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Last go for some help

swackett

Member
Joined
29 May 2008
Messages
449
Location
Surrey
Hi,

I have just bought a new Roma 125 LED aquarium. I'm using my existing Eheim thermo filter, I have co2 injection and am now using LED lighting (new to me I have used T8 and T5 in the past)

I've used Tropica plant substrate covered with a good 2 cm or so of gravel and have the following plants.

Cryptocoryne (various)
Echinodorus (rubra and ozelot)
Narrow leaf Java fern
Anubias (various)
Alternanthera cardinalis
Hygrophila Rosae Australis

I've set the lighting period to 6 hours for now as I'm in the establish period, my question is should I dose liquid ferts and if so how often. I'm thinking the only plants that would use this are the stems as the Crypts and Echinordus will get most of there nutrients from their roots (once established) is this correct?
 
When you dose ferts you dose the AS as well. The AS mops up any surplus ferts from the Water Column, so when you add ferts you recharge the AS. Your AS will be new so will contain most of the nutrients your plants need, which varies from brand to brand OFC.
So in a way you don't need ferts, but why not then you will now your plants won't be lacking any nutrients, plus having an abundance of nutrients doe not encourage aglea.
I would dose ferts, EI dry salts cheapest and contains everything your plants need.
Daily dose except WC day if using EI.

Sent from Mountolympus via neural interface
 
Hiyah Swackett,

I think you want to establish what type of lighting your LED provides which will help determine your nutrient regime.

Just to emphasise I'm but a humble hobbiest nowhere near the levels of some of the folk on here but my understanding is all plants will feed from both their roots and the water column so although you've put the tropica substrate in which should keep you covered initially and will have good CEC properties later so that it can store nutrients you add to the water column, maybe a bit crude but my rough understanding of how it works.

So to answer your question in my opinion it would be best to do both substrate and water column feeding.

As to how much there's loads of info on methods e.g. lean EI, EI, PPMD etc etc so its really up to you what method. You can use pre-bought fertilizers in the form of tropica, ada, etc or buy dry salts and either make your own liquid feed or dry dose the salts - you'd need a set of scales capable of measuring small amounts - 0.01g.

But to go back to how much and when - well first establish what kind of aquarium - high light etc then try to mimic one of the successful diaries here.

For example I use Tom Barr's PMDD http://www.barrreport.com/forum/bar...ccuracy-want-daily-pmdd-style-ei-dosing/page7 - but as said I'm no expert so watching my plants to try and let them tell me how its going. Or rather watching the algae accumulate :)
The reason I liked the PMDD + PO4 was pure and simply because it had dry weights and not spoons as cups as measures - I'm a bit sad that way.ov

My tanks are long established so there wasn't any question in my mind as to over egging the pudding - the beauty of EI is with a 50% water change weekly there's little chance of levels building up to harmful levels.

If I've got anything wrong here folks feel free to pull me up -

Good luck
 
No that pretty much covers it. Check out the EI page in UKAPS articles for more detailed explanation and you can dose ei dry with spoons if you want.
Essentially ei is dosing enough ferts in the tank that regardless of how bright your lighting is and given good flow round the tank and enough co2 the plants shouldn't need any more than that.
Lighting drives the requirements of ferts so it's a one size fits all solution.

Sent from my STH100-2 using Tapatalk
 
Thanks for your replies, I've done EI in the past. Been away for a few years and now trying again . The led is the standard one that comes with the Roma, so 10w, not sure of the colour temp though.

So maybe a dose of tropic liquid ferts once a week to start with?
 
More suited to a low tech tank, with your CO2 and light upgrade a daily fert regime would be better then less chance of aglea. If your tank becomes nutrient deficient

Sent from Mountolympus via neural interface
 
Ta, the Tropica bottle states for 100l tank I should use 10 doses a week. Maybe I'll start with one every day for the week then up to 1 a day and see how things go.
 
Which Tropica are you using? Premium only contains trace elements and specialised contains traces and macros ie nitrate and phosphate. In a tank with your lighting and co2 enriched I would suggest you need some specialised. You can off course mix dry salts with premium or buy your traces as salts. Buying dry salts is a far cheaper alternative but as your tank isn't a large volume maybe you can live with commercially prepared ferts.

Sent from my STH100-2 using Tapatalk
 
Which Tropica are you using? Premium only contains trace elements and specialised contains traces and macros ie nitrate and phosphate. In a tank with your lighting and co2 enriched I would suggest you need some specialised. You can off course mix dry salts with premium or buy your traces as salts. Buying dry salts is a far cheaper alternative but as your tank isn't a large volume maybe you can live with commercially prepared ferts.

Sent from my STH100-2 using Tapatalk

We are using Premium at the moment, so you think Speciaiised would be better?
 
Good chance mate. Premium only contains the trace elements. Generally speaking unless you have nitrate in your tapwater or a heavy load of fish the plants will require some extra for growth. You may be getting away with it at the moment because it's still using from the new aqua soil. It will probably need replenishing at some point.

Sent from my STH100-2 using Tapatalk
 
Well we have been using it for some years with the old setup (Crypts, Java Fern, Anubias) under T8 lights, but these plants are slow growing and light is very low.
 
Swackett,

Have you thought about buying the dry salts, I ordered some earlier in the year and have plenty left, in that time i've given a 500ml bottle to a mate to try and gone through a couple of 500 ml bottles of macros. All in, the liquids if bought in commercial form would have cost in excess of £50 - I got all my salts for much less that - but then again I'm skint and would rather have the money for fish or plants.

ATB
 
Not taking anything away from commercial ferts but in essence a large portion of what you pay is for the bottle and 99% water.

Sent from my STH100-2 using Tapatalk
 
Agree with you both, as I used dry salts on our old 240L tank, but an £11 bottle of Tropica will last us 30 weeks at 10ml a week.

We still have some of the dry salts in a cupboard as i came across it the other week.
 
That being the case I would start using salts combine with the tropica as traces and see how you get on. The 10ml per week may be a bit lean though.
 
So I could also do the same with Tropica Specialised, maybe start off with more premium and slowly increase the amount of specialised I use week on week. So I could do the following and monitor algae growth?

Week 1
Premium - 10ml
Specialised - 2ml

Week 2
Premium - 8ml
Specialised - 4ml

Week 3
Premium - 6ml
Specialised - 6ml

etc
 
I have to admit I'm not sure at what dosages you add Tropica. From what I understand in a heavily planted tanks that is moderately lit you would have to add more than their recommended dose.
It actually works the other way round than you are thinking. Ferts don't cause algae unless it's the lack of as opposed to too much. That's why EI provides too much because if the plants get hungry and there's bright light algae will gain the upper hand so if you were trying to gauge the right amount the idea would be to start from the top and work your way down. If you see a negative reaction in the plants you would then back up with the dosing.

Sent from my STH100-2 using Tapatalk
 
But if i remember rightly with EI you do a massive water change each week to reset the water column.
 
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