jameson_uk
Member
TL;DR - A few questions about mixing ferts for a low / medium energy tank (no CO2)
I have had some issues with my Frogbit (which I think has been resolved by extra ferts and iron) but I am now seeing issues with my Hygrophila which I suspect is a lack of Potassium / Phosphate.
I have been mixing up the DIY TPN+ (3) recipe from http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/allinone.htm and dosing roughly as per Tropica's recommendation.
Putting this into various calculators and it looks like I am adding in the region of
NO3 - 6.541867 ppm
K+ - 4.265258 ppm
PO4 - 0.341196 ppm
Now attempting to look at what levels I probably should be adding I came across a few views from 1/5th EI levels right up 1/2. Rotala does have a weekly EI low tech option which looks to come out with targets of
So I started looking at tweaking the recipe (and I can hear Clive saying this is asking for trouble already) but not sure where to start as I can't seem to get anywhere near the 10/10/1 levels; Mainly the K as getting that near 10 raises the NO3 and PO4 (and depending on salts SO2) levels way above these levels.
On top of that my tap water is already high in nitrates (The average in my area is 23 ppm and I think that is indicative if my water) so once you start accounting for the levels out the tap and my 50% weekly water change, @Zeus. 's spreadsheet says I am adding 17.4 ppm which is already almost full EI levels so adding more KNO3 to increase K doesn't seem ideal (and I guess I kind of want to drop the amount of nitrates I am adding to account for this). I am reluctant to just increase dosing for the same reason (would need about three times the dosage which would then equate to an extra 30.5 ppm of NO3 a week)
The only combination I have found includes adding a lot of K2SO4 which gets near those target levels but increases S to 1.7 ppm which is obviously quite a lot higher than the 0.4 ppm levels of the existing solution.
This also increases the N to 2.2 ppm from 1.5 ppm in the Tropica mix and P to 0.34 from 0.11 but I am not sure what happens to these as they seem to be ignored in the calculators but Rotala shows this as a result of adding KNO3 / KH2PO4.
- Is NO3- 10 / K - 10 / PO4 - 1 a sensible target
- What mix of salts can i use to get somewhere near this
- Should I account for high nitrates out the tap
- can I add EDDHA straight into this all in one mix on top of the CSM+B without issue
I have had some issues with my Frogbit (which I think has been resolved by extra ferts and iron) but I am now seeing issues with my Hygrophila which I suspect is a lack of Potassium / Phosphate.
I have been mixing up the DIY TPN+ (3) recipe from http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/allinone.htm and dosing roughly as per Tropica's recommendation.
Putting this into various calculators and it looks like I am adding in the region of
NO3 - 6.541867 ppm
K+ - 4.265258 ppm
PO4 - 0.341196 ppm
Now attempting to look at what levels I probably should be adding I came across a few views from 1/5th EI levels right up 1/2. Rotala does have a weekly EI low tech option which looks to come out with targets of
- NO3 - 10 ppm
- K+ - 10 ppm
- PO4 - 1 ppm
- NO3 - 1-6 ppm
- K+ - 2-6 ppm
- PO4 - 0.2 - 0.6 ppm
So I started looking at tweaking the recipe (and I can hear Clive saying this is asking for trouble already) but not sure where to start as I can't seem to get anywhere near the 10/10/1 levels; Mainly the K as getting that near 10 raises the NO3 and PO4 (and depending on salts SO2) levels way above these levels.
On top of that my tap water is already high in nitrates (The average in my area is 23 ppm and I think that is indicative if my water) so once you start accounting for the levels out the tap and my 50% weekly water change, @Zeus. 's spreadsheet says I am adding 17.4 ppm which is already almost full EI levels so adding more KNO3 to increase K doesn't seem ideal (and I guess I kind of want to drop the amount of nitrates I am adding to account for this). I am reluctant to just increase dosing for the same reason (would need about three times the dosage which would then equate to an extra 30.5 ppm of NO3 a week)
The only combination I have found includes adding a lot of K2SO4 which gets near those target levels but increases S to 1.7 ppm which is obviously quite a lot higher than the 0.4 ppm levels of the existing solution.
This also increases the N to 2.2 ppm from 1.5 ppm in the Tropica mix and P to 0.34 from 0.11 but I am not sure what happens to these as they seem to be ignored in the calculators but Rotala shows this as a result of adding KNO3 / KH2PO4.