Fish Waste used as Nutrients?

[Iliveinazoo]

I have some messy fish in a 20USG tank including 2 Figure 8 puffers a halfbeak and 3 bumblebee gobies, at the end of the week my nitrates are between 10 and 20ppm therefore all i dose is 10ml of James's trace element mix every other day. The plants are holding up but some have pinprick holes while some others are a bit brown as if there is a defficiency.
I don't dose NPK because I was assuming that the fish waste would produce enough Nitrate and Phosphate, would anyone know whether I'd be lacking in phosphate or potassium (I add about a 1/4 teaspoon of pottassium carbonate weekly)?

Oh, I dose the recommended (by instructions on bottle) of easycarbo as a source of carbon daily and I have 1.5WPG.

 

[a1Matt]

I found myself in the same situation as you a few years back and spent a long time chasing around different deficiencies.
A lot of them are interrelated, or have similar symptoms. It is not an easy task.

I switched over to the EI method and ruled out nutrient deficiencies overnight. The method is very popular for a good reason

Then when you have all your plants looking healthy you can start to cut down nutrients in a controlled fashion to learn what uptake your particular tank has. Then it beocmes easier to draw correlation between nutrient shortages and plant appearance.

If that appeals to you then head over to the tutorials section and start reading the EI tutorial!

 

[Iliveinazoo]

I'd love to but the tank stand hasn't got a cupboard section, if I bought a CO2 bottle and plonked it in the front room the girlfriend would probably have my bags packed before the diffuser hit the tank water, plus we've got a baby on the way so extra ££££'s for another light fitting wouldn't go down to well either.

I think that i'll mix a solution of phosphate and potassium and give that a go for a while to see if they get better.

 

[ceg4048]

I have some messy fish in a 20USG tank including 2 Figure 8 puffers a halfbeak and 3 bumblebee gobies, at the end of the week my nitrates are between 10 and 20ppm therefore all i dose is 10ml of James's trace element mix every other day. The plants are holding up but some have pinprick holes while some others are a bit brown as if there is a defficiency.
I don't dose NPK because I was assuming that the fish waste would produce enough Nitrate and Phosphate, would anyone know whether I'd be lacking in phosphate or potassium (I add about a 1/4 teaspoon of pottassium carbonate weekly)?

Oh, I dose the recommended (by instructions on bottle) of easycarbo as a source of carbon daily and I have 1.5WPG.

1. Use KNO3 instead of K2CO3
2. Start using using KH2PO4
3. Add more easycarbo
4. Watch plants get healthy. Your plants are telling you that assumptions were incorrect. :idea:

Cheers,

 

[Iliveinazoo]

ok, I think that I just needed someone to say it, I'll give it a go and monitor the tanks nitrate levels just to make sure that they don't sky rocket.