Questions on dosing?

[chua]

Hi,

I am presently dosing TMG at abt 4ml daily.
The plants in my tank are doing fine. Still have a bit of drop leaves occasionally.
But, I am thinking of making my plants look even better and healtier by adding K,NO3 and PO4. But i have a few questions.

1) Is the suggested ppm in Chuck's calcuator a good gauge? On the safe side, can i start of with half the recommended dosage?

2) What are the good brands for K,NO3 and PO4 test kits and is it possible to do without them. In other words, make a rough estimation of the amount present.

3) Is it possible to start of with dosing K first. Then proceed on to the other two. I want to do it one at a time.

The following are some of my tank parameters
3ft planted tank with 4x36w PL light.
KH =2 and PH is beween 6.4 (light just on) to 6.6 (light before off).
24h supply from CO2 cylinder tank.
Temperature is from 28 to 29 degree celcius.
40% to 50% weekly water change.

Thks.

[vinz]

1) The current recommendations aer:
NO3 - 5 to 10ppm
PO4 - 0.5 to 1ppm
K - 5 to 10ppm

These are not what you should dose but what you need to maintain. So if your tanks already has 10ppm of NO3 after water change, you don't have to add anymore.

2) There isn't any good K test kits, and certainly not easily available at all. It's really no point, you can dose K blind in the 5 to 10ppm range once a week without adverse effect.

For NO3 and PO4 kits, they aren't very reliable. They give you an idea whether you have those in your tank, but the readings can be off. If you wish to, you can use the kits but let the plants tell you the whole story.

PO4 source is from fish food. Your tank is pretty high light. If your bioload isn't very high and if you don't overfeed, chances are your tank should be low on NO3 and PO4. For a start you can try dosing 5ppm NO3 and 1ppm PO4 twice or thrice a week and see if your plants respond. Do this and observe for about 3 weeks, then tweak somemore.

3) No. You should do all 3. Its no point providing only one at a time as the plants will still be limited by the other 2. You should also think about dosing more traces at the same time.

[chua]

Thks for the reply finally.

You mention that high bioload can provide more NO3 and PO4.
But how high is consider high for my tank size of 3ft x 1.5ft x 1.75ft.

Presently, i had 35 cardinal tetra, 2 big sae, 5 oto,
10 adult cherry shrimp with don't know how many baby cherries.
Thus 5 yamato.

Thks.

[chua]

If my bioload is not too high.
Maybe i add more fish first then see how.

[vinz]

Its not a good idea to use bio-load and feeding to control your NO3 and PO4. Firstly, its hard to quantify (short of measuring the after effects). Secondly, it can change... when your fishes grow.

[PeterGwee]

Chua, your tank's bioload is on the moderate side already. If you increase it somemore, you might have algae issues due to ammonia spikes contributed by too many critters. What you can do is to do a large water change, check and recheck your CO2 level (yours is a bit too low...try for a pH of 6.3-6.4) and adding back all the nutrients. You would not have issues if your bioload is low. If you still have issues after 3-4 weeks with the routine, do 2x large weekly water change and dose back nutrients after that or reduce your bioload.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[juggler]

Chua:

There are articles on dosing at http://www.aquaticquotient.com/phpbb...ic.php?t=12122

Fish food supplies N and P but not much K. Your TMG already has K. You should try to dose those nutrients that are insufficient. Trying out one nutrient at a time will cause inbalance after some time.

Can follow Vinz's suggestions for a start.

[chua]

Hi PeterGwee,

I think you get me wrong. I don't really have much algae problem. I only want to make my plants look better and healtier as there are occasion leaves drop.

[PeterGwee]

Chua, it doesn't really matter if you have algae or not. The method is for growing plants..not killing algae. If there is algae, its work for you.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[hammy]

[quote:ccb5fffb68="vinz"]1)
PO4 source is from fish food. Your tank is pretty high light. If your bioload isn't very high and if you don't overfeed, chances are your tank should be low on NO3 and PO4. For a start you can try dosing 5ppm NO3 and 1ppm PO4 twice or thrice a week and see if your plants respond. Do this and observe for about 3 weeks, then tweak somemore.
[/quote:ccb5fffb68]

Hi Vincent, so what exactly are the tell-tale signs from the plants? Like, how do their response tell you about something? And does this mean that test kits are not necessary at all?

[barmby]

I like this phrase by Vincent.... "These are not what you should dose but what you need to maintain."

It brings back the rules. Decrease the frequency of dose but not the amount.

Remember more fish = more NH3, and need sufficient uptake by plants to *censor* out NH3 with the help of photosynthesis...

[juggler]

[quote:689d09f156="hammy"][quote:689d09f156="vinz"]1)
PO4 source is from fish food. Your tank is pretty high light. If your bioload isn't very high and if you don't overfeed, chances are your tank should be low on NO3 and PO4. For a start you can try dosing 5ppm NO3 and 1ppm PO4 twice or thrice a week and see if your plants respond. Do this and observe for about 3 weeks, then tweak somemore.
[/quote:689d09f156]

Hi Vincent, so what exactly are the tell-tale signs from the plants? Like, how do their response tell you about something? And does this mean that test kits are not necessary at all? [/quote:689d09f156]

[I hope Vincent will be answering something like this]

Some good signs will be:
- bigger, lushier leaves not prone to holes/ rot/ algae
- increased and sustained growth
- longer roots for floating plants
- nicer growing tips
- reduced algae on the plants/ tank walls

If the algae responds in growth instead of the plants, then somehing is wrong.

Try to increase the dosing slowly and observe over a few weeks. If you can't find a balance yet, it's better to under-dose than to over-dose.

Test kits can help but cannot be depended upon. I once did a last test with a NO3 test kit. It measured 10ppm. Then I bought a new one and tested again, it gave me 40ppm! Same brand some more.