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Starting dose of TPN

G

Greenview

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Joined
12 Jun 2011
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196
My planted tank has been running for 2 weeks now and I am now re-evaluating things. I am very new to all this so much learning is going on.
I have a Juwel RIO 180 litre with 2xT5 lighting and reflectors for 8 hours a day
Pressurised CO2
Eheim 2217 filter and a separate 1600lph powerhead
The tank is quite densely planted, but the plants are small as yet
Tropica plant substrate under gravel with root tabs under larger plants

Things were going well until a couple of days ago when a breakout of brown algae occurred, I am sorting this out and think it was to do with decreasing CO2 too much when I introduced fish.

I would like some advice on fert regime. I have TPN and TPN+ but was originally advised to dose nothing for the first few weeks, but wondered whether this is the best approach—many UKAPS members seem to dose from day 1. I thought that I had better throw some ferts but this turned out to be just as the algae started (what I though were nutrient deficiencies on leaves were algae spots) and have used a seventh of the standard tropica dose every day. But I really need some guidance. Tropica recommend for my tank 12ml TPN and 6ml TPN+ a week but reduced by half for the first month or so, but is this right?

Any help and guidance is gratefully received.
 
Greenview said:
Tropica recommend for my tank 12ml TPN and 6ml TPN+ a week but reduced by half for the first month or so, but is this right?
Click to expand...
No, it's wrong. The worst advice you could possibly receive is the one about not dosing when you start the tank. The plants look fine in the beginning but what do you think they are feeding on? If there is poor nutrition available in a high energy tank they are forced to use their internal stores of food. Once that is used up they begin to starve. As plants begin to starve their cell structure starts to break down and this decay triggers algal blooms. The people who insist on not dosing a tank from the start are those that believe that nutrients cause algae. But this is folly. Light causes algae. Poor nutrition causes algae. Poor plant health cause algae. So by not feeding your plants at the same time that you are pummeling them with high energy lighting and CO2, commanding them to grow faster, you create the conditions for failing health.

Almost all commercial mixes are sold at very low concentrations. The only hobbyists that can get away with using the bottle dosing recommendations are those people who live in agricultural zones where the municipal tap water has high nutrient concentrations due to the runoff from the farmers' fields. If you live in an area of low nutrient concentration then your margin of error is very thin and you'd need to dose much more heavily than what is suggested on the bottle. And this gets expensive, so that's why most folks running high tech tanks like yours use the much less expensive dry powders, which are exactly the same materials that are used to produce the commercial mixes in the first place.

Cheers,
 
Thanks, that makes sense. I was beginning to think that way about the advice I was given and it is good to step into the light on this!

As I already have half a litre of both TPN and TPN+ I will not move to powders just yet. What dose should I be giving? Double Tropica's recommendation?
 
Well I'm a lunatic so I would do triple the bottle suggestion for starters...but that's just me...

Cheers,
 
Thanks. Your "lunatic" answer is worth more than most folks' so-called wisdom. I will go with it. Thanks.
 
Sentral said:
I was planning on buying this http://www.aquariumplantfood.co.uk/fert ... ition.html
What's your view on this? I'm not too confident on using EI just yet...
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Yeah, this would be a pretty good (and cheaper) alternative to Tropica's TPN+ .

I haven't spoken to John about how much of what is in what bottle but if your tank is CO2 injected why not try the combination of his Simply NPK and Simply Traces? If it's made to EI standard then it ought to be about 100X more potent than TPN+ or Profito or any of those products offered by The Matrix.

Cheers,
 
Im looking into the EI method as TPN+ is killing my bank account :D

So i think i will look into the starter kit, Cheers for the link.

LP
 
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