furry plant grower
Been happily using TMG probably because I'm used to the dosing amounts and schedules. Tried LGA and Aqualitiser before but don't like it as I don't know what I'm putting in, and LGA needs refrigeration.
Found out today that due to price controls, a 250ml bottle of TMG is now the same price as what I used to pay for a 500ml! and this is the same green-and-black-cap Tropica Master Grow, not the new-formula "plant nutrition" stuff.
Time to change to a more affordable system. Can anyone advise me if Lushgro Micro(LGM) is of the same composition as TMG?
Does LGM grow that fungus and change colour as its sister LGA does?
Are there any other simple to use, brands to recommend?
Thanks.
Warm regards,
Lawrence Lee
brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.
Philippians 4:8
furry plant grower
Here's a followup: Went to NA yesterday and saw that LGA is now a new Yellow in colour instead of the familiar "muddy" red. Observed no sediments in the yellow coloured LGA (perhaps still new?). Decided to give LGA another try. Perhaps they have better stabilisers now with the yellow colouring.
Warm regards,
Lawrence Lee
brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.
Philippians 4:8
Wait, am I missing something here?Originally Posted by GaspingGurami
Since when LGA needs to be refrigerated ?
I am still dosing them with the particles (which looks like fish poo), am I looking forward to any disasters?!?!
Try Profito at NA. If you dose a lot like EI , buy the 5L version , cheap , cheap . Ask Chan for the price !!
Something alot cheaper would be my own brew PMDD, crystal clear and green coloured. It already went under personal and local test for several months with good results. However my stuff must be protected from light and too much opening by keeping in cabinet/fridge otherwise it wont last clear after several months.
It looks a bit like JBL product if you have ever tried.
.... btw price has no point anymore because shipping fee to singapore would be not economical
When you say poo-like stuff I'd say that this problem is quite common in several products, especially after the seal is broken and microorganism contaminants find a way in then multiply. If the poo stuff is there even before you open the seal, there are several possibilities:
1. The manufacturing process or the formula is insufficient that microbes find a way to multiply.
2. The formula is not good enough that the product destabilized by factors such as heat, light, oxidation, salting out, internal self reaction, etc.
Stuff that has too much deposits and/or microorganism material in it is no longer a whole product. Something is already missing/reduced because of excessive degradation.
I have tried that pro fito stuff. The product is dark reddish and a bit murky. 500mL cost me just S$22, which is a realively cheap option even by our local standard.
5L version is much cheaper . Check with NA.Something alot cheaper would be my own brew PMDD
It looks a bit like JBL product if you have ever tried.
.... btw price has no point anymore because shipping fee to singapore would be not economical
When you say poo-like stuff I'd say that this problem is quite common in several products, especially after the seal is broken and microorganism contaminants find a way in then multiply. If the poo stuff is there even before you open the seal, there are several possibilities:
1. The manufacturing process or the formula is insufficient that microbes find a way to multiply.
2. The formula is not good enough that the product destabilized by factors such as heat, light, oxidation, salting out, internal self reaction, etc.
Stuff that has too much deposits and/or microorganism material in it is no longer a whole product. Something is already missing/reduced because of excessive degradation.
I have tried that pro fito stuff. The product is dark reddish and a bit murky. 500mL cost me just S$22, which is a realively cheap option even by our local standard.
furry plant grower
Mas,
That's what I suspect too, although Dr Mallick assured that it does not affect performance of the fert. I noticed that plants grow thicker with a newly opened bottle of the fert, than when I pour in the dregs from the old bottle. I always told myself it is a psychological effect as I don't have a camera to record before-after pictures for comparison. But I didn't encounter this when using TMG (Well, but that should be expected when you use the Rolls Royce of ferts wouldn't you?)
I think the colour comes from the EDTA for the iron's chelating agent or something. The others are salts so it shouldn't be of any colour wouldn't it.
Talking about Home-made liquid ferts, does anyone remember around 4 years ago, there was a brand of liquid fert called "Green Water"? A very home-made packaging that looks like cough mixture bottle? Evil smelling stuff, looks as bad too. Well, that was my very first liquid fert, bought from strong recommendation from the LFS. He claimed using this fert, his riccia bubbled without CO2 and so impressed I bought a bottle.
When I took it home and poured out a measure, it looked to me like the effluent from a hosedown of a pig's pen (those who are ponggolites in the 70s will know what I mean). It smells suspiciously like that too. And when the stuff got on my hand, eew! it smells like sh*t for hours. And I thought all ferts should be like that... Organic
After dosing that, I grew up as a planter... I got my first experience of mass deaths of fauna, as well as algae.... Then I learnt of inorganic salts which don't have to smell bad.
Warm regards,
Lawrence Lee
brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.
Philippians 4:8
Yeah, the problem of "fake" liquid fert is real and does exist, even around here. Products that will not work or even worse products that will ruin a tank. Some even form crust and deposit on plants.
yucks!
Pro fito is good even though the colour is slightly murky (due to nature of the chelator they use). I did once formulate something like that, but it gets abandoned for the green version.
*left to right:
-green version (as in JBL)
-yellowish version (as in TMG)
-reddish version (as in pro fito)
-bad PMDD sample
With decades of experience, I think TMG is trustworthy and it shows in esceptional stability upon storage/ opening of seal.
I ended up with my own brew PMDD (trace and Fe) because of these reasons:
1. I consume a lot of ferts (as in 2 x 1000L high light tanks and several small tanks), that fert expense become something to deal with.
2. There is no affordable fert that you can rely on around here. The cheap ones are just not good enough, some are even fake! (I'm sure in Singapore control is much better and "fake" stuff will get kicked out pretty quick).
Fortunate enough with pharmaceutical background and long experiments I've been able to make simple PMDD that works (and did it for cheap). No evil smell, no water murkyness, no long term toxic properties to fish and shrimp... just needing some minor improvements in formulation to make sure it last a bit longer on the shelf before it actually fit for marketing (and then suddenly this hobby is not all about wasting money anymore
furry plant grower
Mas,
Have you worked out which brand's chelator (or what kind of chelator) will react with PO4 and cause iron to come out of solution? I understand that TMG cannot be mixed with PO4 within the same dose as it'll render the iron unavailable to plants. This is something I've heard long ago, and I've not heard of any findings to disprove it, so I take the trouble to separate the PO4 and Fe+Trace dosage on separate days just to be safe, as I don't do testing etc.
Any comments on this?
Warm regards,
Lawrence Lee
brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.
Philippians 4:8
I should be working not posting
Interesting discussion.
ADA's step series are also black and looks like number 3 and 4 bottle.
ECA is liquid iron that will not easily oxidize as stated in their label.
Care to comment?
Last edited by StanChung; 6th Oct 2006 at 16:08.
You can if you dare to fail - Stan Chung
It is advisable not to mix macro and micro liquid fert in one container.
Here are some examples of "why?"
HPO42- + Fe3+ ---> FePO4(s) + H+
HPO42- + Mg2+ + NH3 -----> MgNH4PO4(s)
This also happens to Mg(NO)3, NH4NO3, MgCl2, NH4Cl with presensce of Mg and phosphate which is also known as magnesia mixture.
In general all kind of metals-phosphate as well as secondary and tertiery phosphates from alkaline earth metal does not dissolve well in water ----> a possibility on what happens to phosphate when you mix concentrated solution of macro and chelated micro liquid fert.
For sure I'm not that positive (as I'm not chemical engineering expert nor strong enough in the subject), but the possibility and theory assures me not to mix macro with micro fert. What happens in aquarium I think is a whole different story because all the stuff is diluted into lots of water (some people reported that dosing macros and micros is better still given at different time and not all at once)
If ADA makes a type of chelated iron that wont get easily oxidized, perhaps they have figured out or made a mix of chelating agent that has exceptionally strong chelator-Fe bondange that ions such as Mg, K and so on does not have any enough affinity to replace the existing bond, so it stays stable in your aquarium for a longer period of time. Stability (as in pKa stuff) in accordance to pH is also in issue, perhaps a new generation or specially engineered chelator works well in aquscape pH range (6-7), as there are chelators that does not stay stable for too long outside their optimal working pH.
A simple way to test this : take a drop of your trusty liquid fert into a cuvette and run it trough the spectrofotometer (or eyeball it if you have a very clear container and good eyes). The bad ones will cloud the water in time (and gets worse if you wait), the cloudier it is, the poorer is the stability bond.
furry plant grower
Mas, I borrow your pic for illustration.
Here's an update of the "New Formula LGA":
When I first got the LGA, it was clear like the first bottle on the left, but colour is yellowish, not green.
It's been 7 days since I first opened the bottle and transferred some contents into a smaller container. I then use a syringe to measure off a volume for dosing twice a week. Last night, I took the bottle out for this week's dose and the colour had changed. It is now darker and murky, like the second bottle in the picture above. There is also the same problem with mould growing on the surface of the fert.
Well folks, it seems to me that the new LGA still need to be refrigerated to keep freshness.
Warm regards,
Lawrence Lee
brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.
Philippians 4:8
what if it is not refrigerated? am i still able to use it again without harming my flora and fauna?
furry plant grower
I've used LGA that had become milky, with lots of brown cottony stuff in suspension, green mould at the surface, and the colour changed from red to rust-brown. Fish and shrimps attack the cottony stuff to eat with no observed ill effect. But I noticed plants don't grow as well with the remaining part of LGA as compared to a newly opened bottle. Might be phychological though.
Warm regards,
Lawrence Lee
brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.
Philippians 4:8
@GaspingGurami
Dont take that chance. It is more likely to be non-psycological and more to reality. Almost any liquid fert is a form of nutrient media (though not an optimal mix) for bacteria or fungi to grow on. As the media is not a perfect home, the growth would be limited but in the process some nutrients are broken down or change form by bacterial/fungal metabolism.
Could be a sign of the worst, weakening of chelator-Fe bond hence putting Fe into bigger risk of oxidation. If it is what happened, the darkening colour shows it. But then the murkiness may also comes from bacteria/fungi growing in it.colour changed from red to rust-brown
Judging from how you re-package from the main bottle which means that there is less likely act of contamination to the content (you did opened it just once within a week) and yet you got colour change. Could be oxidation due to unstable bond, accelerated by heat, light, open air. Best to keep out of light, seal it well or better still keep refrigerated.
@Betta Almighty,
I believe it is OK as the result of broken down fert is usually not harmfull enough or just reduced in effectiveness to hurt your plants/fish.
so basically these ferts are no longer as effective as before once opened?
How about Dennerle's V30? Anyone experienced anything with it?
There possibility is so and you can presume that, similar as in pharmaceutical drugs. Any changes in appearance equals to some changes (physical, chemical, biological) which might be small or huge in effect. However I'm not implying that such changes which happened in most brand of liquid fert (that include the batch I made myself) render them as useless. Even a top brand/quality fert will change in some degree during the shelf life not to mention after opening the seal.
Now denerle... I've never tried the stuff before, the price is just too much for me even just to try out
Back to the main title about cheaper ferts that TMG.
What we have available around here (and cheaper than TMG):
- Adent ultimate grow
- Niche iron plus
- Azoo trace element
- JBL ferropol
- Oceanfree trace element
Medicineman, is your own brew PMDD act like one solution fert? So we don't have to dose other kind of fert again...?Fortunate enough with pharmaceutical background and long experiments I've been able to make simple PMDD that works (and did it for cheap). No evil smell, no water murkyness, no long term toxic properties to fish and shrimp... just needing some minor improvements in formulation to make sure it last a bit longer on the shelf before it actually fit for marketing (and then suddenly this hobby is not all about wasting money anymore
If so, wow... since you mention it's cheap, can't wait your formula to be in the market (hopefully it's still cheap in the market
Right now I'm using KNO3 & KH2PO4 as PMDD, plus Tetra Florapride (hoping to get micro elements from this product).
And I'm still don't want to touch high tech tank since hair algae bloom in mine months ago...
Also I don't want to keep any moss in my old tank cause afraid of the algae will re-attack
Hopefully your formula is good enough for the plant's grow & doesn't invite any algae bloom...
Ah.... a fellow Indonesian aquarist!
The micro element part is in solution form. Homogen and clear. It does not contain any macro elements, the reasons :
1. Stability
2. Non-constant need of macro elements in different setups. Some aquascapes even do not need additional NO3 and phosphate due to the bio load. So it is better that each user take care of their own macro needs. Macros can still be liquified and remain stable but must not be mixed for storage with micros.
You always have to keep macros and micros in different containers to prolong shelf life. So you will always need to dose 2 groups of fert in order to achieve the best (and for fine tuning as what your tank need). Group one is micro elements which is conveniently already liquified in a bottle (it needs to be liquified to be in chelated form). Group two is macro elements in chemical form, stored in individual sealed containers for maximum tuning and shelf life. To prevent excessive algae growth, it is best to give just what is needed.
The composition of my PMDD follows TMG to an extent (from doing reversed content analysis) of my capabilities so it should not induce algae when used in balance with tank parameters. However I dare not compare the quality, but the stuff is all what I use in all my high light tanks (of course with additional macros like KNO3, KH2PO4 and KCl).
Drop me a PM about getting a re-constituted sample for cheap! (powdered form that needs to be rehydrated) and I will thank you for being my additional test subject
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