NatureBoy
Member
- Joined
- 27 Aug 2008
- Messages
- 374
(a bit of background...)
I inherited an API nitrate test kit about a year ago. A few weeks ago I decided to test the test kit and was surprised that after following the instructions to shake the bottle like a maniac for 30 seconds I got a colour reading that tallied with the water company of about 20ppm (From the water quality report, nitrates are on average 22ppm). This was the first time that I've seen a correlation between test kit and water company. With a bit of extra confidence I then decided to test the aquarium water and was really surprised to see the nitrates were somewhere like 60ppm...a colour reading like irn bru. This in itself was not a concern but definitely not what I expected, I was thinking they'd be much lower and forced me to rethink my understanding of what was going on. Since then I've definitely changed tack with my fert regime. I've stopped routinely adding nitrates on the assumption that they were limited. I'm doing week / twice weekly 25% water changes to bring the nitrates down in line with the tapwater 20ppm.
(back to the thread)
Now I'm using tap water as a routine way of adding nutrients to the water column I was keen to find out what the levels for potassium and phosphates were (these aren't stated on the water quality report)
With time on my hands I contacted Sembcorp and was told on average Potassium is 2.42 ppm, Phosphates are an insignificant 100 micro grams per liter.
I know we shouldn't expect much phosphate in the water column due to it binding to substrates. I'm guessing my water column, and as such the moss and ferns, are at first phosphate deprived following a water change yet with unlimited nitrogen. I've just made a potassium phosphate solution and added enough to raise whatever phosphate level by 0.5ppm to see what effect this has. (I know some would say whack in more, but softly, softly...)
Not really sure what the point of this post is, other than a reminder to myself about what I'm doing!
I inherited an API nitrate test kit about a year ago. A few weeks ago I decided to test the test kit and was surprised that after following the instructions to shake the bottle like a maniac for 30 seconds I got a colour reading that tallied with the water company of about 20ppm (From the water quality report, nitrates are on average 22ppm). This was the first time that I've seen a correlation between test kit and water company. With a bit of extra confidence I then decided to test the aquarium water and was really surprised to see the nitrates were somewhere like 60ppm...a colour reading like irn bru. This in itself was not a concern but definitely not what I expected, I was thinking they'd be much lower and forced me to rethink my understanding of what was going on. Since then I've definitely changed tack with my fert regime. I've stopped routinely adding nitrates on the assumption that they were limited. I'm doing week / twice weekly 25% water changes to bring the nitrates down in line with the tapwater 20ppm.
(back to the thread)
Now I'm using tap water as a routine way of adding nutrients to the water column I was keen to find out what the levels for potassium and phosphates were (these aren't stated on the water quality report)
With time on my hands I contacted Sembcorp and was told on average Potassium is 2.42 ppm, Phosphates are an insignificant 100 micro grams per liter.
I know we shouldn't expect much phosphate in the water column due to it binding to substrates. I'm guessing my water column, and as such the moss and ferns, are at first phosphate deprived following a water change yet with unlimited nitrogen. I've just made a potassium phosphate solution and added enough to raise whatever phosphate level by 0.5ppm to see what effect this has. (I know some would say whack in more, but softly, softly...)
Not really sure what the point of this post is, other than a reminder to myself about what I'm doing!