Views on Ferka Fert

[taz_boy]

i have 2-3 pumps every alternate days. water change is only abt 30% wkly. so far so good, sometimes i busy forget to dose, not much effects to my plants too

[Ah_ZhaN]

Hmm...another query from me: Does ferka aquatilizer works the same way as seachem trace ?

regards,
zhan

[evolim83]

squee, you dose 4 pumps of the Aquatiliser and 4 pumps of the Balance-K daily for your standard 2 feet tank? I thought the dosage direction states 1 pump for every 100L daily....there's no problem there with your tank in overdosing??

I thought the dosage of both Aquatilizer and Balance-K is 4-6 pumps daily per 100L?
I'm doing 10 pumps of both daily, am I overdosing?

[Hanako]

the boxes on the Aquatilizer and Balance K that I bought state the dosage is 1 pump daily for every 100L .

[|squee|]

Does ferka aquatilizer works the same way as seachem trace ?

I think it does.

[Plantbrain]

Both the liquid (Aquatilizer and BalanceK) does not contain N and P as they are the two major compounds that can cause uncontrolled algae growth if dosed in excess or in unbalanced proportions. This allows beginner to use without fear and for the advance guys, they will probably have their own supplementary methods. (Read here for more)

Of course, FERKA does cater N and P in other product, such as the capsules. The capsules are inserted into the substrate and thus, there will be less worry of N and P flowing free in the water column.

Okay then, why would a newbie or an advanced person have issues with N or P in the water column?

This is fear mongering.
There is no factual evidence for this myth.
Does not matter if you are a begginner or not, the plants still have the same needs whether you have 20 years or 20 days in the hobby.
Plants nor algae care how much time you have in the hobby.

Excess N and P in the water column does not cause algae, I've gone all over the place experiementally in both CO2 and non CO2 methods, from non detect to 160ppm NO3, 6 ppm PO4.

I've yet to be able to induce algae or any sort.
Ever..........

So..............tell those clowns they need to grip on reality and do some testing and stop the fear mongering.


They don't like my attitude, tough, I'm not out supporting myths and I've done the test so many times on so many tanks I've lost count, still to date I've been unable to induce algae at very high levels.

My skill level is not the issue, folks can maintain the same levels I do and repeat the test many times if they want. I state how, the methods and give the data and the levels. They NEVER have yet. Dupla, ADA, Ferka, no one.

Funny how that works.

Newbies have issues with CO2, and not adding enough nutrients/CO2, not excess. Then they blame N or P for the problem. If you have confounding factors(lots of light, poor CO2, too many water changes on a non CO2 method, too much NH4 etc), then blame something wrong for the algae bloom, that's much worse.

I've nagged folks for a decade on this issue, so it's not like folks are not aware about it.

How can some one sell PO4 remover and PO4 additives?
How can someone say that the P and N cause algae and then sell N and P ferts at the same time?

Excess?
What does that mean?

I want some numbers, these turkeys never state any data/real ranges of ppms etc, under what conditions, nothing, just some pie in the sky baloney and general mumbo.

Sometimes the newbie make a mistake, but no method is going to avoid adding too much CO2 etc, some folks will simply do that no matter what is said to them. Many don't read instructions nor listen.

Note: this is directed at the companies that sell these items and use myths to justify marketing based on fear rather than experimental evidence.
Not you lorba

I've challenged every single company and not one of them have ever eevn responded, Amano totally avoided it with joke instead of a response.

And the myth lives on...........

Regards,
Tom Barr

[Cacatuoides]

Thanks for sharing Tom....

May I ask, what is the ideal fertilising methods then? Which brand of liquid fert is best for beginners who don't want to mess up their tanks?
Thanks!

[Plantbrain]

Appears that way excepty for the root tabs which will dissolve and leach out rapidly into the water column in a day or two. Diffusion is not something that can be stopped unless you have a sealed clay layer or something which no one has.

Average diffusion rates for 2-3 mm sand are 0.4 liters/m^2 to 1.0 liter/M^2 per day. Different grain sizes will faciliate different rates of diffusion as will clogging due to mulm/detritus accumulation.

You can calculate the diffusion based on the low or highest rates here and total the entire volume of sand/substrate, and area to get the exchnage rate, but it's not going to stay there for long and it's going to limit algae one bit.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[Ah_ZhaN]

Thank you Tom for sharing your experiences...It seems that excess N and P is not an issue afterall...how about potassium, K? Won't it become the limiting factor instead ? Can we overdose it as well ?

regards,
zhan

[Plantbrain]

You can always run out, that's bad.
K+ cannot be derived form organic surces because it does not bind to Carbon.
You can leach K+ out of organic things like plants and woodm, bananas are a good source for us, but it does not form links to Carbon based chains.

K+ levels I've run up to 50-75ppm and some have done 100ppm + without any issues over long time frames.

If you use KNO3, you will likely never run out of K+.
Unless more than 75% of the Nitrogen supply to your tank is from fish waste.

That's a lot.

So basically no, you will not run out of K+ using KNO3.
Aquatic Plant dry biomass K to N ratios are about 1:1, KNO3 is about 4.4:1, so you have over 4x the amount relative to N before limitation might occur if you run things very lean and have a lot of fish waste etc.

You can add K2SO4 or KCL, Ferka's source is from one of these two, so is SeaChem's and everyone else's, and top the K+ off if you want, it'll not hurt, but I've not used K2SO4 for some 5 years or so now without any issues.


Regards,
Tom Barr

[Cacatuoides]

Hi Tom,

Could you recommend a few good brands of liquid fertiliser?
Thanks

[Plantbrain]

Their trace is likley good.
I use TMG myself.
I used SeaChem flourish for a few years but have gone back.
SeaChem Fe works well for spiking the Fe.

I have not used the Ferka line, but I know what is in them and a thing or two about aquatic plant horticulture, physiology and nutrition
More than I wanna know

There is a trend to go towards the previaling brand of the month, ADA seems like the brand folks go to and it's $$$ so knock off fert lines abound.

Sub ferts are easy and require little effort, many fall inot the mytrh trap that they prevent algae by adding the nutrients into the substrate, Amano seems to believe this as well, but I can prove that wrong and have for a decade or more.

But adding sub ferts, they allow leaner routines in the water column with good results also, I'm not suggesting folks stop doing that.

Many seem to mistake that for some reason.
The issue is that the folks promoting the substrate ferts are attempting to add the myth to their reasoning.

That's where they draw my full wrath.

Adding substrate ferts is fine, just like adding excess water column ferts is also fine. Adding water column ferts routinely in conjuction with substrate ferts allows you to get more out of both and ultimately the most wiggle room for a routine and the best plant health if both places are well fertilized with all nutients except NH4 (substrate only and low fish loading NH4 waste-water column)

I'm not sure why some like to think I'm all about the water column/either or, they make myths and claims they cannot support, that is not backed up experimentally, and then I'm the bad guy for pointing it out.
Then they say I don't know everything and that there are other ways to grow plants etc. I wonder what they are smoking because I've never said that the water column was the only sourcem, just that the NO3/PO4 does excess not induce algae, they make that assumptions all on their own.

I've never said that anyone should only do the water column, I've long suggested that folks do both.

In order to understand both methods/nutient locations, you need to master both. I have 1000 pots of experimental aquatic weeds at the lab, we hzve no nutrients in the water column, none.
The water flows through a DI system and removes everything so the plants must get all the nutrients from the hydro soils. I obviously have done a lot with the water column also. RFUG's are great for that method or just plain old sand.





Regards,
Tom Barr

[spinex]

Newbies have issues with CO2, and not adding enough nutrients/CO2, not excess. Then they blame N or P for the problem. If you have confounding factors(lots of light, poor CO2, too many water changes on a non CO2 method, too much NH4 etc), then blame something wrong for the algae bloom, that's much worse.
Regards,
Tom Barr

On the confounding factors (lots of light). How does that contribute to algae if supposingly we have enough CO2 and excess nutrients in the water ? This is a question i seem to have no answer. Suppose the lighting is too strong ... or how should we determine when the lighting was too strong that it encourgae algae growth.

What i can think of to solve the issue is by putting more plant mass so they can make more use of the strong lighting and hence would also deter the algae without reducing the lighting.

But what if we want to do simple ADA inspired style tank with just HC or Glosso carpet where we are using strong lighting to make the plant crawl but at the same time we need to take care of there's not much plant mass + excess nutrient + excess lighting. Seem like the balance is difficult to achieve so algae won't kick in. Or is it because Amano always make water changes 2-3 times a week.. so this kind of nice looking tank is substainable/feasible for him ?

I read your EI methods before and you do give example of what you do. But nowadays, there are many lighting available .. CF ..FL ..MH and T5HO ..etc so i think it's difficult especially when it come to estimating the right lighting for our tank based on the traditional WPG rule.

[PeterGwee]

On the confounding factors (lots of light). How does that contribute to algae if supposingly we have enough CO2 and excess nutrients in the water ? This is a question i seem to have no answer. Suppose the lighting is too strong ... or how should we determine when the lighting was too strong that it encourgae algae growth.

What i can think of to solve the issue is by putting more plant mass so they can make more use of the strong lighting and hence would also deter the algae without reducing the lighting.

But what if we want to do simple ADA inspired style tank with just HC or Glosso carpet where we are using strong lighting to make the plant crawl but at the same time we need to take care of there's not much plant mass + excess nutrient + excess lighting. Seem like the balance is difficult to achieve so algae won't kick in. Or is it because Amano always make water changes 2-3 times a week.. so this kind of nice looking tank is substainable/feasible for him ?

I read your EI methods before and you do give example of what you do. But nowadays, there are many lighting available .. CF ..FL ..MH and T5HO ..etc so i think it's difficult especially when it come to estimating the right lighting for our tank based on the traditional WPG rule.

The main devil here is almost always CO2 unless you have a lot of fish/critters. You may say your test results show good or high CO2 but the algae tells you its not.

Regards
Peter Gwee

[Cacatuoides]

Currently I'm flooding my tank with CO2, no fish yet...but am getiing signs of hair algae on the moss...hmmm

[|squee|]

The moss has stuff trapped in them (ammonia producing), fluff them up and use a toothbrush to scrape out as much of it as possible. Thin up the moss too.

[Cacatuoides]

Shall do that tonight, thanks a lot for all your patient guidance!!!

[valice]

Moss can trap shit and what not very easily especially you have shrimps in future... Then you probably start to see staghorn algae as well... Make sure you got good circulation in the tank to prevent ammonia buildup from occurring...

The same situation happened in one of my tanks... I ripped up the entire moss from the bogwood in the end... Haiz...

[Cacatuoides]

yea i had the small problem too for my past tank....what other moss/plants can we tie on dw to avoid such messy problems? hehe otherwise the dw will look bare