Check on my dosing

[barmby]

Hi guys,

just a check,

Its a 150cmx60cmx60cm heavily planted tank or rather it has 471l or 110 gal of water.

I have got 300W of MH lighting.

ph:6.4 (through out during 7.5hrs lighting period)
kh:3.5-4

My dry dosing:
1 tsp of KNO3 (3 times a week)
2 tsp of K2SO4 (3 times a week)
11 rice grains of KH2PO4 (3 times a week)

40ml of TMG (trace) - once a week

my question, which I can't seem to calculate:
what is my ppm content of N & P based each dose (KNO3 and KH2PO4)into 110 gal of water?

I am asking because I can't seem to shake off BGA and dust algae. It happened towards the end of the week, or rather 2 days before water change.

[PeterGwee]

Try this...
Remove as much algae as possible
Do a large 50-70% water change
Add 1 1/2 tsp of KNO3
Do a 3-5 day blackout for the BGA. (Stop CO2 injection and increase surface movement or add an airstone.)
Do a large water change of 50-70%
Review your CO2..the pH seems very stable to me? Are you sure of the readings? Do you get good pearling towards the end of the photoperiod? If you don't, you need to check the kits and if needed, add more.
Add 1.5 tsp of KNO3 3x a week
Add 0.25 tsp of KH2PO4 3x a week
Add 25ml of TMG 3-4x a week

Just keep up on the CO2 and KNO3 addition and things should do fine. By the way, do your red plants look very red since the NO3 is likely to have bottom out? Are you sure you have ID the algae correctly? The CO2 is likely to be low if you were getting green spots though..the fact you are getting BGA is puzzling since you should not get much NO3 uptake if your CO2 is poor.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[barmby]

Hi Peter,
thanks for responding.

The CO2 is very high. Because 1) The malayan shrimps I added last week, all died within 6 hours. 2) The fact that my CO2 turn on 4 hours before lights on. And I check my pH pen and re-calibrate it & I check my pH level again before lights off. 3) Very good pearling through out

Btw, my fish load is 80 Green Neon tetras with 5 adults 7-cm Apisto.

Don't think will use black out method. As BGA only come back three-four days after water change with cleaning + clearing.

Yes, I am certain that I don't think I got green spots. Looks like dust algae on the glass. And of cos, the flimsy greenery colored algae is BGA!!!

The red plant I have is Nymphaea lotus (Red Tiger) & Rotala Indica that do not look very red. Orangy is the color.

thanks for helping. I am equally puzzled now after all my analysis.

[Plantbrain]

Blackout is 100% effective if you take care of the problem's cause, blackout will kill it, but you need to keep up with cleaning the filters, dosing eough KNO3 thereafter. You will never get rid of the BGA spores, but you can keep it from growing by taking care of the plant's needs.

Generally low (or low enough to stunt plant) NO3 level will cause BGA to appear.

For the green dust: Turn filter/current off, then scrub it all off and lightly vacuum all the settled algae and detritus. Clean filter etc.

Do the 50-70% water change, add 1.25 teaspoon of KNO3 afterewards.
Blackout for 3 days, turn on and do another 50% water change and dosing of KNO3. Add KNO3 3x or so weekly.

This will help greatly if the CO2 is also up and in good shape(30ppm).

Then it's a matter of GH/K+, PO4 and Trace dosing which is easy.
Focus on growing the plants well and you will not have any algae issues.

BGA will always come back if you give it a good place to live and don't take care of the plant's needs.



Regards,
Tom Barr

[schema]

barmby, u did not answer the pearling ques by Peter.

My bet is that u do not have much pearling, cos I experience the same using MH 300W(tried changing to Osram Daylight, but no diff).
Plenty of spot algae, low PH(cos no O2 produce by plants), livestock dying.

I am changing back to PL, haiz!

My 2cents

[juggler]

You can check your dosing using Chuck's Dosing Calculator at http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua/art_plant_aquacalc.htm

From your dosing, I think you can stop using K2SO4.
Why?
1) KNO3 already has the K you need.
2) TMG also has K, I believe.

From the nutrient calculator, you are adding:
1) from 6 tsp K2SO4: 34ppm K
2) from 3 tsp KNO3: 21ppm NO3 and 14ppm K

That is close to 50ppm of K.
From my experience, about 10ppm of K per week is already sufficient.

You can use Chuck's calculator to prepare a stock solution for your PO4 dosing. For PO4, usually I dose about 1.5ppm per week.

[barmby]

Hi Tom,
thanks for the recommendation. I am just plain stubborn by trying to stop BGA without blackout but thru other means - C02, Macro & Micro. For this reason, I asked about my dosing content.

Hi Schema,
yes. it is pearling very well towards the end of light period.

Hi Juggler,
thanks. I did not check the software as I thought the webby covers that. And the webby did not cover dry dose, which I need badly to find out on my dosing.

You mentioned about 10 ppm of K per week, but you did not deduct the consumption by plants. In example, this could be critical as N03 uptake may be up to 3 ppm per day under high light and heavy planting. (according to Tom)

With good CO2 supply - I am afraid of NPK running out. And I'm equally worried about inbalance of NPK. Lack of any element could result in slow uptake by plants, hence resulting to algae capitalizing the excess...

Thanks for responding..