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Spezial N - Nitrogen Fertilizer

Hi George,

some of us use Koralias too. They are very nice, especially the nanos. Flow is very essential and I think Tom Barr made it clear with his tests and his CO2 probe how essential flow is.
When having a near empty canister you get alot more flow out of it. That's the reason why only some use additional powerheads. But you can always improve the situation with a little bit more flow.

Normally biofiltermedia should only convert NH4 to NO2 and than to NO3. But when a filter is working "better and better" those hightechfiltermedia tend to consume nitrates too. They go anaerobic inside the filtermedia and tend to suck all NO3 up too. This of course can happen, but often isn't a problem. Eheim, Sera etc. are marketing their filtermedia especially regarding those effects of consuming nitrates, due to the reason that most of the aquarium industry is still thinking of the "bad nitrates".
You can often compensate those circumstances with adding a little bit more ferts. So the majority will be fine.
Some people in Germany like to dose less ferts (=> cheaper ;) even when dosing from powders :crazy: ) and for them it's a conveniant way to use less fertilizer and having the same effects regarding effectiveness. The nitrifying bacteria settle down on everything in your tank and due to that you can think of a big filter when having a planted aquarium.
The people who want not to go totally filterless use blue medium to big sized sponge filter in their canisters. I think the majority does. Only some go totally filterless. JBL for example has good filtermedia delivered with their canisters. Just blue sponge and a little bit ceramic at the bottom. No hightech filtermedia like Ehfimech, Sinterglass or whatever else.

Regarding Fe and PO4 you can observe (and measure) and explain that Fe can react with PO4 and this both elements
tend to precipitate in the filter. If you measure the filter mud who will get ridiculous high amounts of Fe and PO4. With a little bit less filtrations you can reduce the amounts of Fe and PO4 need to be dosed.

Of course this whole "filter less approach" is widely discussed in Germany too. Their are many sceptics and I belief that the normal EI recipe works very good with big filtration. With nearly no filtration you will end up without enough nitrogen but with ALOT PO4 and way to high Fe amounts in your tank. With "normal filtration" everything is fine.
So this "less filtration" approach is also another option but has to be considered when adding nutrients. Many things will not be the same as when compared to a person "normally" filtering. It has upside but also downside effects ;).
With very good chelated micronutrientmixtures less filtration can be a problem too. As plants cannot uptake the whole complex of micronutrient + chelate they maybe get the needed micronutrient to late. You often have to dose a little bit more of those heavily stabilized micronutrient mixtures. With higher filterload your filter will split up the chelate + micronutrient complex leaving the micronutrients available for a short period before going into the "filter nirvana".
When using "organic stabilized" or weak stabilzed mixtures like flourish or my mixture "Flowgrow" you get way better results with the less filter approach and can dose only a small amount of those ferts. The plants will get enough Fe and micronutrients under those circumstances.

I think many of you will have those topics at APC in mind where people used to dose HIGH amounts of Seachem Iron and Flourish and the plants always loved it. Those guys were of course filtering "normally". You can reduce those high amounts of fertilzer when reducing your filtermedia.


Best regards
Tobi
 
Thanks, Tobi.

So for those that still overfilter, as long as you are adding plenty of nutrients every day, like most of us with hi-energy tanks, then these issues of NO3, PO4/Fe should be fine. And the NO3 issue in particular will be effectively addressed by Spezial-N perhaps...?
 
Hi,

with good amounts of ferts you can compensate regarding the filter issue. I do not think that it needs to be a problem.

The Spezial N can help, but regardless of the filtration or we will see ;). In my forum flowgrow.de I do not have many people filtering heavily. That's why I'm so excited to see how the Spezial-N is doing in another community with other principles.
I know for sure that even with good filtration you can benefit of a little bit more nitrogen coming from the Spezial N. Some have reported that already back, but the majority isn't filtering alot at flowgrow.de ... only some.

Best regards
Tobi
 
Hi George,

glad to hear. But as Clive said.... I do not want to get any new "myths" going around. Especially regarding K+. I do not know if the Spezial N is doing that great because of the K+ "issue". When reading some parts of the thread it could lead to maybe false conclusions. I do not want a thread similar to the ones at APC where a big K+ bashing was introduced ;) once and big discussions came up. Parts of this here reminded me of those threads. The main intention was that there is some other nitrogen fert out, that you maybe should try and observe and reply back ;).

I just know that K+ accumulates in our tanks here in Germany when only fertilizing with KNO3. If this has also something todo with filtering less, I do not know. So... let's stay tuned how the Spezial N is doing in the UK ;).

Best regards
Tobi
 
Yeah, I totally agree with this. The focus should be on N uptake efficiency and not on K+ bashing. If subsequent data proves/disproves an issue with K+, then fair enough. It was not long ago we had to endure NO3 bashing, then later, PO4 bashing, remember? So tiresome. :crazy:

Cheers,
 
Hi all,
They go anaerobic inside the filtermedia
I've done some work with different filter media, this wasn't specifically aquarium related, but whilst we were doing the waste water work. One thing that became very clear was that often the theoretical bio-filtration potential of the media was entirely that "theoretical", because the "water" was quickly de-oxygenated in the filter. You could potentially get the conversion of NO3 to N2 (the plenum effect), but usually what happened was that de-oxygenated water with its load of ammonia and /or nitrite passed into the later stages of the bio-filter, often with fairly disastrous results.

In our case we were dealing with "water" with a huge BOD, but even then when the planted biofilter was running at optimum capacity, it had the potential to fully clean up some fairly nasty landfill leachate.

This is also why I like the PPI10 filter foams, HMF filters and ceramic rings as bio-filter material, they don't tend to clog and inhibit water flow. It is also the reason why wet and dry trickle filters are so effective, the thin films of moving water are very effective at gas exchange, meaning that all the filtration media is utilised. Because of this a relatively small filter of the deBruyn type <http://www.aka.org/UserFiles/File/debruyn_filter.pdf> has a large filtration potential.

cheers Darrel
 
I've been dosing this for about 2 or 3 days now, and i can say, without bias, that i've noticed a change in plant health in my nano.

Somehow, my greens are much better. The acicularis seems to like it a lot.

so far i'm impressed. lets see what it's like 6 weeks down the road.

flat.jpg
 
Just out out curiosity, how is this special K differ in terms of it's chemical structure to other nitrate source such as for example urea in urine? Urine as far as I know has low potassium and high urea level.
 
Tobi said:
you can read the facts of the tanks at flowgrow. And I only said that those potassium levels could be the problem but not that they are for every one. One culprit was for example with EI that many plants looked like nitrogen shortage and with just KNO3 it isn't working at all. I've added KNO3 till 80 ppm. In other tanks EI is doing great... but somehow inconsistent.Take my Iwagumi and my "planted tank" for example. Same setup. Identical tanks (120x45x45) with same ligh fixture (6x54 watt dimmable - Easy Life Paradiso), CO2 in excess (KH4 solution in drop checker light green), good flow with a JBL e1500 on both tanks. PO4 always non limited, KNO3 dosage of 3-5 ppm NO3 per day, a little bit Seachem Equilibrium at water changes (50% per week). Both tanks have aquasoil as a substrate.
In the iwagumi the HC growth intense and in the other tank it's nearly dying. Since the new nitrogen fertilizer I do not have problems with HC in the other tank.

I for example need to fertilize at least 3 ppm Nitrate to my tanks daily. If I do it only with potassiumnitrate it isn't working in all tanks. For example in my tank with minilandscape rocks it's working ;). In others not. Especially with very soft tap water I do get problems with only KNO3.

"Thousands of people are dosing high amounts of K" that's exactly what Tom Barr is telling. Maybe right... but please show me 1000 superb running tanks with excellent plant growth. Maybe some of those 1000 have it, but the majority will only have descent growth.

And that's still not the point. I do not need and do not want to prove anything. I really do not need it ;). In my community really alot of people are using my ferts and they have excellent grwoth effect with this combination of nitrates.

Either they are a problem or they are not, independent of other factors/dependencies.
All it takes is for some folks to dose X amount of K+ ppm and not have an issue to falsify the myths surrounding K+.
Erik's winning scape from the AGA contest had well over 100ppm + of K+, in the US, many used very high K+ for about 5-6 years till I suggested we are not really getting much out of it . 20-30ppm is plenty, but adding more never did anyone harm.

Do you use reference standard CO2 solutions for measuring CO2? How would you make one?
There are ways, but aquarist do not do them.


As I suggested and mention, I have a very precise method of measuring CO2 and calibrating it, Drop checkers are very very poor in terms of accuracy and do not offer useful data. I have tanks that would suggest good CO2 and that they are even, but no 2 aquariums are ever the the same. Measuring them with the CO2 meter, I ended up with 25-35 for the one with issues and the one without was 50ppm.
I raised the CO2 to 50ppm and the issues went away.
pH and DC's suggested the tanks where equal however.

Same with various species of algae.
Dosing and PAR and brand and age of the bulbs are the same.
These are EASY to adjust and make certain they are the same.
But CO2?
Now there's an issue.

It can move around much faster than any nutrient might and at much larger absolute range.
Now that said, I actually have FISH in my tanks, not 10 tiny tetras.
I feed them well, I have several species breeding in my tanks.
So I do agree there is something to a balanced diet of NH4 and NO3.
You would expect more growth and better plant health. Those that do not, then adding some Urea or other source is an option. I agree with that.


So if as you say, everything is truly equal and without good verification of CO2.......why is it that some tanks do work(which would = your controls) and why might other tanks not? Methods methods and methods.
If you cannot verify CO2 in any meaningful way, that is an unknown and you cannot verify it by simply guessing and assuming it to be correct.

Drop checkers are lousy.

You have 3 colors, green, blue and yellow and plenty of color blind people in between.
Change is slow and imprecise. Yet you place a large emphasis on something downstream, nutrients and critical measurement there.

Why is CO2 given a free pass but not nutrients?
Why photometers ans calibrated solutions for NO3, but not CO2?
KH is only part of it.
My own HC:
frontedgepruning.jpg


180-cm worth

There are an infinite no# of ways to screw a tank up or get less than max growth and health.
But there are far fewer ways to make the method work correctly. A failure on the aquarist part does not imply there is an issue with the method. As with EI, EVERY method has detractors that say the method caused algae or some other issue, but it is not the methods that failed, it is the user and their assumptions, methods etc.

Maybe is was CO2?
Maybe they had a lot more light and not enough CO2 to mange things well?
Without testing those with the same critique, how can you say?

You cannot honesty.
I could not either.

All I can do is falsify a specific precise question. I cannot tet every possible alternative and possible cause. But if an aquarist can produce excellent growth under those conditions for K+, then the other factors are independent.
Now you have a "control" reference tank, whereas the other tank with issues using same dosing etc......is not a control. This other tank has confounding factors.

Then we let it go, reject it and move on to the next likely culprit.
IME, nutrients are VERY easy, CO2 is the hardest by far and light has come a long way in the last 2-4 years with PAR meters being used.

Correlation it does not prove that it is KNO3 that causes it.
Unlike an example where NO3 dosing is higher, and no effect is noted .......falsifies that hypothesis.
One says what something cannot be, the other just states there is a relationship, it implies nothing, there is a huge difference here in the logic and thinking as well as the certainty.
This has nothing to do with belief/desire/semantics.

Besides I really do not see those thousands (even more than 1000) great looking tanks on the planted tank communities and I've been reading all those planted tank communities for some years now. Here and there you see a jewel but all together those aren't thousands and especially there aren't thousands who dose potassium in excess and have best lush plant growth. Especially the asians are very conservative regarding big amounts of macronutrients. Look in the ADA gallery for example ;). ADA's system uses big amounts of potassium too... I've not seen one tank with good growth of HC in the NA Gallery. But of course it could be anything else that leads to that specific growthproblems.

But Calcium and Magnesium are not the case for any of those growth problems. It's not the small quantities of calcium and magnesium which are doing the trick. Could not be... because than you would achieve the same results with just adding calcium and magnesium. No one in my community could ever solve problems with just adding calcium. German tap water always has enough calcium and magnesium in only rare cases is not enough.We've tried all of that too ;). Adding huge amounts of calcium and magnesium.

I've done it just dandy, 180 cm worth, folks have dosed high K+ specifically for about 1995-2002/2003 or so.
Refer to the APD. I suggested that the K+ in KNO3 was more than enough to meet the demands, no K2SO4 was needed/required. But during that time, add more K+ was everyone's advice.
This was not my idea initially, it was Steve Dixon's.
I just follow up on several of his observations.

Adding 15 years of this and all the various hobbyists, 1000's is certainly the case, but a method and scaping ability do not imply anything about the other either. You can be a good grower and terrible scaper, or a good scaper and bad grower, as is very often the case IME. Same is true for photographers.
Many are very good with a camera and also good aquarist, but not always.

I wish you'd nag the USA people about this, they think Ca++ deficiencies are everywhere, under your bed like the boogie man monsters. :twisted: They love this myth in the USA.

CO2 is really your Achilles heel here(like the Ca++ myth in the USA folks).
Unfortunately this is no way to measure it critically for hobbyists.
This is a huge unknown for the hobby.

These Drop checker things have been off by 30-40ppm when I test using a CO2 meter calibrated using standard reference solutions with mix CO2 gas % solutions I made in sealed containers. The results blew my mind, I thought I had much less CO2 than I did, and yet fish are fine and breeding etc. Doing it a huge PITA for the calibrations. But then you know and have a standard curve for CO2. Then the meter is calibrated and you can test ad measure things like mad. :idea: I have also critically measured O2 at the same time. Those 2 together offer interesting insight.

CO2 it isn't either. We are all using drop checkers with KH4 solution in my community and we all know that flow is essential in our tanks. Big quantity of people in my community use ADA aquasoil as a substrate too. And we are all not scared of PO4 ;). Maybe potassium could have something to do with some problems. Fact is that potassium isn't used 1:1 with nitrogen. You will nearly always get a build up of potassium when only using KNO3.

CO2 is not?
Have you confirmed this using a known reference?
Not if you use a drop checker and no one I've met bothers with a pH probe and a referenced pure KH solution together in situ. You are assuming an unknown is actually a known.

Be more careful here, CO2 is a lot more tricky than this.

Agreed about plant usage and K+ ratios, but we know that excess K does not independently cause the issues.
I write this article some years ago, maybe 8 years ago concerning K+ from KNO3 and the ratios:

http://www.barrreport.com/showthread.ph ... o-analysis

I think it was about 2002 or so when I posted it around other forums. Unless 75% of the N is from fish waste, you'd likely never run limiting with K+ from KNO3 dosing.

So yes, you are right about it being excess. But most all things are.

Against the potassium thing is standing that you cannot achieve the same results with urea and ammonium alone as a nitrogen source. You maybe get good growth but you will not see such intense reactions of your plants than with the other nitrogen fertilizer (positive or negative, depends what else you are dosing).
I agree that the sole source of N should not be either or, but rather, BOTH NH4 and NO3.

I prefer fish for NH4 and KNO3 for NO3.
If you use the urea blend with Ca/Mg/K based cations and NO3, that's fine, but it does not imply the reasons speculated. See if you can prove and falsify your own hypothesis.

- PO4 can be limited but is not needed to be limited. I for myself have around 0,1-1,0 ppm PO4 in my tanks.
- CO2 is always 30+ ppm with good flow in the tank
- substrate ADA Aquasoil
- micronutrient fertilizer in needed quantity.
There were not any scientific experiments regarding that ferilizer. Only subjective tests from people of my community. I've sent out around 30 bottles to people who are willing to test it and report back. Different setups to see how that fert is doing and if they experience the same results as I was. Now around 100 more people are using the fertilizer since I've started selling it too.

Thing is... I'm not here for discussion and I'm not here for selling :D. I'm here for sharing ... I know that it works somehow ;). Feel free to try it too and report. That's why I've posted the recipe. I would be very interested if you get similar results.
More a practical approach than a scientific one. And really I yet do not know why this fert is working that well and intense.

Best regards
Tobi

Nothing wrong with sharing or selling. I think there's no doubt of intent with you Tobi :thumbup: :thumbup: .
Folks try it and if anyone fails, is it fair to imply that it is bad and causes algae?
The same approach is used above for EI :idea:
Or ADA?
No, that is not fair, anymore than saying it about ADA or EI

Clearly these methods work.
The REAL question is WHY they work.
Folks can mess up any method, we all know that.
Therefore, that should not be the standard to judge the methods by, rather, the successes.
Only then do you have a reference that can be tested against.
This helps the hobby grow and learn, not just speculate(too much of that already).
Plants all grow for the same reasons, the only change is the rates of growth.

Cheers
 
I think overall, the product you suggets is good and wise for some folks that lack fish.
It might be best for people that dose daily vs 2-3 x a week also.

NH4=> NO3 is regulated by O2, same for Excel, easy carbo, these and Dechlorinatoers are all reducers and consume O2.
So good O2 data is interesting and applicable to fish.

O2 is also a good comparative measure of growth rates of aquatic plants.

Filterless tanks seem to lack one thing: a large fish population :idea:

I think the correct chelator for each tap KH is wise for Fe.
That should resolve issues there with PO4.


Cheers.

Tom

Tobi said:
Normally biofiltermedia should only convert NH4 to NO2 and than to NO3. But when a filter is working "better and better" those hightechfiltermedia tend to consume nitrates too. They go anaerobic inside the filtermedia and tend to suck all NO3 up too. This of course can happen, but often isn't a problem. Eheim, Sera etc. are marketing their filtermedia especially regarding those effects of consuming nitrates, due to the reason that most of the aquarium industry is still thinking of the "bad nitrates".
You can often compensate those circumstances with adding a little bit more ferts. So the majority will be fine.
Some people in Germany like to dose less ferts (=> cheaper ;) even when dosing from powders :crazy: ) and for them it's a conveniant way to use less fertilizer and having the same effects regarding effectiveness. The nitrifying bacteria settle down on everything in your tank and due to that you can think of a big filter when having a planted aquarium.
The people who want not to go totally filterless use blue medium to big sized sponge filter in their canisters. I think the majority does. Only some go totally filterless. JBL for example has good filtermedia delivered with their canisters. Just blue sponge and a little bit ceramic at the bottom. No hightech filtermedia like Ehfimech, Sinterglass or whatever else.

Regarding Fe and PO4 you can observe (and measure) and explain that Fe can react with PO4 and this both elements
tend to precipitate in the filter. If you measure the filter mud who will get ridiculous high amounts of Fe and PO4. With a little bit less filtrations you can reduce the amounts of Fe and PO4 need to be dosed.

Of course this whole "filter less approach" is widely discussed in Germany too. Their are many sceptics and I belief that the normal EI recipe works very good with big filtration. With nearly no filtration you will end up without enough nitrogen but with ALOT PO4 and way to high Fe amounts in your tank. With "normal filtration" everything is fine.
So this "less filtration" approach is also another option but has to be considered when adding nutrients. Many things will not be the same as when compared to a person "normally" filtering. It has upside but also downside effects ;).
With very good chelated micronutrientmixtures less filtration can be a problem too. As plants cannot uptake the whole complex of micronutrient + chelate they maybe get the needed micronutrient to late. You often have to dose a little bit more of those heavily stabilized micronutrient mixtures. With higher filterload your filter will split up the chelate + micronutrient complex leaving the micronutrients available for a short period before going into the "filter nirvana".
When using "organic stabilized" or weak stabilzed mixtures like flourish or my mixture "Flowgrow" you get way better results with the less filter approach and can dose only a small amount of those ferts. The plants will get enough Fe and micronutrients under those circumstances.

I think many of you will have those topics at APC in mind where people used to dose HIGH amounts of Seachem Iron and Flourish and the plants always loved it. Those guys were of course filtering "normally". You can reduce those high amounts of fertilzer when reducing your filtermedia.


Best regards
Tobi
 
I think Tobi's suggestion of a mix with some NH4, NO3 and Ca, Mg sources for NO3 is good in the same way as the GH booster hits several issues at once also: K+, SO4, Mg and Ca.

While many taps waters are high GH, often low Mg is an issue is some, but not all.
This alone can give very different results(Mg dosing) between users.
Likewise, with NH4+ NO3 dosing, you typically will find a better balance of plant growth and hit more preferences.
This is the same idea as both act synergistically vs each acting alone, say like with water column dosing vs sediment dosing, together they complement one another.

While this might target multiple issues folks have in their tanks, it does not state what those issues are.
So if you do not care about that, then it's a decent idea.

But if you care about why and not spreading myths as many are so prone to do, then :twisted:
But GH booster was a response to SeaChem Equilibrium, and DIY cheap version. Same here I think with Tropica's macro ferts solutions and folks adding some Urea.
Adding a little bit to cover the bases for more user error is the management goal here, and adding more is not going to do any harm as far as Ca, Mg.........or K+ as far as I can tell also.

What I do not understand is how many are getting such high K+ residuals in their tanks. It should not rise that high. Most tanks where we tested K+ where in the 20-40ppm ranges. I do not think tanks get reduced growth till you get well under 10ppm of K+, so the range where K+ is limiting is much less than any suggestions(ADA included).
 
plantbrain said:
What I do not understand is how many are getting such high K+ residuals in their tanks. It should not rise that high. Most tanks where we tested K+ where in the 20-40ppm ranges. I do not think tanks get reduced growth till you get well under 10ppm of K+, so the range where K+ is limiting is much less than any suggestions(ADA included).
Tom,
The reports of high K+ seem to be based on the results of test kits. Fundamentally, I don't trust any hobby grade test kit, but I've never used K+ kits so I cannot say whether these kits are any more trustworthy than say a NO3 or PO4 kit, which we know to exhibit poor reliability. Reviewing the discussion, it seems to have also been assumed that the uptake rate for K+ is significantly less than that of NO3 when dosing KNO3. It's not clear whether this is an assumption based on reported terrestrial plant uptake rates, or whether this was a conclusion based on the test kit readings.

The thing is that no one has suggested the mechanism by which excessive K+ would have an inhibitory effect. It seems to be an assumption strictly based on the performance of the mix compared to a strictly KNO3 dosing, i.e. "since we get improved results using less KNO3 then there might be some threshold K+ value beyond which causes issues".

I agree that there is more likely to be a synergistic effect of the combination of NH4 from the urea, the NO3, as well as the Ca and Mg. Since there is little difference in performance between K+ values throughout the range of medium to high, it would be an easy assumption to make.

Cheers,
 
Hi,

i will not go into the details again guys ;). You can read everything in the posts before.
Especially regarding Clive I do not get you man. Have you read any sentence from my former posts? Is my English that bad?

The "assumptions" of the K+ uptake are based on the photmetric test kit readings. Those are test kits which are calibrated against reference solutions and are very precise.

There have been tests with changing only one variable => KNO3 and the other mix. All other variables kept unlimited during that time.

I have never said that any system fails ... i have only told that some people have problems with certain systems and maybe need other options.

And... I was never here for big discussions, just for sharing. Feel free to test the mix and make your own decision. Wheter it's related to K+ or some other synergetic effect.

But please remember that when using this mix that you maybe need to adjust the micronutrient dosage and/or the K+ dosage. There are some tanks that need more K+ than others. Especially when using the Spezial N for a longer time it maybe neccessary to dose a little bit more K+.

Best regards
Tobi
 
Mark Evans said:
I've been dosing this for about 2 or 3 days now, and i can say, without bias, that i've noticed a change in plant health in my nano.

Somehow, my greens are much better. The acicularis seems to like it a lot.

so far i'm impressed. lets see what it's like 6 weeks down the road.

flat.jpg

That's a nice little nano, what are your dosing regime? Are you only dosing Spazial N and Flowgrow?

Would really appreciate any info mate.
 
I thought i'd share my 2 week experience with these ferts.

I've done a fair few tanks over the last 4 years or so, and most have been pretty healthy.

I can be the first to poo poo new ideas especially when it comes to things like ferts. I'm an EI snob, but i must say there's a marked improvement of my plant health.

Maybe it could be the combination of both higher N and a strong trace mix, i'm not sure, but things are without doubt, on the up.

Acicualris loves the stuff, much greener
Liliaeospsis, is healthier than normal

Everything, in general, is much much healthier.i dont know what else to say :geek: ....meh, change the techy smilie for a... :D

Nothing has changed in my regime except ferts. I'll be using these from now on.

(pulls shield over head and awaits the bullet storm)
 
Mark Evans said:
I've been dosing this for about 2 or 3 days now, and i can say, without bias, that i've noticed a change in plant health in my nano.

Somehow, my greens are much better. The acicularis seems to like it a lot.

so far i'm impressed. lets see what it's like 6 weeks down the road.

flat.jpg

so which product/products you dosing? I have lost track :?
 
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