Tropica App advice

[Courtneybst]

Hey guys,

I have the Tropica app on my phone, not really using it but I thought it would be interesting to see when they suggest to start doing certain things. I know it wouldn't be possible to fully follow this anyway as my setup is non CO2 and the guide is based on a CO2 enriched setup.

Question though; I noticed it suggests not fertilising until day 21 and even once you do you should use ferts without N and P. I thought limiting N and P wasn't necessary? Or do plants still really not need this at the 3 week mark?

I haven't added any ferts yet because I assumed if the plants are still establishing, they're probably not putting much energy into growth.. So far there's minimal melting and no algae so who knows.

Interested to hear your thoughts.

 

[Zeus.]

If you injecting CO2, I would dose straight away, plus I would be doing more WC at first to help prevent algae blooms, better the plants have unlimited nutriments than not enough, the increase in WCs will reduce any potential nutrient excess (which I very much doubt there would be case) as well as Dissolved Organic Compound (DOC)

 

[Wookii]

Dubious advice from Tropica there in my opinion. I assume the advice on the N & P is based on using Tropica soil which puts out a fair bit of ammonia - but then I would recommend 80% daily water changes for at least the first week when using their soils. Is this for your "Tidy Jungle II" low tech tank? if so, with your inert top layer, you should be fine with smaller initial water changes.

I assume you are using tap water so you could be fine depending on how much Nitrate and Phosphate is in your tap water, but I would still dose some to be sure you don't encounter any nutrient deficiencies as @Zeus suggests. If using Tropica products you'd need the 'Specialised' rather than the 'Premium' the app suggests - but DIY salts will be more cost effective given your tank size.

 

[Zeus.]

Seeing Tropica Specialised Nutrition (TSN) is the same price as Tropica Premium Nutrition (TPN), I fail to see a good reason why you would buy TPN

 

[Courtneybst]

Dubious advice from Tropica there in my opinion. I assume the advice on the N & P is based on using Tropica soil which puts out a fair bit of ammonia - but then I would recommend 80% daily water changes for at least the first week when using their soils. Is this for your "Tidy Jungle II" low tech tank? if so, with your inert top layer, you should be fine with smaller initial water changes.

I assume you are using tap water so you could be fine depending on how much Nitrate and Phosphate is in your tap water, but I would still dose some to be sure you don't encounter any nutrient deficiencies as @Zeus suggests. If using Tropica products you'd need the 'Specialised' rather than the 'Premium' the app suggests - but DIY salts will be more cost effective given your tank size.

Hey Wooki,

Ah yes that makes sense about the Tropica soil, I didn't think of that. Yeah this is for my Tidy Jungle II, at the moment I'm doing water changes every other day or so just to dilute some DOC coming from any plant mass that's melting.

I've been using APFUK dry salts for years now but in recent months I don't add the potassium nitrate as my tap water has high nitrates already. For a while I was also not using the potassium phosphate and I started using potassium sulphate but the plants seemed to do better with the phosphate.