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New Chemist needs chemicals

Neophyte

Seedling
Joined
4 Aug 2009
Messages
18
Location
Nottingham
Hi,

Just introduced myself over here

http://ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=163&start=240#p81081

Basically I've just started setting up a new planted tank, story behind it is in my hello above. The tank is a Juwel measuring 100cm * 30cm * 40cm with the standard Juwel hood containing a single 1" * 36" 30 watt daylight tube - timed to 10 hours a day. I've installed an off the shelf substrate (florapro) & small gravel above it. Internal filter/heater, lump of bog wood & I've planted up (about 2/3 way across the tank). The other part of the tank will have an established piece of bogwood with plant on it - to be transfered from another tank once I have this setup running in a satisfactory way to accept it. I've ordered a Neutrafin CO2 setup (and now realise it won't be big enough - DOH! - time to save up & get a pukka CO2 setup me thinks ;) ). I did all that before discovering this site :oops:

Anyhow...

Think I've worked out the wpg to about 1wpg (low?) So I can work out a dose rate etc from the tutorial here

http://ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=1211

Can someone advise me where to buy the raw salts from, & typical quantities to buy, to make up the dosing brew?

Big TIA for any help/advice received.

Gary
 
hello,

you can buy the chemicals from

http://www.aquaessentials.co.uk/index.p ... 14_145_146

check out james website for dosing methods

http://www.theplantedtank.co.uk/dosing-methods.htm

or

cegs guide at

http://www.ukaps.org/EI.htm

using the dry salts method is my method of choice, more control, less hassle.

quantities to buy depends on how much you can afford the more you buy the cheaper they get, but I would go for

Mono Potassium Phosphate - 250g
Potassium Nitrate - 500g
and
Trace Elements mix - 100g

cheers

Chris

edit: sorry, I see you've already seen cegs article... I should have read your post better :rolleyes:
 
To be perfectly honest with 1WPG I dont think you really need to add ferts, just a bit of trace once a week. The fish waste will be more than enough for the plants if you stick with 1WPG. If you intent to up that then yes you'll need to look into ferts.

FYI - fluidsensor one of the forum sponsor's does a full range of ferts :)

Sam
 
Thanks for the quick replies.

The hood has a full length reflector for the tube, the only way I could up the lighting to two tubes would be to remove the reflector. I'll have to try & strip the hood down a bit more as the inverter is hidden in what looks like a sealed area along the back of the hood. One thing I've learnt from experiance - me and "plastic" don't mix when it comes to dismantling :twisted:

I'm not planning on fish in the tank for at least a month, maybe more, to allow the plants to establish. If I stay with the existing lighting for that period, will I need to dose? If I do, I guess off the shelf stuff will do?

Thanks again, just love some of the tanks in the gallery, soooo jealous lol
 
you could just use a pre mixed fert like Tropica Plant Nutrition + (PNT+) saves all the messing with dry salts (good if you are lazy like me :p )

i have 1.5 wpg and my plants grow well i am using co2 and PNT+ and some excell.

Matt
 
Themuleous said:
.. The fish waste will be more than enough for the plants if you stick with 1WPG. ..
This is not true if the tank is being enriched with CO2. CO2 drives growth rates to between 3X-10X of non-CO2 tanks. Therefore, enhanced nutrient uptake is required to support these higher growth rates.

Cheers,
 
ceg4048 said:
Themuleous said:
.. The fish waste will be more than enough for the plants if you stick with 1WPG. ..
This is not true if the tank is being enriched with CO2. CO2 drives growth rates to between 3X-10X of non-CO2 tanks. Therefore, enhanced nutrient uptake is required to support these higher growth rates.

Even under such low light? 3x-10x a very small amount is just a small amount?

Sam
 
Well, how low is it really? We know that any light measurement that is not expressed in terms of umoles of PAR is unreliable, so we really don't know what 1 wpg actually means in real terms. Secondly, as long as the light level is higher than the LCP then supplementing carbon increases the nutrient uptake. Since we have no idea what the levels are in the source water or what levels can be produced by the fish the safest course of action is to dose. The dosing levels may not need to be what it would be for 3wpg but may still be higher than what is presently available, especially if the biomass is high.

Cheers,
 
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