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All in One -Fertilizer making- Recommendation!

Happi said:
@FirstClassFish sorry if I missed this but which gram scale are you going to be using? Which chemicals you have or going to buy for your micros?

Here is an example of how I make solution.
Click to expand...
No need to apologize!
I haven’t decided on where to buy and what exactly to buy. I have the one store that people were commonly using bookmarked somewhere. Any stores and/or eBay shops you you recommend to get everything? Particular forms of chemicals that are better than others?

I’m gonna read your guide throughly.

Thanks!
 
Happi said:
@FirstClassFish sorry if I missed this but which gram scale are you going to be using? Which chemicals you have or going to buy for your micros?

Here is an example of how I make solution.
Click to expand...
Oh…the scale. I was looking at the American Weight Scales Gemini 20 or similar. It only goes up to 20 grams though.

Perhaps like @Oldguy was saying I could go to a .1 scale….but if the .001 scales are only accurate to 2-3 grams than moving up would be less accurate. I realize that’s fine for the method he outlays, but I want to use something for meds too…..so I haven’t decided. Perhaps a couple scales in the end.

What scale do you use? There is a smart weigh that looks exactly like the AWS…AWS has a 10 year warranty and perhaps better QC on what is most assuredly the same scale. There are quite a few that have several brandings, like so many items nowadays of course.
 
Oldguy said:
No need for that accuracy, go for a digital balance that is good for 0.1gm or at most 0.01g. Typically they go from zero to 200g or 250g. Mine cost me about £10 from ebay and has a tare option.

I typically weigh between 5 and 80g net. The plastic beaker I weigh into is about 35g, hence 115g gross.

As @dw1305 has said, serial dilution is the way to go. You can buy measuring cylinders but empty clean bottles are free.

For instance 1g in a quart, shake and brim a pint bottle. Eempty this pint into a second quart bottle and brim , you now have 0.5g in the second quart bottle and so on.

If possible get your head round metric units, grammes and litres. 1mg is very small and in a litre is 1 part per million (1ppm). For instance 1US gal is a little shy of 4litres but lets say its good enough.
1g in a gal bottle is 1g in 4litres is 0.25 g in a litre ie 250mg in a litre or 250ppm. Pour some of that solution into a pint bottle, still 250ppm, Then pour that pint into a quart bottle and make up the to the brim with water, you now have a 125ppm solution.

Remember your stock solutions are going to many grammes per litre because you will be adding a small volume of stock solution to a large volume tank/aquarium water.

For instance my stock macro ferts are 80g pot nitrate, 8g pot dihydrgen phosphate and 2g pot sulphate. Dissolve and make up to 2litres (empty drinks bottle). Add 100ml to my tank on alternate days.

Trace/ micro ferts a bit more involved: 8.5g of '13FeEDTA' and 11.0g of 'TEMag'. [These are the commercial trace mixes I went for about 20yrs ago and still have plenty left, in those day it was sold in large bags]. Dissolve in water and make up to 5litres of Stock Solution A. Then 500ml of Stock Solution A and make up to 5litres of Stock Solution B.
10ml of Stock Solution B per UK gal yields: 0.1ppm of Fe, 0.01ppm B,. 0.01ppm Mn, 0.005ppm Cu and so the list goes on and on.
The point is that you can get tiny amounts of substances by weighing out small amounts 19.5gms (approx 28g to the oz for comparison.)

Volume of my tank, guestimated, quantities of ferts that I really add, guestimated. I have given myself wriggle room with my dilutions. Watch the critters and watch the plants. Its an Estimated Index.

I hope that this has been of some use. (Its all about ratios and a bit a High School chemistry)
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Awesome! Thanks so much for taking your time to do that. It’s truly appreciated….and yes the metric system is fine, makes much more sense to me.

I will need to read it over more thoroughly, but I can tell it’s going to help me immensely!
 
dw1305 said:
Hi all,

Exactly that, it is the <"coffee, not the froth"> argument. You can apply it to <"biological filtration">, <"light spectra"> and <"fertilisers"> etc.

If weighing small amount is problematic? Don't do it, find a solution that <"negates that as a necessity">. Serial dilution does away with the requirement for accurate weighing, allows you to use kitchen scales and vastly reduces the margin for error, it is just a <"win win scenario">.

Simple, and good advice. It is <"just a KISS solution">, no weighing of very small weights, or pipetting of very small volumes, and <"your problem goes away">.

A new one for the UKAPS lexicon of dosing methods, the "Guesstimated Index". I'm already a <"committed convert">.

cheers Darrel
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I’m all for trying the serial dilution, it’s just that up until now I didn’t quite know how to go about it.
 
Hi all,
FirstClassFish said:
and yes the metric system is fine, makes much more sense to me.
Click to expand...
Slightly off-topic, but we may have <"thread for you">. We've also just had a <"very interesting questionnaire">, produced by the UK Government.
....... The Government has published its “Choice on units of measurement: markings and sales” consultation document about their plans to remove the requirement for traders to show the metric equivalent alongside imperial units.

The document bangs the drum for the imperial system while saying nothing about the merits of the metric system. You would expect a Government document to be more balanced than this ...........
Click to expand...

cheers Darrel
 
I tend to be ambidextrous in the scale/measurements that I use. Land area acres, garden feet. Big volumes Imp gals. Small volumes ml. ( A litre is a strange unit: the volume of 1kg of water at 4C, based on the 1795 definition of the gramme.) The term decimeter cubed does not role off the tongue and the cubic metre is huge. I also like the eVolt and the Angstom but I also like powers of ten in groups of three. Never got on with ergs and slugs. Still use the foot-pound from time to time especially if I am standing on a long breaker bar. Old cars can be sods.

Perhaps its my age, must find Matron, time for my meds. and I need a lie down.
 
Oldguy said:
( A litre is a strange unit: the volume of 1kg of water at 4C, based on the 1795 definition of the gramme.)
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A liter is now defined against the meter as 1,000 cubic centimeters. And the meter is now defined in terms of the speed of light in a vacuum c. The kilogram is defined in terms of Planck's constant h. It used to be based on metal cylinders and sticks kept in Paris at a certain temperature etc. :)

I personally think we should go back to measuring weight in todes.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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MichaelJ said:
A liter is now defined against the meter as 1,000 cubic centimeters.
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I know the modern redefinition but is not the litre redundant, its a cubic decimetre, much more logical for dimensional analysis and fits the SI unit of length which is a metre. (The yard could be a metre but the company that made then doesn't make them any longer.)
To be serious some things are made in metric sizes and should be metric and those made in imperial should be imperial.
 
FirstClassFish said:
Oh…the scale. I was looking at the American Weight Scales Gemini 20 or similar. It only goes up to 20 grams though.

Perhaps like @Oldguy was saying I could go to a .1 scale….but if the .001 scales are only accurate to 2-3 grams than moving up would be less accurate. I realize that’s fine for the method he outlays, but I want to use something for meds too…..so I haven’t decided. Perhaps a couple scales in the end.

What scale do you use? There is a smart weigh that looks exactly like the AWS…AWS has a 10 year warranty and perhaps better QC on what is most assuredly the same scale. There are quite a few that have several brandings, like so many items nowadays of course.
Click to expand...
Gram scale
Dry chemicals from this or this one
I would recommend playing with both chelated and non chelated, it's up to you which ever you want to play with. If you don't see some of the needed chemicals, try looking it up on Amazon or ebay.

Ammonium Nitrate if you ever decided to buy it.
 
Happi said:
Gram scale
Dry chemicals from this or this one
I would recommend playing with both chelated and non chelated, it's up to you which ever you want to play with. If you don't see some of the needed chemicals, try looking it up on Amazon or ebay.

Ammonium Nitrate if you ever decided to buy it.
Click to expand...
Thanks so much. Scale accurate for you when your getting down to .1 and .5 for some of those micros?
 
FirstClassFish said:
Thanks so much. Scale accurate for you when your getting down to .1 and .5 for some of those micros?
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I usually avoid going low as 0.1, 0.5 gram should be fine but even with that, the accuracy is jeopardized.

The best approach would be to make separate serial solution and take some ml from that solution to make your final solution. For Fe and Mn you can skip this step and add it directly to the final solution.

I use simple plastic bottle such as this one below to store my solution after cleaning them good.
GUEST_b3079b18-4f92-424d-9700-d04e8a163fca.jpeg


For perserving the solution, I would recommend using Sodium Benzoate around 0.25 gram into 500 ml solution. Its on one of those links that I have provided. Use about 5 ml white vinegar to make the solution acidic, ph between 5-6 is preferred.

Let me know if you need further assistance with anything.
 
Also, for all in one solution, I highly recommend using DTPA Fe if "AIO" is your ultimate goal. But, i also suggest making a separate solution for Micro, Fe, Macros, PO4 and test them on your tank to see how well they are working.
 
Happi said:
I usually avoid going low as 0.1, 0.5 gram should be fine but even with that, the accuracy is jeopardized.

The best approach would be to make separate serial solution and take some ml from that solution to make your final solution. For Fe and Mn you can skip this step and add it directly to the final solution.

I use simple plastic bottle such as this one below to store my solution after cleaning them good.
View attachment 195755

For perserving the solution, I would recommend using Sodium Benzoate around 0.25 gram into 500 ml solution. Its on one of those links that I have provided. Use about 5 ml white vinegar to make the solution acidic, ph between 5-6 is preferred.

Let me know if you need further assistance with anything.
Click to expand...
So what accuracy do you feel you can trust the scale down to? From what I was reading I thought you could end up too far off if you tried to go down to .001.

You gave an excellent source for ferts in that second link. They’re not too expensive and plenty to last forever. Even if I have to go up quite a bit for minimum measurements the waste would still be very cheap. Although, if I have to go up to 1 gram that is quite a lot of diluting?….some traces are dosed out to .0001

Personally I’m not storing 5 years worth of trace mix in my fridge so I don’t have to toss some.

As for the medicine, I guess I’d have to crunch some numbers and see how much waste would cost me. I’m also concerned how to dispose of the waste from both the ferts and medicines properly.

Medicine is also much more critical to get the dosing right, obviously. Serial dilution is great, but I may not be understanding everything if it’s a cure for having to start at very small weights in all cases.

I know on selectaqautics, Greg Sage’s site, he sells Levamisole with a scoop for dosing. So I’m assuming, since he’s a bright guy, he knows the exact weight per volume of the compound he’s selling. The spoon should get you close enough then.

I’m wondering if I could easily find the weight per volume measurement of some of the meds I’m looking at. I found some that are 99.9 % pure or more. That makes it easier to get a proper weight and not have to try to account for whatever fillers are in compounds that are 22% active ingredient, like the versions sold for dogs and cats and even livestock often are. People do dose that stuff successfully though, so I dunno….it’s a little disconcerting that so many say dose .1 gram per 10 gallons etc… without saying they have accounted for the active ingredient amounts or mentioning to make sure people following their advice only follow their measurements if using the same compound strength.
 
We also can’t use serial dilution if we wanted to make packets of a set powered mix for people to be able to dump into a standard 500ml dosing bottle. That is part of what I wanted to create and pass on at my club, etc…
 
KirstyF said:
So I think I got it - 10 slugs to a frog and 5 frogs to a tode - Still not sure what an erg is!!
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About right. Erg came from the centimetre, gramme. second system. It was about the size of a match stick dropped from a height of one centimetre, a very small unit of energy. It was replaced by the 'Rationalized MKS system', Kg, metre, second, much bigger unit of energy. This was replaced by SI units which we still have, though definitions of some of its fundamental units have changed. A slug is defined as the mass that is accelerated by 1 ft/s2 when a net force of one pound (lbf) is exerted on it. It was used by UK Engineers but was I think short lived.;)
 
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