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IFC Aquarium Fertilizer Calculator

Looking into this and it looks like its down to an old calculation done by myself for my own personal use pre 2018. That's before the idea of doing a fert calculator hadn't even crossed my mind. Then the incorrect values 'ppms' was just accepted as correct. Myself and @Hanuman have had a look at the error already and should have a correction out soon.

In our defence we was more focused on other technical issues of the calculator at the time and the ppms of APFUK double check slipped through the net. All my fault :oops:.

Well spotted all the same and thanks for bring it to out attention :clap::thumbup:
Don't beat yourself up. I'm guilty as charged as well. I've always accepted those values without double checking them myself.

I looked at the old calculation that you are reffering to and those calculation are in fact in perfect line with the guideline of APFUK so I am clueless as to why we have the ppm values in the IFC calculator that we have today. In a way, these values do not look like an error to me since all values are off, although they clearly do not match what APFUK prescribes. There is more to this than meets the eye and will update the calculator once we get to the bottom of this.
 
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@Jake5tar
Regarding APFUK EI Starter 1 Kit here is the deal:
- Both @Zeus. and myself wrecked our brains to find out why those numbers were. Since we couldn't come up with a good reason, I simply went through the path of least resistance and I measured the teaspoons in accordance with the guidelines of APFUK. For the sake of homogeneity I did 10 measurements for each salt. Results are shown below:
1660214247009.png

For anyone willing to prove I'm off, keep in mind that these measurements can be slightly (if not greatly) different for obvious reasons (teaspoon size (yes they can differ), age of salt, leveled or heaped etc etc etc). This is why APFUK clearly states these are guidelines. All measurements I took were done standard, that is, I leveled the excess with a card each time I scooped the salt from the container.

IMG_8280.JPG

This will now serve as a reference for future questions regarding this product. So, like we say during weddings, speak now or forever hold your peace.

As for the request of @Hufsa, we have also added Calcium sulfate hemihydrate (CaSO4)2(H2O) / Ca2H2O9S2 / CaSO4*0.5H2O. By doing so we also uncovered what seems like a bug in the Rotala Butterfly calculator when calculating this hydrate. I am still awaiting @fablau feedback on the matter but I have already 3 sources telling me something is off.

In the next update we are also adding the following new products.
APT Sky: remineralizer
Masterline AIO Soil: fertilizer
Masterline AIO Golden: fertilizer
Masterline AIO: fertilizer

I don't see the point in adding other products from Masterline. Those should suffice.

I have already done all the updates and will send the file to @zeus for a final checkup before release.

Any product request at this point will be done in the next update.

Peace.
 
Hello,
I just wanted to say thanks to everyone involved in this project. You managed to make a powerful tool yet still easy to use . I'm just worried that as an excel spreadsheet it's less "reachable" than if it was on the web or even as a google spreadsheet (but I'm sure there are good reasons for that).

A few comments :
  • the dropdown for the cell "X dose by" on the page "Targetcalculator" isn't working for me (v1.2b4), other dropdowns are working. Not sure why.
  • I think there are some inconsistencies in the volumes/prices used by default for the commercial ferts. For instance for Tropica the price set is for the 5L container (lowest £/L), whereas for TNC the price is for the 1L container
  • I wish there was a way to see the price per ppm for every commercial ferts at a glance. There is already a nice table on the costdetails page but it only shows one commercial fert at a time ?
  • It would be great if planted box was included in the list of commercial ferts
"A dose of 30ml per 100 liters [Recommended dosage for high tech tanks] of aquarium water gives a value of 0.50ppm Fe, 15ppm nitrate and 1.5ppm phosphate. Ideal for all your plants
  • maybe the recommended dosages should be displayed in a standardized way in the table "Compare To" in the "Targetcaculator" page.
  • I don't see the point of including disabled commercial ferts if they cannot be enabled. It's also not clear why there were disabled ?

All in all, excellent job thank you !
 
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I just wanted to say thanks to everyone involved in this project. You managed to make a powerful tool yet still easy to use .
Thank you for the comments. We tried our best to make it as user friendly as possible.

I'm just worried that as an excel spreadsheet it's less "reachable" than if it was on the web or even as a google spreadsheet (but I'm sure there are good reasons for that).
That’s just the way it is. Anyone with the skills is welcome to port it to the web or even an executable. But excel is where our expertise stopped at the time.

the dropdown for the cell "X dose by" on the page "Targetcalculator" isn't working for me (v1.2b4), other dropdowns are working. Not sure why.
Definately not normal. Will look into this tomorrow.

I think there are some inconsistencies in the volumes/prices used by default for the commercial ferts. For instance for Tropica the price set is for the 5L container (lowest £/L), whereas for TNC the price is for the 1L container
That’s on purpose. We simply took the largest volume advertised by the manufacturer to give the lowest possible price. Not all manufacturers offer the same volumes, hence the inconsistencies.

I wish there was a way to see the price per ppm for every commercial ferts at a glance. There is already a nice table on the costdetails page but it only shows one commercial fert at a time ?
Only showing the selected commercial fertilizer in Targetcalculator was actually something I insisted upon to improve visibility in the CostDetails sheet. Having the full list of ferts doesn’t make much sense IMO from a user standpoint because that table is comparing your clone to the commercial fert your are cloning. This can be argued but to make it more user friendly and less heavy this is why only 1 fert is being shown at a time.

It would be great if planted box was included in the list of commercial ferts
Thanks for the link. We include new ferts when they are requested and if all data is provided by the manufacturer. Sometimes not all data is available so we just don’t include products. If we include this one it will be mentioned in the change log.

maybe the recommended dosages should be displayed in a standardized way in the table "Compare To" in the "Targetcaculator" page.
How so? Each and every manufacturer has its own dosage regime sometimes with different units. We are only communicating the info made available by the manufacturer. This is purely informational and the user should only dose according to what he has defined in the Tank&Dosing sheet.

I don't see the point of including disabled commercial ferts if they cannot be enabled. It's also not clear why there were disabled ?
They were disabled due to lack of data or because we detected issues later on. Sometimes data becomes available sometimes not. Sometimes issues can be fixed, sometimes not. These disabled products will progressively be deleted once we decide that there is no hope for them.

All in all, excellent job thank you !
Thanks again. Happy it is useful to you. I think many people don’t realize how it is more convenient that other calcultors that spit one calculation at a time and then one has to tally all manually. The IFC calculator does it all in one time.
 
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@Sluwp
the dropdown for the cell "X dose by" on the page "Targetcalculator" isn't working for me (v1.2b4), other dropdowns are working. Not sure why.
I found the reason for this. It's technically not a bug because there is actually a line of code I put in place for this to happen when no WC volume was added in the TankAndDosing sheet. However the code was intended for the ReminCalculator and not the TargetCalculator. I need to correct this.
For now simply add some value in either of the cells below and you should regain control of that dropdown menu in the TargetCalculator sheet:
Screen Shot 2022-09-19 at 08.03.45.jpg
 
First off.. Incredible work 👏

Could someone do a screen recording and run through this? I got a little lost along the way and thought it might be incredibly helpful to follow along on YouTube?

Many thanks

Chris
 
First off.. Incredible work 👏

Could someone do a screen recording and run through this? I got a little lost along the way and thought it might be incredibly helpful to follow along on YouTube?

Many thanks

Chris
There is a youtube video already done by @aquariumshed. Look at the OP, I have linked it there. It's not a step by step video but gives overall explanation. In the calculator there is also a sheet called "Guide" which succinctly explains the purpose of each sheet.

Edit: Of course if you have questions please don't hesitate and we will do our best to answer them.
 
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  • It would be great if planted box was included in the list of commercial ferts
"A dose of 30ml per 100 liters [Recommended dosage for high tech tanks] of aquarium water gives a value of 0.50ppm Fe, 15ppm nitrate and 1.5ppm phosphate. Ideal for all your plants
Thanks for the link. We include new ferts when they are requested and if all data is provided by the manufacturer. Sometimes not all data is available so we just don’t include products. If we include this one it will be mentioned in the change log.
The manufacturer did not provide information about the potassium and micro content of the product. I believe this to have been a deliberate attempt to prevent others, likes us, from copying it. In view of this situation I don't think it is reasonable to added it to the IFC calculator. This said, there is a plethora of other ferts you can clone already available in the calculator, and to somewhat quote @dw1305, an "ion is an ion" no matter how much you pay for it or where it comes from.
 
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All in all, excellent job thank you !
Thank you for your kind words :)

I wish there was a way to see the price per ppm for every commercial ferts at a glance. There is already a nice table on the costdetails page but it only shows one commercial fert at a time ?
Something like this
1663582495932.png

It is hidden/alpha as it was deemed as to much data on one page and we thought folk didn't find it useful or confusing.
The rest is like Hanni said. Also my thought about having 'disabled ferts/remins is that it shows that we have already looked at them and found there wasn't enough data on them so having them disabled was a prompt to us also that we had already tried to incorporate them and failed.
 
That’s on purpose. We simply took the largest volume proposed by the manufacturer to give the lowest possible price. Not all manufacturers propose the same volumes, hence the inconsistencies.
Well TNC does exist in 5L, for 50-54£.
Only showing the selected commercial
fertilizer in Targetcalculator was actually something I insisted upon to improve visibility in the CostDetails sheet. Having the full list of ferts doesn’t make much sense IMO from an user standpoint because that table is comparing your clone to the commercial fert your are cloning. This can be argued but to make it more user friendly and less heavy this is why only 1 fert is being shown at a time.
Many people prefer commercial ferts (for various reasons) and I think your tool is very useful to make comparisons. I understand this was not the original intended usage of the tool. but let me tell you it's almost perfect for that. :)
We include new ferts when they are requested and if all data is provided. So if you want it in the next itteration please provide links to the product so we can assess if it can be added. Sometimes not all data is available so we just don’t include products.
I think we have all the data needed but let me know :
Plantedbox All-in-one
  • "A dose of 30ml per 100 liters [Recommended WEEKLY dosage for high tech tanks] of aquarium water gives a value of 0.50ppm Fe, 15ppm nitrate and 1.5ppm phosphate. "
  • K : 12ppm at the recommended dosage per week
  • ~54£ /5L
  • let's assume it doesn't contain Mg
How so? Each and every manufacturer has its own dosage regime sometimes with different units. We are only communicating the info made available by the manufacturer. This is purely informational and the user should only dose according to what he has defined in the Tank&Dosing sheet.
What I was advising is that instead of showing 1mL per 20L for X and 1mL per 50/L for Y, just show 5mL / 2mL per 100L for both. It looks like some work I've already been done since they are all shown as weekly dosage ;)
By the way I'm not sure I understand the point of adding APT twice for the daily and 4x/week dose in the list of commercial ferts. It's almost the same and I wonderif it's not more confusing than helpful ? One could think he has to chose APT daily if he wants his clone to be dosed daily,.
Something like this
View attachment 194674
It is hidden/alpha as it was deemed as to much data on one page and we thought folk didn't find it useful or confusing.
Yes exactly. We can see that APT EI looks expensive at first but it's actually not that bad because it's one of the most concentrated.
Maybe you could add a checkbox like "show all the ferts" but I'm not sure it's doable in excel without using macros (I'm a noob !)

Thanks
 
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Well TNC does exist in 5L, for 50-54£.
That information is not on the manufacturer's website as far I am aware. I only see 1L packaging. Maybe retailers are able to obtain 5L packaging from TNC? Please provide a link to those 5L/price so I can update the volume and price.

Many people prefer commercial ferts (for various reasons) and I think your tool is very useful to make comparisons. I understand this was not the original intended usage of the tool. but let me tell you it's almost perfect for that. :)
Nothing is perfect in life although we strive for it. ;) Every table on the IFC calculator has its own logic flow. The logic of that table is to compare a clone to its commercial counterpart. In principal, final and accurate values in that table are shown as long as a clone AND all compounds forming the said clone are selected. The idea is that the user would only go and check the CostDetails sheet after he has basically finished making his "recipe" so he can compare it to the commercial fert he used as basis for cloning. That's the frame-logic of that table. So, having that table show all the other commercial ferts would change its rational. It's not wrong, just not the way we envision it. This said, if you are good at excel and hacking, you could crack the password and unhide all the rows in that table which are currently hidden with all the info you want. That's how I got onboard in this project... by hacking the file 🤣

I think we have all the data needed but let me know :
Plantedbox All-in-one
  • "A dose of 30ml per 100 liters [Recommended WEEKLY dosage for high tech tanks] of aquarium water gives a value of 0.50ppm Fe, 15ppm nitrate and 1.5ppm phosphate. "
  • K : 12ppm at the recommended dosage per week
  • ~54£ /5L
  • let's assume it doesn't contain Mg
I rechecked this morning again and I see no mention of K content in either the Dutch or the French version of the manufacturer's website for the All-in-One "Estimative Index":

Screen Shot 2022-09-20 at 11.02.39.jpg

Screen Shot 2022-09-20 at 11.02.52.jpg

This said yesterday I did not check the All-in-one "Lean dosing" version of that product and it does seem to provide the K content. Micro are still missing though although this is not a big deal IMO.
Screen Shot 2022-09-20 at 11.41.53.jpg

I see that the manufacturer says that the guaranteed analysis is provided on the bottle sticker. If you have access to that sticker that would be very helpful as I suspect it also contains information on the micro side. That would be the holy grail as we could have the full information.

What I was advising is that instead of showing 1mL per 20L for X and 1mL per 50/L for Y, just show 5mL / 2mL per 100L for both. It looks like some work I've already been done since they are all shown as weekly dosage ;)
I understood what you were saying and why you are saying it. Here also, there is rational behind this choice. The reason it is the way it is, is because it is straightforward for a user to go and double check with the manufacturer the dosing rather than having him/her convert/recalculate a dosing that we would have modified for the sake of homogeneity, which in all honestly I don't see much of a benefit in doing so. The user is not using the IFC calculator for its commercial fert database, but rather for its ability to clone them ;). The only adjustment that was sometimes made was to show weekly dosing values, as that is how most, if not all people, think in terms of dosing. And anyway, manufacturers also often provide the weekly dosing as well or hint at it by saying how many times per week one needs to dose. This information is purely a reflection of what the manufacturers make public. What is actually important is the actual content of each element provided by each of these fertilizers on a weekly basis. The quantity added per water volume is actually meaningless for our purpose since it's just more or less water and what we are comparing between the fertilizer is the element content. We did not want to modify (or the least possible) what manufacturers share to the public. Hopefully that explains why it is the way it is :).

By the way I'm not sure I understand the point of adding APT twice for the daily and 4x/week dose in the list of commercial ferts. It's almost the same and I wonderif it's not more confusing than helpful ? One could think he has to chose APT daily if he wants his clone to be dosed daily,.
Not much to be honest. More like for convenience as APT provides both regimes so I thought it would be neet to have both. This is more like both @Zeus. and myself being overly geeks more than anything else ;)

Maybe you could add a checkbox like "show all the ferts" but I'm not sure it's doable in excel without using macros (I'm a noob !)
Not possible as is because the file is protected, and as you hinted, it would require VBA coding (in other words, a macro) and as you are probably guessing, it is also part of the inception rational of this calculator: not to use any VBA to avoid any security related issues. Excel is not the best plateform as you mentioned earlier, and I agree, so we wanted to add the least amount of barriers for its adoption. Having VBA would have been a MAJOR issue in that regard, although it would have provided way more functionalities and interactiveness.
 
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That information is not on the manufacturer's website as far I am aware. I only see 1L packaging. Maybe retailers are able to obtain 5L packaging from TNC? Please provide a link to those 5L/price so I can update the volume and price.

There is also a 2,5L package.
I rechecked this morning again and I see no mention of K content in either the Dutch or the French version of the manufacturer's website for the All-in-One "Estimative Index":
You're right. The value of K I gave you (12ppm /week for the standard AIO version) is the one that the vendor told me after asking. I don't have the micro content except the Fe.
I understood what you were saying and why you are saying it. Here also, there is rational behind this choice. The reason it is the way it is, is because it is straightforward for a user to go and double check with the manufacturer the dosing rather than having him/her convert/recalculate a dosing that we would have modified for the sake of homogeneity, which in all honestly I don't see much of a benefit in doing so. The user is not using the IFC calculator for its commercial fert database, but rather for its ability to clone them ;).
The benefit is that this more practical if you want to compare commercial ferts, without changing much for those that don't care about that aspect in my opinion.
Not possible as is because the file is protected, and as you hinted, it would require VBA coding (in other words, a macro) and as you are probably guessing, it is also part of the inception rational of this calculator: not to use any VBA to avoid any security related issues. Excel is not the best plateform as you mentioned earlier, and I agree, so we wanted to add the least amount of barriers for its adoption. Having VBA would have been a MAJOR issue in that regard, although it would have provided way more functionalities and interactiveness.
I think you're right avoiding VBA

Anyway thanks again to both of you for this great tool !
 
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I don't have the micro content except the Fe.
We do have the micro content for some of the AIO. I am pretty sure you can see them in the drop down menu in the 'DIY Trace' sheet, when the data was available (thanks to Hanni's great work sorting out the hidden sheet that contains all the regimes and commercial ferts/remin data and works treat IMO) I am away from PC ATM so can't check.
 
We do have the micro content for some of the AIO. I am pretty sure you can see them in the drop down menu in the 'DIY Trace' sheet,
My error, we have the Micro content of many commercial ferts showing in many of the sheets not just the DIY trace ;)
 
Hi
I am trying to run the fert calculator but it is password protected. Is this normal plus what is the password?

George
 
Hi
I am trying to run the fert calculator but it is password protected. Is this normal plus what is the password?

George
Hello George and welcome to UKAPS,

I just downloaded the file to make sure I didn't screw things over on the last update and the file is definitely not password protected for use. The only password protection there is, is to prevent people from mistakenly editing parts of the calculator that are not meant to me modified. Other than that the calculator can be used without any password. I suggest you have a read of the Guide sheet. This will provide general information on how to operate the calculator.

Cheers
 
I have a stupid question :shy:

2022-10-30 20_52_03-Greenshot.png


What is the correct way / format to input in this field?
I have tried a variety of different combinations including the one the calculator seems to suggest and all seem to give an error.
Ive tried adjusting the limits in settings to outrageous levels as well without any more success.
Im sure it must be something very simple that im missing

Ive tried:
2
2 1
2:1
2 : 1
2,0 : 1,0
2,0 : 1.0
2.0 : 1.0
etc :sorry:
 
You have entered '7,66' and/or '2,0' - used a comma
It will work when you enter '7.66' and/or '2.0' - use a full stop
;)
I was able to get the same error using a 'comma' and all worked fine when I used a 'full stop'
 
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