CO2 ? The PH (or rather the GH) will not raise that fast with Coral.
For CaCl, I saw it available at Dr Mallick's website.
Or you can get Seachem Reef Calcium.
Remember to add Mg (from Epsom Salt) too if you add Calcium alone.
But still Seachem Equilibrium a more efficient option as it contains all Ca, Mg and K already in the right balance.
BTW, I notice adding some amount of Ca and Mg help stopping the crypto from melting when I add NO3 and PO4.
I think it depends on your tank light level, CO2 level, fertilization scheme, substrate composition and the plant's growth rate, in some condition it may thin out the Ca or Mg in the tank.
Last edited by dc88; 6th Jul 2006 at 21:08.
Sources of Ca
1. CaCl2
2, CaNO3
3. CaS04
4. CaCO3 (limestone ,coral chips)
cheers
Seachem Reef Calcium's composition is Calcium Gluconate.
Do not follow the bottle instruction (which is meant for Reef tank). For planted tank can use at 1/4 ~ 1/2 of the dosage each time. Or you will risk generating a nasty bacterial bloom, which will cloud the water for a day and deplete O2 level. It will clear up but will leave nasty blowny stringy things all over the plant after that.
But if you control the dosage level it is quite effective.
But
A weekly half dosage of Seachem Equilibrium can help.
So Terence, for your 2ft tank, you using about 1 teaspoon of Equilibrium?
I use half a teaspoon, sometimes slightly less.
Yippie!! Reptiles and Fishies!
why not just switch ferts to seachem flourish?? it already has calcium and mg in good prorotions inside then dont have to worry about dosing this and that.
Seachem flourish composition here :
5 ml in 100L :
0.035 ppm total Nitrogen
0.005 ppm Phosphate
0.185 ppm Soluable Potash (K2O)
0.07 ppm Calcium
0.055 ppm Magnesium
0.1386 ppm Sulphur
0.0045 ppm Boron
0.575 ppm Chlorine
0.0002 ppm Cobalt
0.16 ppm Iron
0.0059 ppm Maganese
0.0004 ppm Molybdenum
0.065 ppm Sodium
0.0003 ppm Zinc
Apparently the macro levels are not enough compare to the micro. Look at the ratio. At 0.16ppm (near 0.2ppm) Fe, the N, P, Ca, Mg are all pretty low level.
Don't think it is adequate.
Yippie!! Reptiles and Fishies!
DUH...its not meant to be used as a macro.. we are talking about calcium here aren't we? Thats not a macro nutrient...keeping on topic mah...so must answer question in topic.. dont wander over to macro nutrients okay..
i also never said just to use it alone to slove ALL your problems.. just that you can use it for calcium.. And then on top of that have the icing on the cake and have it take care of all the micro as well. The macro you still have to dose Kno3 and Po4 obviously...
Also that conc. is for 5ml in 100litres.. a typical 2x1x1 setup is only 50litres, and usually the dosage is about 20-30ml per week.
So if we take that 10 times more concentration for a 2ft (50 liter) tank would be :
25 ml Florish in 50L :
0.35 ppm total Nitrogen
0.05 ppm Phosphate
1.85 ppm Soluable Potash (K2O)
0.7 ppm Calcium
0.55 ppm Magnesium
1.386 ppm Sulphur
0.045 ppm Boron
5.75 ppm Chlorine
0.002 ppm Cobalt
1.6 ppm Iron
0.059 ppm Maganese
0.004 ppm Molybdenum
0.65 ppm Sodium
0.003 ppm Zinc
Wow, thats alot of Iron (1.6ppm) but Calcium is not even 1ppm ?
Tom's EI method recommend GH at 3-6 gH, which is about 50-100ppm CaCO3 eq., which can be roughly as 20-40ppm Ca+. (Actually also some ratio of Mg there, about 3~4 Ca to 1 Mg, but for simplicity lets just stick to Ca for the time being). Our tap water has may be 10-20ppm Ca, so that's is even more Ca if you do weekly 50% water change then relying on Flourish for Ca.
Don't get me wrong, Flourish is great and its objective is for micro (Fe, and other heavy metal staff...) but definitely not enough for Ca dosage.
Is Ca a micro or macro nutrient ? From plant tissue analysis data, the ratio of Ca : Fe is about 47: 1, compare to N:Fe as 267:1, K as 133:1 and and P as 23:1. So you need more Ca then P. So is Ca a micro ?
S, Ca and Mg are not consider as micros. Some literature, this group is known as secondary nutrients. It's required amount falls between macro and micros .Originally Posted by dc88
"Fertilizers typically provide, in varying proportions, the three major plant nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium), the secondary plant nutrients (calcium, sulfur, magnesium), and sometimes trace elements (or micronutrients) with a role in plant nutrition: boron, manganese, iron, zinc, copper and molybdenum."
Extracted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertilizers
Its misconception that most of us have . In my personal experience , most common deficicency i face is Ca , Mg and P deficencies when i first started out . Because then i though that P cause algaes. While Ca and Mg is when the base fertilizers run out and the water changes cannot supply the required amount of Ca & Mg for my plants
cheers
xtrekker
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